Уильям Макгиверн: Collected Fiction: 1940-1963

“Brown was trying to sell a customer the gigantic washer. He had sold out all the others — guess it went to his head — and he tripped, just like he did this morning. Now Brown and the customer are whirling around inside the machine!”

Time hung motionless as the full import of Darnell’s words came crashing in on John Brown — Throckmorton — in his body — was whipping about in the washing machine with a strange customer. Supposing — supposing — Mr. Brown hated to think of it — SUPPOSING IT HAPPENED ONCE MORE!

From a distance, Mr. Darnell’s terrified voice came to him. “It’s awful, sir.

The poor customer and that crazy little salesman. The poor customer, she’s—”

“She,” bellowed John Brown. “Did you say ‘she’?”

“Yes, sir,” bleated Darnell. “It’s a lady customer.”

But John Brown hadn’t waited to hear the last of Darnell’s statement. With a hoarse yell he was up the steps to the platform around the huge washer. His mind was made up. There was only one thing to do.

Mr. Darnell, standing stricken and helpless in front of the excited crowd, caught a glimpse of the expansive bottom and flying coat-tails of his employer as they disappeared into the whirring machine. And as he vanished into the thick of things, Mr. Darnell thought he heard him say:

“Everything comes out in the wash — it always does!”

First published in the December 1940 issue of Amazing Stories .

Hopefully Oscar poured his secret ingredient into the vat and — wham! — he had his vanishing cream. But he didn’t want the real thing!

Oscar Doolittle cleared his throat with a nervous, tittering cough as he stepped up to the cosmetic counter of Natz’s Nifty Drug Store.

“I want fifty pounds of vanishing cream,” he said to the professionally pleasant-looking young man, who regarded him from behind the gleaming array of bottles. “I hope you’ve got that much,” he added anxiously, “because it’s very important that I have it today.”

“Fifty pounds?” the clerk repeated incredulously. “Why, that—”

He broke off suddenly and peered closely at Oscar. He saw a wispy, slight individual, dressed in a limp brown suit that hung tiredly over bony shoulders. And large brown eyes gleaming with hopeful excitement.

The young clerk’s puzzled stare gradually changed to one of sympathetic understanding.

“Now, now,” he said soothingly, “you just wait right here and I’ll go and see about your — er — fifty pounds of vanishing cream. I’ll be back in a jiffy and maybe you’d better fan yourself with your hat while I’m gone. It might help a little.”

“Thank you,” Oscar said, moved by this friendly solicitude. “Thanks a lot, but I’m really quite comfortable.”

The clerk backed away from Oscar, smiling gently.

“Don’t go away,” he said coaxingly, turned and scurried off down the aisle.

At the end of the aisle he jerked open a door and stumbled breathlessly into a small office where a fat, red-faced man sat smoking a thin cigar.

“Quick, Mr. Natz,” he hissed. “Call the police! There’s a madman outside. He says he wants to buy fifty pounds of vanishing cream. He may be dangerous.”

Mr. Natz digested this information in silence and then squinted upward through the wreaths of smoke at his trembling employee.

“Fifty pounds,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Did he offer to pay for it?”

“Why, gosh,” his clerk stuttered, “I didn’t think to ask him.”

“Well,” said Mr. Natz gloomily, “if he offers to pay for it, he probably is crazy. But if we don’t take his money, we’re crazy. I’ll go out and talk to him.”

With this he hoisted himself from his chair and waddled out of the office, followed by his fluttering clerk.

Mr. Natz approached Oscar from the side, like a man closing in on a skittish horse. Enboldened by Oscar’s harmless appearance he stepped closer and asked:

“Are you the gentleman who wanted the vanishing cream?”

Oscar turned at the sound of the voice, blinking rapidly.

“Yes. Yes, indeed,” he said, “I want fifty pounds of it.” He looked from Mr. Natz to the bulging-eyed clerk anxiously. “Why,” he said weakly, “is there something wrong about that?”

“Not if you’ve got the money to pay for it,” Natz said hopefully.

“Oh, is that all?” Oscar’s sigh was relieved. “Certainly I have the money. I’ve been saving it for weeks.”

Natz shrugged resignedly. “Okay,” he said. “You got the money, we got the cream.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Oscar beamed. “Will you wrap it up for me right away? You see, I have to take it home before I go to work and I don’t want to be late. I haven’t been late in eleven years,” he finished proudly.

“All right, buddy,” Natz said. “Far be it from us to interfere with a record like that. Willie,” he barked at the clerk, “get a hamper from the basement and bring up the freight scales.”

Willie nodded vaguely. With a final unconvinced look at Oscar, he hurried off. Within several minutes he was back, pushing a cumbersome scale on rollers and dragging behind him a spacious wicker basket.

He shoved the scale toward the cosmetic counter and placed the basket on its flat, wide weighing plate. Then, with the assistance of Mr. Natz, he began piling the heavy jars of white vanishing cream into the basket. Jar after jar was loaded into the basket, and Oscar hummed happily as it creaked protestingly under their weight.

“That just about does it,” Mr. Natz said finally. He got down on his knees and peered at the indicator. “Yep, fifty pounds, six ounces. We’ll throw in the ounces for good measure.”

“Gosh, thanks!” Oscar said gratefully. His large brown eyes beamed delightedly as Mr. Natz got out a pad of scratch paper and a stubby pencil and began figuring up the cost of the vanishing cream.

It was a sizable amount but Oscar counted out the money cheerfully.

“Now, how are you goin’ to get it home?” Natz asked.

“Well, I don’t live far,” Oscar answered, “and if you’ll help me get it on my shoulder I think I can manage.”

“Anything you say, friend,” Natz said. Stooping, he grasped a handle of the basket and with Willie’s help, he hoisted it into the air.

“All right,” he panted, “get under it.”

Oscar took a deep breath and placed a narrow shoulder under the edge of the basket. He reached up and grasped the rim with determined fingers.

“Let go,” he cried, “I’ve got it!”

Oscar and Willie released their grip, and the weight of the basket dug suddenly and painfully into Oscar’s inadequately padded shoulders.

His knees buckled, but with a supreme effort he managed to right himself and totter toward the revolving door, the basket swaying precariously with every step.

He squeezed into the revolving door and, with a contortion that defied all existing laws of gravity and balance, he wriggled through the spinning portal and staggered onto the sidewalk.

Natz mopped his perspiring brow as Oscar disappeared around the corner of the building.

“It takes all kinds,” he muttered. “It takes all kinds to make a world.”

But in spite of laboring breath and the increasing weight of the bulky basket, Oscar Doolittle stumbled along, his soul singing with elation. He was blissfully unmindful of the curious and mirthful stares of the pedestrians he encountered.

“Let ’em laugh,” he told himself optimistically. “When I introduce my new, revolutionary face cream they won’t laugh — no, sir!”

Even now he could envision with ecstatic anticipation the huge headlines that would blazon his discovery to a grateful world.