hionable horticulturist, delighted to encourage imbeciles to grow
grass in a desert.

"My method is the second one. I want no more backward countries; no more
famines in India or China; no more dustbowls; no more wars, depressions,
hungry children. For this I produced the Metamorphizer--to make not two
blades of grass grow where one sprouted before, but whole fields
flourish where only rocks and sandpiles lay.

"No, Weener, it won't do--I can't trade in my vision as a downpayment on
a means to encourage a waste of ground, seed and water. You may think I
lost such rights when I thought up the name Metamorphizer to appeal on
the popular level, but there's a difference."

That was a clincher. Anyone who believed Metamorphizer had salesappeal
just wasnt all there. But why should I disillusion her and wound her
pride? Down underneath her rough exterior I supposed she could be as
sensitive as I; and I hope I am not without chivalry.

I said nothing, but of course her interdiction of the only possibility
killed any weakening inclination. And yet ... yet.... Afterall, I had to
have _something_....

"All right, Weener. This pump--" she produced miraculously from the
jumble an unwieldy engine dragging a long and tangling tail of hose
behind it, the end lost among mementos of unfinished meals "--this pump
is full of the Metamorphizer, enough to inoculate a hundred and fifty
acres when added in proper proportion to the irrigating water. I have a
table worked out to show you about that. The tank holds five gallons;
get $50 a gallon--a dollar and a half an acre and keep ten percent for
yourself. Be sure to return the pump every night."

I had to say for her that when she got down to business she didnt waste
any words. Perhaps this contrasting directness so startled me I was
roped in before I could refuse. On the other hand, of course, I would be
helping out someone who needed my assistance badly, since she couldnt,
with all the obvious factors against her, be having a very easy time.
Sometimes it is advisable to temper business judgment with kindness.

Her first offer was ridiculous in its assumption that a salesman's
talent, skill and effort were worth only a miserable ten percent, as
though I were a literary agent with something a cinch to sell. I began
to feel more at home as we ironed out the details and I brought the
knowledge acquired with much hard work and painful experience into the
bargaining. Fifty percent I wanted