Misdirection by self-appointed guides is a perennial travel hazard.
THE DREAMSMAN
Mr. Willer is shaving. He uses an old-fashioned straight-edged razor and the mirror above his bathroom washbasin reflects a morning face that not even the fluffy icing of the lather can make very palatable. Above the lather, his skin is dark and wrinkled. His eyes are somewhat yellow where they ought to show white and his sloping forehead is embarrassingly short of hair. No matter. Mr. Willer poises the razor for its first stroke—and instantly freezes in position. For a second he stands immobile. Then his false teeth clack once and he starts to pivot slowly toward the northwest, razor still in hand, quivering like a directional antenna seeking its exact target. This is as it should be. Mr. Willer, wrinkles, false teeth and all, is a directional antenna.
Mr. Willer turns back to the mirror and goes ahead with his shaving. He shaves skillfully and rapidly, beaming up at a sign over the mirror which proclaims that a stitch in time saves nine. Four minutes later, stitchless and in need of none, he moves out of the bathroom, into his bedroom. Here he dresses rapidly and efficiently, at the last adjusting his four-in-hand before a dresser mirror which has inlaid about its frame the message Handsome is as handsome does. Fully dressed, Mr. Willer selects a shiny malacca cane from the collection in his hall closet and goes out behind his little house to the garage.
His car, a 1937 model sedan painted a sensible gray, is waiting for him. Mr. Willer gets in, starts the motor and carefully warms it up for two minutes. He then backs out into the May sunshine. He points the hood ornament of the sedan toward Buena Vista and drives off.
Two hours later he can be seen approaching a small yellow-and-white rambler in Buena Vista’s new development section, at a considerate speed two miles under the local limit. It is ten-thirty in the morning. He pulls up in front of the house, sets the handbrake, locks his car and goes up to ring the doorbell beside the yellow front door.
The door opens and a face looks out. It is a very pretty face with blue eyes and marigold-yellow hair above a blue apron not quite the same shade as the eyes. The young lady to which it belongs cannot be much more than in her very early twenties.
“Yes?” says the young lady.
“Mr. Willer, Mrs. Conalt,” says Mr. Willer, raising his hat and producing a card. “The Liberty Mutual Insurance agent, to see your husband.”
“Oh!” says the pretty face, somewhat flustered, opening the door and stepping back. “Please come in.” Mr. Willer enters. Still holding the card, Mrs. Conalt turns and calls across the untenanted small living room toward the bedroom section at the rear of the house, “Hank!”
“Coming!” replies a young baritone. Seconds later a tall, quite thin man about the same age as his wife, with a cheerfully unhandsome face, emerges rapidly into the living room.
“The insurance man, honey,” says the young lady, who has whisked off her apron while Mr. Willer was turned to face the entrance through which the young man has come. She hands her husband the card.
“Insurance?” says young Mr. Conalt frowning, reading the card. “What insurance? Liberty Mutual? But I don’t—we don’t have any policies with Liberty Mutual. If you’re selling—”
“Not at the moment,” says Mr. Willer, beaming at them as well as the looseness of his false teeth will permit. “I actually am an insurance agent, but that hasn’t anything to do with this. I only wanted to see you first.”
“First before what?” demands Mr. Conalt, staring hard at him.
“Before revealing myself,” says Mr. Willer. “You are the two young people who have been broadcasting a call to any other psi-sensitives within range, aren’t you?”
“Oh, Hank!” gasps Mrs. Conalt, but Conalt does not unbend.
“What are you talking about?” he demands.
“Come, come,” replies Mr. Willer, deprecatingly.
“But, Hank—” begins Mrs. Conalt.
“Hush, Edie. I think this guy—”
“Oh, wad the power the Giftie gie us, to see ourselves as ithers see us—more or less, if you young people will pardon the accent.”
“What’s that? That’s Robert Burns, isn’t it,” says Hank. “It goes—it would frae mony an error free us.” He hesitated.
“And foolish notion. Yes.” says Mr. Willer. “And now that the sign and counter-sign have been given, let us get down to facts. You were broadcasting, both of you, were you not?”
“Were you receiving?” demands Hank.
“Of course,” says Mr. Willer unperturbed. “How else would I know what quotation to use for a password?” He beams at them again. “May I sit down?”
“Oh, of course!” says Edie, hastily. They all sit down. Edie bounces up again. “Would you like some coffee, Mr.—er—” she glances over at the card, still in Hank’s hands—“Willer?”
“Thank you, no,” replies Mr. Willer, clacking his teeth. “I have one cup of coffee a day, after dinner. I believe in moderation of diet. But to the point. You are the people I heard.”
“Say we were,” says Hank, finally. “You claim to be psi-sensitive yourself, huh?”
* * *
END OF SAMPLE
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