“Honest, it doesn’t,” I assured him. “Oh, it would if I didn’t have it. But I’ve got a regular income and I’ m just as happy as if it were ten times that much. Especially if I had to work with—with—”
“With Etaoin Shrdlu? Maybe you’d get to like it. Walter, I’ll swear the thing is developing a personality. Want to drop around to the shop now?”
“Not now,” I said. “Ineed a bath and sleep. But I’ll drop around tomorrow. Say, last time I saw you I didn’t have the chance to ask what you meant by that statement about dross. What do you mean, there isn’t any dross?”
He kept his eyes on the road. “Did I say that? I don’t remember—”
“Now listen, George, don’t try to pull anything like that. You know perfectly well you said it, and that you’re dodging now. What’s it about? Kick in.”
He said, ”
Well—” and drove a couple of minutes in silence, and then: “Oh, all right. I might as well tell you. I haven’t bought any type metal since—since it happened. And there’s a few more tons of it around than there was then, besides the type I’ve sent out for presswork. See?”
“No. Unless you mean that it—”
He nodded. “It transmutes, Walter. The second day, when it got so fast I couldn’t keep up with pig metal, I found out. I built the hopper over the metal pot, and I got so desperate for new metal I started shoving in unwashed pi type and figured on skimming off the dross it melted—and there wasn’t any dross. The top of the molten metal was as smooth and shiny as—as the top of your head, Walter,”
“But—” I said. “How—”