Lighter Than You Think Read online

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  _It's possible that you won't agree with us that Pat Pending's latest adventure is a delightful story--possible IF you haven't been used to laughing in recent years. Blue Book printed more than a dozen of these stories by Nelson Bond about the "greatest inventulator of all time"._

  lighter than you think

  _by NELSON BOND_

  Sandy's eyes needed only jet propulsion to become flying saucers. Wasn't Pat wonderful? she beamed, at everyone.

  Some joker in the dear, dead days now virtually beyond recall wontwo-bit immortality by declaring that, "What this country needs is agood five-cent cigar."

  Which is, of course, Victorian malarkey. What this country _really_needs is a good five-cent nickel. Or perhaps a good cigar-shapedspaceship. There's a fortune waiting somewhere out in space for the manwho can go out there and claim it. A fortune! And if you think I'm justtalking through my hat, lend an ear ...

  Joyce started the whole thing. Or maybe I did when for the umpteenthtime I suggested she should marry me. She smiled in a way that showedshe didn't disapprove of my persistence, but loosed a salvo ofdevastating negatives.

  "No deal," she crisped decisively. "Know why? No dough!"

  "But, sugar," I pleaded, "two can live as cheaply as one--"

  "This is true," replied Joyce, "only of guppies. Understand, Don, Idon't mind changing my name from Carter to Mallory. In fact, I'd ratherlike to. But I have no desire whatever to be known to the neighbors as'that poor little Mrs. Mallory in last year's coat.'

  "I'll marry you," she continued firmly, "when, as and if you get apromotion."

  Her answer was by no stretch of the imagination a reason for loudcheers, handsprings and cartwheels. Because I'm a Federal employee. TheUnited States Patent Office is my beat. There's one nice thing to besaid about working for the bewhiskered old gentleman in thestar-spangled stovepipe and striped britches: it's permanent. Once youget your name inscribed on the list of Civil Service employees it takesan act of Congress to blast it off again. And of course I don't have toremind you how long it takes _that_ body of vote-happy windbags to act.Terrapins in treacle are greased lightning by comparison.

  But advancement is painfully slow in a department where discharges areunheard of and resignations rare. When I started clerking for thismadhouse I was assistant to the assistant Chief Clerk's assistant. Now,ten years later, by dint of mighty effort and a cultivated facility foravoiding Senatorial investigations, I've succeeded in losing only one ofthose redundant adjectives.

  Being my secretary, Joyce certainly realized this. But women have aremarkable ability to separate business and pleasure. So:

  "A promotion," she insisted. "Or at least a good, substantial raise."

  "In case you don't know it," I told her gloomily, "you are displaying alamentably vulgar interest in one of life's lesser values. Happiness,not money, should be man's chief goal."

  "What good is happiness," demanded Joyce, "if you can't buy money withit?"

  "Why hoard lucre?" I sniffed. "You can't take it with you."

  "In that case," said Joyce flatly, "I'm not going. There's no usearguing, Don. I've made up my mind--"

  At this moment our dreary little impasse was ended by a sudden tumultoutside my office. There was a squealing shriek, the shuffle offootsteps, the pounding of fists upon my door. And over all the shrilltones of an old, familiar voice high-pitched in triumph.

  "Let me in! I've got to see him instantaceously. This time I've got it;I've absolutely _got_ it!"

  Joyce and I gasped, then broke simultaneously for the door as it flewopen to reveal a tableau resembling the Laocoon group _sans_ snake andparty of the third part. Back to the door and struggling valiantly todefend it stood the receptionist, Miss Thomas. Held briefly but volublyat bay was a red-thatched, buck-toothed individual--and I _do_ meanindividual!--with a face like the map of Eire, who stopped wrestling ashe saw us, and grinned delightedly.

  "Hello, Mr. Mallory," he said. "Hi, Miss Joyce."

  "Pat!" we both cried at once. "Pat Pending!"

  * * * * *

  Miss Thomas, a relative newcomer to our bailiwick, seemed baffled by thewarmth of our greeting. She entered the office with our visitor, and asJoyce and I pumphandled him enthusiastically she asked, "You--you _know_this gentleman, Mr. Mallory?"

  "I should say we do!" I chortled. "Pat, you old naughty word! Where onearth have you been hiding lately?"

  "Surely you've heard of the great Patrick Pending, Miss Thomas?" askedJoyce.

  "Pending?" faltered Miss Thomas. "I seem to have heard the name. Or seenit somewhere--"

  Pat beamed upon her companionably. Stepping to my desk, he up-ended thetypewriter and pointed to a legend in tiny letters stamped into theframe: _Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.--Pat. Pending._

  "Here, perhaps?" he suggested. "I invented this. And the airplane, andthe automobile, and--oh, ever so many things. You'll find my nameinscribed on every one.

  "I," he announced modestly, "am Pat Pending--the greatest inventulatorof all time."

  Miss Thomas stared at me goggle-eyed.

  "_Is_ he?" she demanded. "I mean--_did_ he?"

  I nodded solemnly.

  "Not only those, but a host of other marvels. The bacular clock, thetransmatter, the predictograph--"

  Miss Thomas turned on Pat a gaze of fawning admiration. "How wonderful!"she breathed.

  "Oh, nothing, really," said Pat, wriggling.

  "But it is! Most of the things brought here are so absurd. Automatichat-tippers, self-defrosting galoshes, punching bags that defendthemselves--" Disdainfully she indicated the display collection ofscrewball items we call our Chamber of Horrors. "It's simply marvelousto meet a man who has invented things really worth while."

  Honestly, the look in her eyes was sickening. But was Pat nauseated? Nothe! The big goon was lapping it up like a famished feline. His simperingsmirk stretched from ear to there as he murmured, "Now, Miss Thomas--"

  "Sandra, Mr. Pending," she sighed softly. "To you just plain ... Sandy.Please?"

  "Well, Sandy--" Pat gulped.

  I said disgustedly, "Look, you two--break it up! Love at first sight iswonderful in books, but in a Federal office I'm pretty sure it'sunconstitutional, and it _may_ be subversive. Would you mind coming downto earth? Pat, you barged in here squalling about some new invention. Isthat correct?"

  With an effort Pat wrenched his gaze from his new-found admirer andnodded soberly.

  "That's right, Mr. Mallory. And a great one, too. One that willrevolutionate the world. Will you give me an applicaceous form, please?I want to file it immediately."

  "Not so fast, Pat. You know the routine. What's the nature of thisremarkable discovery?"

  "You may write it down," said Pat grandiloquently, "as Pat Pending'slightening rod."

  I glanced at Joyce, and she at me, then both of us at Pending.

  "But, Pat," I exclaimed, "that's ridiculous! Ben Franklin invented thelightning rod two hundred years ago."

  "I said _lightening_," retorted my redheaded friend, "not _lightning_.My invention doesn't conduct electricity _to_ the ground, but _from_it." He brandished a slim baton which until then I had assumed to be anordinary walking-stick. "With this," he claimed, "I can make thingsweigh as much or as little as I please!"

  The eyes of Sandy Thomas needed only jet propulsion to become flyingsaucers.

  "Isn't he wonderful, Mr. Mallory?" she gasped.

  But her enthusiasm wasn't contagious. I glowered at Pending coldly.

  "Oh, come now, Pat!" I scoffed. "You can't really believe that yourself.After all, ther
e _are_ such things as basic principles. Weight is not avariable factor. And so far as I know, Congress hasn't repealed the Lawof Gravity."

  Pat sighed regretfully.

  "You're always so hard to convince, Mr. Mallory," he complained."But--oh, well! Take this."

  He handed me the baton. I stared at it curiously. It looked rather likea British swagger stick: slim, dainty, well balanced. But the ornamentalgadget at its top was not commonplace. It seemed to be a knob