"Why, we would do no such thing!"
"I know it, silly. I'm just negotiating."
"No," he grumped, ready to be angry with her. He got up and strodearound the studio. "The dog catcher! We will not lie to that snake!"
Judy dropped the idea. "I've just now thought of another one. Here's anultimatum we could give him and mean it, too. No more writing until wereach an agreement, or we will take away all his writing paper andreading matter for good!"
"I'd thought of doing that," Jean conceded. "But isn't that a monstrousway to treat a literary genius?"
"Not at all!" she protested. "By taking on a work that will require moretime than his lifetime, he is defeating himself."
"There's that way of looking at it," agreed the artist. "All right,Droozle," he called. "You heard us talking and you know we mean it. Nomore writing until we reach an agreement--or else!"
Droozle quit writing at once. While the girl and the young artistwatched anxiously, Droozle first wandered about uncertainly for a fewminutes and then curled up on a newspaper and went to sleep.
He slept all evening.
* * * * *
"He has beaten us again," Jean Lanni told Judy Stokes resignedly whenshe arrived at his studio the following evening. He watched Droozlefascinatedly as the snake moved his restless tail over the margins ofnewspapers spread on the floor. "He doesn't know yet that I know. Idiscovered the fraud only by the merest accident."
"He isn't writing?" she asked, perusing the newspapers for signs ofDroozle's elegant script.
"He most certainly is."
"Where?"
"Look at him!" Jean exclaimed, ignoring her question. "He's doing itagain!"
Droozle had ceased wriggling for the moment and lay there shakingviolently, as though he had malaria. Then the paroxysm passed and hetook up his restless movements again.
"The poor genius," mourned Judy. "He must be sick with frustration."
"Sick, my eye! That snake has learned to centrifuge part of his bloodwhile it is in his body, so that the hemoglobin is separated out. Theresult is--invisible ink!"
"Why, I'll tell that Droozle off!" raved Judy. "Here I sat feeling sorryfor the little crumb!"
Droozle did not mind. While she ranted, he brazenly began writing invisible ink once more.
"How did you catch him at it?" she asked.
"I used a piece of his newspaper to pick up a hot saw blade. The heatturned the invisible ink brown."
"Droozle," said the girl passionately, looking down at the writer, "youknow your master is in great need of funds. _Where_ is your sense ofloyalty and self-sacrifice for the one who has cared for you?"
Droozle wrote poetically, "Is there Joy or any other good thing inAbnegation? Is there Beauty in Sacrifice? What Handsome purpose do theseserve a being in his race with Time? His Days will soon be spent andthey will come no more; thus my Criterion: Is This the most Joygathering, Awareness touching, Beauty sensing act of which he iscapable? None other is worthy of his time!"
"Men are not so selfish," objected Jean.
"I am not a man," wrote Droozle simply.
Jean turned staunchly to the girl. "Judy, he has convinced me. I havebeen wrong about him. From now on _he can write whatever he likes_!"
"Good-by to our hopes then?"
"For the present, yes," assented Jean stoically, as he brought freshsheets of paper from his desk for Droozle. "My landscapes might begin tosell after a while," he added without conviction.
"Rotten little crumb," Judy fumed, glaring balefully at the snake. ButDroozle wrote serenely on, his ruby eyes glowing enigmatically.
Jean interposed magnanimously, "I see now that I have been inexcusablyselfish with Droozle. I've kept him cooped up here, not wanting tobother with him while I was out on my painting trips. True, he was busywriting. But most of his knowledge of Earth has come from books; hecan't write classics about living things unless he sees living things."
* * * * *
As she picked up his trend of thought, Judy's face lost its resentfulexpression, and something like seraphic righteousness spread over it. "Isee what you mean. Just how did you plan to make up for this shut-infeeling that poor Droozle must have been suffering so much from for allthese years?"
"Oh, Judy, I'm so glad you asked me!" He threw wide his arms to theworld. "_Out_ into the wind and the rain we shall go, and there I willdraw my pictures while he observes; then _into_ the roaring, brawlingtaverns we shall go, where life thrives in all its abundance. I've beenrobbing him by shutting him up here."
"Jean, look at Droozle," the girl exclaimed, pointing. "He has stoppedin the middle of a page and is starting on a fresh one."
Droozle wrote, "Please not out into the wind and the rain. Please notinto the roaring, brawling taverns where life thrives in all itsabundance. I _loathe_ shudder and tilt."
"Loathing is no reason to turn away from reality, Droozle," admonishedthe artist. "Things are not nearly so bad as they used to be anyway. Inall justice, shudder and tilt requires far less body-English than itsancestor, rock and roll."
Droozle argued carefully, "You will recall I heard some of it once whenyou took me into a particularly dirty bar over in the west end of town.I feel, as a result, that I have observed this type of data to theextent that I can write of it competently without further study."
"Oh, but that was months ago," enthused Jean. "The tunes have allchanged by now. New pows appear on the tapes every week. You have missedcountless sockeroos already, being cooped up here. You will bless me,once you get accustomed to the realities of life--see if you don't.Heigh-ho the wind and the rain!"
The snake shuddered.
"Careful, you'll centrifuge," Judy warned.
Jean added reflectively, studying the ceiling, "Day by day, month bymonth, year by year, the reality of everyday existence etches deeplyinto our consciousness, if we will but have the fortitude to exposeourselves to it."
Droozle unavoidably centrifuged this time, but did manage, withlaborious lateral movements, to mix the hemoglobin back with the plasmaagain.
He complained, "It is cruel of you to condemn me to this ugliness. Iwant only to read my books and hear a few simple fugues by Bach."
"It is not cruel. You will have exactly the same existence I have chosenfor myself as an artist. It is fundamental that if you are to writeserious literature, you must rub your nose against the realities oflife."
Droozle wriggled unhappily for a moment. Finally he wrote, "Actually mywriting may not be as serious as the title implies. Misunderstandingsconceivably arise over titles. Instead of _The Rise and Fall of theWestern Plainsman_, how about changing it to _Those Lowdown ScalyRustlers_?"
"That's really getting down to earth," cried Jean, concealing hiselation. "But if you aren't going to write serious literature, who willI get to go on my painting trips with me?"
"Take that female of yours," suggested Droozle. "If she refuses to go,inform her that we shall be forced to hand her over to the dog catcher."
"Do you suppose he means that?" wondered Jean.
"Of course not, silly," said Judy, bright-eyed. "He's only negotiating."
--FRANK BANTA
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy December 1962.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyrighton this publication was renewed.]
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