“Of course.”
What a sap I was. I believed him. I mixed two more drinks, using gin and two glasses this time, and then I sat down on the edge of the bed, which was swaying gently from side to side.
“All right,” I said. “I can take it now. What is the real purpose of it?”
Charlie Swann blinked several times and seemed to be having trouble bringing his eyes into focus on me. He asked, “The real purpose of what?”
I enunciated slowly and carefully. “Of the automatonic autosuggestive subvibratory superaccelerator. Yehudi, to me.”
“Oh, that,” said Charlie.
“That,” I said. “What is its real purpose?”
“It’s like this. Suppose you got something to do that you’ve got to do in a hurry. Or something that you’ve got to do, and don’t want to do. You could—”
“Like writing a story?” I asked.
“Like writing a story,” he said, “or painting a house, or washing a mess of dishes, or shoveling the sidewalk, or… or doing anything else you’ve got to do but don’t want to do. Look, you put it on and tell yourself—”