ivilization--"

"Wait a minute!" I cut in. "Scientists seem to think that's possible in
a few thousand years. Not fifty."

"Elmer says fifty," Marge stated flatly. "From the way he talks, I
suspect he's figured out a way to speed things up and is going to try it
some day just to see if it works. Meanwhile he fools around out there in
the garage, sneering about the billions of dollars spent to develop
color TV. He says his lens will turn any ordinary broadcast into color
for about twenty-five dollars. He says it's typical of the muddled
thinking of our so-called scientists--I'm quoting now--to do everything
backward and overlook fundamental principles."

"Bro-ther!" I said.

Doreen came trotting back in then, with her hat box. "I'm tired of that
game," she said, giving the TV set a bored glance. And as she said it
the tube went dark. The sound cut off.

"Damn!" I swore. "Must be a power failure!" I grabbed the phone and
jiggled the hook. No dice. The phone was dead, too.

"You're funny," Doreen giggled. "It's just the unhappy genii. See?"

She flicked over the catch on the hatbox.

And the picture came back on. The sound started up. "--swings and misses
for strike two!" The air conditioner began to hum.

Marge and I stared. Mouths open. Wide.

* * * * *

"You did that, Doreen?" I asked it very carefully. "You made the
television stop and start again?"

"The unhappy genii did," Doreen told me. "Like this." She flicked the
catch back. The TV picture blacked out. The sound stopped in the middle
of a word. The air conditioner whispered into silence.

Then she flipped the catch the other way.

"--fouls the second ball into the screen," the announcer said. Picture
okay. Air conditioner operating. Everything normal except my pulse and
respiration.

"Doreen, sweetheart--" I took a step toward her--"what's in that box?
What _is_ an unhappy genii?"

"Not unhappy." You know how scornful an eight-year-old can be? Well, she
was. "Unhap-_pen_. It makes things unhappen. Anything that works by
electracity, it stops. Elmer calls it his unhappen genii. Just for fun."

"Oh, now I get it," I said brightly. "It makes electricity not
work--unhappen. Like television sets and air conditioners and
automobiles and bus engines."

Doreen giggled.

Marge sat bolt upright. "Doreen! _You_ caused that traffic jam? You and
that--that gadget of Elmer's?"

Doreen nodded. "It made all the automobile