Greener Than You Think Part 33

Aroostook, Maine

"By the best calculations we have about three more days. I do not think the symphony can be finished, but the thought no longer disturbs me. It would be a good thing to complete it, just as it would be a good thing to sit on fleecy clouds and enjoy eternal, nevermelting, nevercloying icecreamcones, celestially flavored.

"The man who is to carry this letter waits impatiently. I must finish quickly before his conviction of my insanity outweighs the promises I have made of reward from you and causes him to run from me. My love to Mama, the siblings and yourself and kindly regards to the great magnate.

Joe"

_69._ About the same time I also received a letter which somehow got through the protective screening of my secretaries:

"Albert Weener, Savoy Hotel, Thames Embankment, WC1.

"Sir: You may recall making an offer I considered premature. It is now no longer so. I am at home afternoons from 1 until 6 at 14, Little Bow Street, EC3 (3rd floor, rear).

Josephine Spencer Francis"

In spite of her rudeness at our last meeting, my good nature caused me to send a cab for her. She wore the identical gray suit of years before and her face was still unlined and dubiously clean.

"How do you do, Miss Francis? I'm glad to find you among the lucky ones.

Nowadays if we don't hear from old friends we automatically a.s.sume their loss."

She looked at me as one scans an acquaintance whose name has been embarra.s.singly forgotten. "There is no profit for you in this politeness, Weener," she said abruptly. "I am here to beg a favor."

"Anything I can do for you, Miss Francis, will be a pleasure," I a.s.sured her.

She began using a toothpick, but it was not the oldfas.h.i.+oned gold one--just an ordinary wooden splinter. "Hum. You remember asking me to superintend gathering specimens of _Cynodon dactylon_?"

"Circ.u.mstances have greatly altered since then," I answered.

"They have a habit of doing so. I merely mentioned your offer because you coupled it with a chance to advance my own research as an inducement. I am on the way to develop the counteragent, but to advance further I need to make tests upon the living gra.s.s itself. The World Control Congress has refused me permission to use specimens. I have no private means of evading their fiat."

"An excellent thing. The decrees of the congress are issued for the protection of all."

"Hypocrisy as well as unctuousness."

"What do you expect me to do?"

"You have a hundred hireling chemists, all of them with a string of degrees, at your service. I want to borrow two of them and be landed on some American mountain, above the snowline, where I can continue to work."

"Besides being illegal--to mention such a thing is apparently hypocritical--such a hazardous and absurd venture is hardly in the nature of a business proposition, Miss Francis."

"Philanthropic, then."

"I have given fifty thousand pounds to set up nurseryschools right here in London--"

"So the mothers of the little brats will be free to work in your factories."

"I have donated ten thousand pounds to Indian famine relief--"

"So that you might cut the wages of your Hindu workers."

"I have subscribed five thousand pounds for sanitation in Szechwan--"

"Thereby lessening absenteeism from sickness among your coolies."

"I will not stoop to answer your insinuations," I said. "I merely mentioned my gifts to show that my charities are on a worldwide scale and there is little room in them for the relief of individuals."

"Do you think I come to you for a personal sinecure? I don't ask if you have no concern outside selfish interest, for the answer is immediate and obvious; but isnt it to that same selfish interest to protect what remains of the world? If the other continents go as North America has gone, will you alone be divinely translated to some extraterrestrial sphere? And if so, will you take your wealth and power with you?"

"I am supporting three laboratories devoted exclusively to antigraminous research and anyway the rest of the world is amply protected by the oceans."

She removed the toothpick in order to laugh unpleasantly. "Once a salesman always a salesman, Weener. Lie to yourself, deny facts, brazen it out. The world was safe behind the saltband too, in the days when Josephine Francis was a quack and charlatan."

"Admitting your great attainments, Miss Francis, the fact remains that you are a woman and the adventure you propose is hardly one for a lady to undertake."

"Weener, you are ineffable. I'm not a lady--I'm a chemist."

The conversation deadlocked as I waited for her to go. Oddly enough, in spite of her s.e.x and the illegality of her proposal, I was inclined to help her, if she had approached me in a reasonable manner and not with the uncouth bearing of a superior toward an inferior. If she _could_ find a counteragent, I thought ... if she could find a weapon, then the possibility of utilizing the Gra.s.s as a raw material for food concentrates, a design still tantalizingly just beyond the reach of our researchworkers, might be realized. Labor costs would be cut to a minimum....

I could not let the woman be her own worst enemy; I was big enough to overlook her unfortunate att.i.tudes and see through the cranky exterior to the worthy idealist and true woman beneath. I was interrupted in my thoughts by Miss Francis speaking again.

"North American landt.i.tles have no value right now, but a man with money who knew ahead of time the Gra.s.s could be destroyed ..."

How clumsy, I thought, trying to appeal to a cupidity I don't possess; as if I would cheat people by buying up their very homes for sordid speculation. "Miss Francis," I said, "purely out of generosity and in remembrance of old times I am inclined to consider helping you. I suppose you have the details of the equipment you will need, the qualifications of your a.s.sistants, and a rough idea of what mountain you might prefer as a location?"

"Of course," and she began rattling off a catalogue of items, stabbing the air with her toothpick as a sort of running punctuation.

I stopped her with a raised hand. "Please. Reduce your list to writing and leave it with my secretary. I will see what can be done."

As soon as she had gone I picked up the phone and cabled Tony Preblesham to report to me immediately. The decision to send him with Miss Francis had been instantaneous, but had I thought about it for hours no happier design could have been conceived. Outside of General Thario there was not another man in my organization I could trust so implicitly. The expedition required double, no, triple secrecy and Preblesham could not only guard against any ulterior and selfish aims Miss Francis might entertain--to say nothing of the erratic or purely feminine impulses which could possibly operate to the disadvantage of all concerned--but take the opportunity to give the continent a general survey, both to keep in view the utilization of the weed, whether or not it could be conquered; and whatever possibilities a lay observer might see as to the Gra.s.s peris.h.i.+ng of itself.

_70._

"Mr. Albert Weener, Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Perth, Western Australia, A.C.

"Dear Sir:-- According to yr. instructions our party left Paramaribo on the 9th inst. for Medellin, giving out that we were going to see possible tin deposits near there. At Medellin I checked with our men & was told that work gangs with the stuff needed to make landing fields together with caches of gas & oil, enough for 3 times the flying required had been dropped both at Mt. Whitney & on Banks Island. A.

W., I tell you the boys down there are on their toes. Of course I did not tell them this, but gave them a real old fas.h.i.+oned Pep Talk, & told them if they really made good they might be moved up to Rio or Copenhagen or may be even London.

"Every thing being O.K. in Medellin, we left on the 12th inst., heading at first South to fool any nosey cops & then straight West so as to be out of range of the patrol boats. It was quite late before we could head North and the navigator was flying by instruments so it was not until dawn that we saw land. You can sneer all you like at Bro. Paul (& of course he has not had the benefits of an Education like you, A. W.) but I want to tell you that when I looked out of the port & saw nothing but green gra.s.s where houses & trees & mtns. ought to have been, I remembered that I was a backslider & sinful man. However, this is beside the point.

"The lady professor, Miss Francis I mean, & Mr. White & Mr. Black were both so excited they could hardly eat, but kept making funny remarks in some foreign language which I do not understand. However I do not think there was any thing wrong or disloyal to you in their conversation.

"You would have thought that flying over so much green would have got tiresome after some time, but you would have been wrong. I am sorry I cannot describe it to you, but I can only say again that it made me think of my Account with my Maker.

"While I think of it, altho it does not belong here, in Paramaribo I had to fire our local man as he had got into trouble with the Police there & was giving Cons. Pem. a bad name. He said it was on the Firm's account, but I told him you did not approve of breaking the Law at all.

"We had no trouble sighting the party at Mt. Whitney & I want to tell you, A. W., it was a great relief to get rid of the Scientists altho they are no doubt all right in their way. Some of the work gang kicked at being left behind altho that was in our agreement.

They said they were sick of the snow & the sight of the Gra.s.s beyond. I said we only had room in the transport for the Banks Is.

gang & anyway they would have company now. I promised them we would pick them up on our next trip.