Tales From Gavagan's Bar (38 page)

             
"Ah," said Mr. Gross, "I know how you mean. When them patent lawyers are after you, you got trouble, like with my nephew Milton—"

             
"No difficulties of that nature at all," said the youngish man. "I have all the basic patents necessary. It's quite another matter, and I fear a rather emotional one. By the way, my name's Lawrence Peabody."

             
There was a shaking of hands. After Mr.
Cohan had been summoned to perform his ministrations, the youngish man settled himself:

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After being graduated from Harvard [he said] I looked about for something to do. The pater was generous enough, you know, but he didn't want me to be one of th
e idle polo-playing set, and I rather agreed with him. I had my engineering degree and a chance to go to South America with the Templetons, but somehow the idea of building bridges in a jungle with insects crawling around my vitals failed to appeal. I wanted to live in the city; so I came here with the idea of setting myself up as a professional inventor.

             
It's not a bad life, you know. I was able to afford a good tool shop and, in between diversions, managed to fool around with a few things like a rho-meter—["What's that?" said Witherwax to Gross behind his hand. "It's something for a rowboat," replied the latter.] —and an erasing key for typewriters, which had enough promise for National Industrial to buy up the patents and pay me a retainer. They gave me various odd jobs, improvements on inventions they already had under way, and in the meantime I worked on the big idea: this dressing machine.

             
You see, I have always been one of those unpleasantly lazy people who have to be blasted out of bed in the morning and who stumble around in a daze for an hour or two after rising. As a result, I've always found dressing such a terrible chore that I often stayed in bed far beyond the hour I should. I thought if I could find a way to cure that, there would be a market for my invention.

             
["I read in a book once that all the great inventions are made by lazy people," commented Mr. Witherwax.]

             
The remark is not original [continued Peabody] but the point is well taken. I suppose I must have labored over the thing for a couple of years; but, when I was finished with it, it worked. It works still.

             
["How?" asked Gross, who appeared to have forgotten his nephew Milton.]

             
It's really very simple [said Peabody, drawing imaginary lines on the bar with his finger]. I have a big wall closet in the bedroom, half of which is taken up by the machine and the other half by clothes on racks. The bed stands with its
head next to the door of the closet, and there's a console arrangement right here at the side of the bed, with the controls set into it. Now before you go to bed, you hang the clothes you want for the next day, in proper order, on the end rack of the machine, right here. In fact, you can set it up to take the clothes for ten days in succession, if you have that many. When you wake up in the morning, you simply kick off the covers and press button number one of the control, right here. A pair of lug arms come out here and grab you, very gently, of course, and slides on your undershirt.

             
["How about your pajamas?" said Brenner.]

             
Don't wear any. I use an electric blanket, so it isn't necessary. Then you press the next, and it puts on your shorts, then your socks, shirt, pants, and so on. Finally, you press the red "Release" button here, and the machine turns you loose, all ready for the street, except for tying your shoes. I haven't been able to make an attachment that will do that effectively. Then the arms swing the empty rack around to the end of the line and the rack of clothes for the next day falls into place. If you want to repeat suits, you leave a vacancy on the second rack.

             
["Ahem," said Doc Brenner. "As a strictly luxury item, I can see some utility in it, but I should think it would be confined to people who can afford a house on Fifth Avenue and another in Newport."]

             
You don't understand [replied Peabody]. The marketing expert at National Industrial thought so, too, at first and was very skeptical over the whole thing. In fact, almost the first person he succeeded in interesting was Pontopoulos, the movie man. He thought it might appeal to that magnate's rather Oriental ideas of luxury.

             
It was a brilliant piece of self-deception. Pontopoulos was interested, but only professionally. He perceived at once that the machine was the answer to one of the most expensive problems in the show business—getting the chorus dressed and on the line at the proper time without having a special dresser for each girl; or man, when one happened to be dealing in chorus men.

I'll never forget it. His face took on a glassy look, and he offered me a cigar out of his own pocket, which I understand is practically unheard-of for Pontopoulos. He's usually surrounded by two or three yes-men, who handle the cigar distribution, and they don't give strangers the Belinda double-Coronas that Pontopoulos himself smokes. But he could see the whole thing at once: the costumes arranged on racks for the whole chorus a day ahead of time, everything in place; the girls lining up in the dressing room; the machine accepting each in turn and sending her out, untouched by human hands but perfectly and beautifully groomed for her act. There'd be thousands in it.

             
Pontopoulos agreed to buy my dressing machines as fast as they could be supplied, not only for his movie studios, but also for his chain of television stations and the two or three musical comedies he was putting on in New York, in the hope they would run long enough to enable him to make movies of them without paying the writers anything extra.

             
It was about that time that Cynthia decided to come down and do some shopping and see a show or two. Have I mentioned Cynthia? Her full name is Cynthia Crane, and if you don't mind, I'm rather in love with her. We're going to be married—that is—if. [Peabody drained his vodka at a gulp and, pushing the glass across the bar, tapped it with his finger. Mr. Cohan had no difficulty in understanding the signal.]

             
You know what the hotel situation is—or don't you? There's that convention of the White Rose Society on, and Cynthia couldn't find a room anywhere for money, so I decided to give her one for love—that is, to let her use my apartment while I put up at the club. Perfectly satisfactory arrangement until the night before last—would have been still, but for the dressing machine and the fact that the Radcliffe alumnae threw a party for Cynthia. Since it was a hen party and apt to run rather late, I was at a loose end, so I set up a little do of my own at the club—nothing expansive, you know, but a few chaps in for dinner and a little serious drinking in a private room. Since most of us had belonged to
the old glee club, I hired a guitarist with the idea of doing some howling over the drinks after the food was gone.

             
Well, we were giving "The Spanish Cavalier" a good beating, when—no, wait, I'd better make it clear what happened at the other end of the line. Apparently, the hen party was a good deal like most Radcliffe reunions; that is, the girls blotted up quite a bit of the stuff themselves—

             
["Strong drink can be a curse to women," said Mr. Gross solemnly.]

             
Indeed it can [continued Peabody] and especially when they go in for it in the form of sticky liqueurs, as they nearly always do. I don't mean to suggest that the girls were badly under the weather or anything, but one of them named Georgia Thompson thought she would avoid questions if she spent the night with Cynthia instead of going home to her own family.

             
It seems that she took the day bed in the living room, where Cynthia had been sleeping, while Cynthia herself went into the master bedroom, my room. It was a warm night, you remember, and as nearly as I can make out, Cynthia just flopped down on the bed in her nightgown. She must have thrown out her hand across the console and hit buttons number
5
and
6.
Before she could do anything more, the machine turned on, grabbed her, and put the pants and the jacket of one of my suits on over her nightie.

             
She knew about the machine, of course, but naturally she screamed and thrashed around. In doing so, she struck one of the other buttons. The machine promptly put one of my shorts on her, over the jacket, and held her gently, waiting for the next order.

             
[Doc Brenner snorted into his drink.]

             
I assure you it's no laughing matter [said Peabody, looking pained]; at least not for me. By this time Georgia was awake, or at least as awake as one can be after having a good deal to drink and sleeping for about ten minutes. When she saw Cynthia in the grip of the machine, she screamed, too, and tried to help her. In doing that, she managed to touch a couple of other buttons, so that the machine put on one of
my undershirts and another pair of pants on over what Cynthia was already wearing.

             
This seems to have been too much for Georgia, in the condition she was in. She sat down on the floor and had a fit of the giggles, while Cynthia hung there, suspended in the machine, growing angrier and angrier, not daring to do anything herself but trying to persuade Georgia to do something.

             
["Them laughing jags is terrible," said Mr. Cohan.] Give me another vodka [said Peabody]. I don't quite know how long this phase lasted; Georgia was finally persuaded to get up and call me at the club. As I said, we were in the middle of "The Spanish Cavalier." I couldn't hear too well, and she couldn't either, so the conversation took a good deal longer than it should, with Cynthia a prisoner of the machine all the time, and half my clothes on her in the wrong order. It must have been horrible.

             
I finally managed to understand what was wrong and told Georgia to press the "Release" button. But with everybody in the room singing at the top of his voice in the background, she understood it as "threes." Now, there is a whole row of number 3 buttons on the console, right here. As soon as Georgia pressed them, the machine turned up Cynthia's legs and began putting all the socks I owned on to her, one pair after another.

             
Meanwhile I was pretty worried—Georgia had remarked over the phone that Cynthia wasn't exactly pleased with the turn events had taken—and as soon as I could tear myself loose from that gang of hyenas and find a taxi, I rushed home.

             
I was too late. The girls had somehow managed to find the release button for themselves. When I got there, all I found was an empty apartment, with my clothes strewn all over the bedroom floor and some of them torn.

             
Georgia called me up the next morning—that's yesterday— and said Cynthia had gone back to Brookline, perfectly furious with both of us. This afternoon I heard from her—a letter. She says she still loves me, although it's a strain, and
             

             
she's willing to marry me. But I'll have to break with National Industrial and promise never to do any inventing again. She won't go to South America and build bridges with me, either. And the old man won't put up the money for us just to sit around.

             
I think I'll have another vodka.

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Mr. Gross said: "Now that cigarette-smoking machine my nephew Milton invented—"

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Mr. Witherwax was saying: ". . . and it says in this book that you could get to lift an elephant or maybe listen to what somebody was saying a couple
of hundred miles away, just like you was in the room. All you got to do is get to be one of these chelas."