Robert Heinlein - Time Enough For Love

"It is."

"I wonder. If you mean that, then you will be here every day to keep me company-and chat. For I'm not going to bother babbling to your machine no matter how smart it is."

"Lazarus, I will be not only honored but much pleased to be allowed to keep you company as long as you will let me."

"We'll see. 'When a man makes a sweeping statement, he often has mental reservations. I mean every day, Son, and all day. And you-not a deputy. Show up two hours after breakfast, say, and stay till I send you home. But any day you miss- Well, if it's so urgent you just have to miss, phone your excuses and send over a pretty girl to visit me. One who speaks Classic English but has sense enough to listen instead-as an old fool will often talk to a pretty girl who just bats her lashes at him and looks impressed. If she pleases me, I might let her stay. Or I might be so petulant that I would send her away and use that switch you promised to have reinstalled. But I won't suicide in the presence of a guest; that's rude. Understand me?"

"I think I do," Ira Weatheral answered slowly. "You'll be both Scheherazade and King Shabryar, and I'll be-no, that's not right; I am the one who has to keep it going for a thousand nights-I mean 'days'-and if I miss-but I won't!- you are free to-"

"Don't push an analogy too far," Lazarus advised. "I'm simply calling your bluff. If my maunderings are as all-fired important to you as you claim, then you'll show up and listen. You can skip once, or even twice, if the girl is pretty enough and knows how to tickle my vanity-of which I have plenty- just right. But if you skip too often, I'll know you're bored and the deal is off. I'm betting that your patience will' wear out long before any thousand days and a day have passed- whereas I do know how to be patient, for year after year if necessary; that's a prime reason I'm still alive. But you're still a youngster; I'm betting I can outsit you."

"I accept the bet. This girl-if I must be away some day- would you object if I sent one of my daughters? She's very pretty."

"Hunh? You sound like an Iskandrian slave factor auctioning his mother. Why your daughter? I don't want to marry her, nor even to bed her; I simply want to be amused and flattered. Who told you she was pretty? If she really is your' daughter, she probably looks like you."

"Come off it, Lazarus; you can't annoy me that easily. I admit to a father's prejudice but I've seen the effect she has on others. She is quite young, less than eighty, and has been contractually married only once. But you specified a pretty girl who speaks your milk language. Scarce. But this one of my daughters shares my talent for languages and is much excited by your presence here-wants to meet you. I can stall off emergencies long enough for her to become letter-perfect in your language."

Lazarus grinned and shrugged. "Suit yourself. Tell her not to bother with a chastity girdle; I don't have the energy. But I'll still win the bet. Probably without laying eyes on her; it won't take you long to decide that I am an unbearable old bore. Which I am and have been almost as long as the Wandering Jew-a crashing bore if I ever met one-did I tell you I had met him?"

"No. And I don't believe you have. He's a myth."

"A fat lot you know about it, Son. I have met him, he is authentic. Fought the Romans in 70 A.D. when Jerusalem was sacked. Fought in every Crusade-incited one of them. Redheaded of course; all of the natural long-lifers bear the mark of Gilgamesh. When I met him he was using the name Sandy Macdougal, that being a better handle for the time and placc for his current trade, which was the long con, with a variant on the badger game.* (* While this passage bears inner contradictions, the idioms are authentic for North America of the twentieth century. They name certain types of financial dishonesty. See "Swindles" under "Fraud" in Krishnamurti's New Golden Bough, Academe Press, New Rome. J.F. 45th) The latter involved- Look, Ira, if you don't believe my stories, why are you going to so much trouble to get them on record?"

"Lazarus, if you think you can bore me to death-correction: to your death-why are you bothering to invent fictions to entertain me? Whatever your reasons, I'll listen as carefully-and as long-as King Shabryar. As may be, my master computer is recording whatever you choose to say-without editing; I guaranteed that-but it has incorporated into it a most subtle truth analyzer quite capable of earmarking any fictions you include. Not that I care about historicity as long as you will talk ... as it is clear to me that you automatically include your evaluations-those 'gems of wisdom'-no matter what you say."

"'Gems of wisdom.' Youngster, use that expression once more and you'll stay after school and clean the blackboards. That computer of yours- Better instruct it that my most outlandish tales are the ones most likely to be true-as that is the literal truth. No storyteller has ever been able to dream up anything as fantastically unlikely as what really does happen in this mad Universe."

"It knows that. But I will caution it again. You were telling me about Sandy Macdougal, the Wandering Jew."

"Was I? If so and if he was using that name, that must have been late in the twentieth century and in Vancouver, as I recall. Vancouver was a part of the United States where the people were so clever that they never paid taxes to Washington-Sandy should have operated in New York, which was outstanding in stupidity even then. I won't give details of his swindles; it might corrupt your machine. Let it suffice that Sandy used the oldest principle for separating a fool from his money: Pick a sucker who likes the best of it.

"That's all it takes, Ira. If a man is greedy, you can cheat him every time. Trouble was, Sandy Macdougal was even greedier than his marks, and it led him into the folly of excess, and often forced him to leave town while it was dark, sometimes leaving the boodle behind. Ira, when you skin a man, you have to let him recuperate and grow more hide-or he gets nervous. If you respect this simple rule, a real mark can be skinned over and over again, and it just keeps him healthy and productive. But Sandy was too greedy for that; he lacked patience."

"Lazarus, you sound as if you had great experience in this art."

Now Ira-a little respect please I have never swindled a man. At most I kept quiet and let him swindle himself. This does no harm, as a fool cannot be protected from his folly. If you attempt to do so, you will not only arouse his animosity but also you will be attempting to deprive him of whatever benefit he is capable of deriving from experience. Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

"But I do know a lot about swindles. I think that every major variation of every possible swindle has been tried on me, one time and another.

"Some of them worked back when I was very young. Then I took Grampaw Johnson's advice and quit looking for the best of it; thereafter I could no longer be swindled. But I was not capable of benefiting from Gramp's advice until I was burned a few times. Ira, it's getting late."

The Chairman Pro Tem promptly stood up. "So it is, sir. May I ask two questions before I leave? Not for your memoirs, procedural questions only."

"Make it short and snappy."

"You'll have your termination-option switch tomorrow morning. But, you spoke of not feeling well, and there is no need for that even if you choose to terminate in the near future. Shall we resume the rejuvenation procedures?"

"Hmmm. Second question?"

"I promised to do my best to find something brand-new to interest you. I promised also to spend every day here with you. I see conflict."

Lazarus grinned. "Don't kid your old Grampaw, Son; you'll delegate that research."

"Certainly. But I must plan how to start it, then review progress at intervals, and suggest new avenues to explore."