A Touch of E Flat

By JOE GIBSON
Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS
Warning: never let anyone point any weapon at you; even something as harmless-looking as a water pistol—it may be a Cooling gun!
Most people can find something wrong with the world, and some make a practice of it, but few people ever get the chance to do something about it—and those few usually go down in history with a resounding crash.
Well, it's been rather noisy around here.
From the very beginning, it had been my intention to write this account. But I certainly hadn't intended to write it while residing under police surveillance in the Recuperating Ward of St. Luke's Memorial Hospital. Nor did I expect the interest and encouragement of the police officer who put me here. Nonetheless, Sgt. Nicolas Falasca of the Ohio State Police has been most helpful both in the many long discussions we have had and in procuring the notes and data from my laboratory for the preparation of this manuscript.
But I'm afraid there shall be a considerable lot of me in this manuscript—which, I hastily assert, is not its purpose at all. My apologies for that. Fact is, there's a considerable lot of me, as anyone can see. The term I rather prefer using is roly-poly.
For the record, however, I am duly Certified-at-Birth as one Albert Jamieson Cooling, to which has been added, by my own modest efforts, a few odd alphabetic symbols such as M.S. and Ph.D. I am currently holding down a professorship at a small, privately endowed Tech college, have some mentionable background in both nuclear physics and biochemistry, possess a choice collection of rather good jazz records, have a particular fondness for barbecued spareribs—and, of late, have become an inventor.
If I've left something out, such as horn-rimmed glasses, then, by the point of my little black beard, it must be the wardrobe of 36 sport jackets. Wives? Well, I've been tempted, but a professor's salary can't support alimony.
My discovery of the Cooling Effect itself came quite by accident. But twice now, that accident has almost killed me. It may be argued that this is no more than I should have expected, however, since the invention which followed naturally can only be called one thing.