and fifty percent I finally got by
demanding seventyfive. She became as interested in the contest as she
had been before in benefits to humanity and I perceived a keen mind
under all her eccentricity.

I can't truthfully say I got to like her, but I reconciled myself and
eventually was on my way with the pump--a trifling weight to Miss
Francis, judging by the way she handled it, but uncomfortably heavy to
me--strapped to my back and ten feet of recalcitrant hose coiled round
my shoulder. She turned her imperious eyes on me again and repeated for
the fourth or fifth time the instructions for applying, as though I were
less intelligent than she. I went out through the barren livingroom and
took a backward glance at the scaling stucco walls of the
apartmenthouse, shaking my head. It was a queer place for Albert Weener,
the crackerjack salesman who had once led his team in a national contest
to put over a threepiece aluminum deal, to be working out of. And for a
woman. And for such a woman....

_2._ Everything is for the best, is my philosophy and Make your cross
your crutch is a good thought to hold; so I reminded myself that it
takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown and no one sees the bright
side of things if he wears dark glasses. Since it takes all kinds to
make a world and Josephine Spencer Francis was one of those kinds, wasnt
it only reasonable to suppose there were other kinds who would buy the
stuff she'd invented? The only way to sell something is first to sell
yourself and I piously went over the virtues of the Metamorphizer in my
mind. What if by its very nature there could be no repeat business? I
wasnt tying myself to it for life.

All that remained was to find myself a customer. I tried to recall the
location of the nearest rural territory. San Fernando valley,
probably--a long, tiresome trip. And expensive, unless I wished to
demean myself by thumbing rides--a difficult thing to do, burdened as I
was by the pump. If she hadnt balked unreasonably about putting the
stuff on lawns, I'd have prospects right at hand.

I was suddenly lawnconscious. There was probably not a Los Angeles
street I hadnt covered at some time--magazines, vacuums, old gold,
nearnylons--and I must have been aware of green spaces before
most of the houses, but now for the first time I saw lawns. Neat,
sharply confined, smoothshaven lawns. Sagging, slipping,
eager-to-keep-up-appearances but fighting-a-losing-game lawns. Ragged,