By the second day of the show, the hotel lobby was somewhat like the interior of a poorly regulated beehive. Rockets were taking off at all angles from the hands of delighted toy buyers. They banged the ceiling and soared over the mezzanine to collisions with rival exhibitors and other patrons. And Martin Nagle’s pockets were stuffed with orders he couldn’t possibly fill.
On the fourth day, Sam Marvenstein strolled over from his own nearly deserted booth and pressed through the crowd. Traffic regulations had been imposed by the hotel people so that no more than two rocketships could be in flight at any one time, and one of these was required to be launched by the proprietor of the exhibit. It made it difficult for Mart to accept the buyers’ cash and write down the orders and fly the ships at the same time.
“Maybe I could help,” said Sam. “There’s not much doing over my way.”
“That would be swell, but I don’t want to take you away from your own show.”
“Ah, it’s nothing. People don’t want to buy a mere rocket-firing jet plane today, anyway.”
“All right. Just write down the people’s orders and take their deposits while I keep the ships going.”
The show closed at eleven that night. By then Sam was slightly staggered at the sum of the deposits he had taken in for Mart, and by the magnitude of the orders waiting to be filled. He multiplied that by the four days of the show gone by, and added the sum for the remaining five. He wiped his brow and looked glumly across the lobby to the deserted Samar Toy Town, stacked high with rocket-firing jet planes.
He turned to Mart, who was straightening up the last of the rockets on the counter. “I've been looking up some dope about you, Doc,” he said. "You’re Dr. Martin Nagle, lately of West Coast University, and more recently of ONR. You have within the past six months set up an office as Basic Research Consultants, in partnership with one Dr. Kenneth Berkeley, psychologist. You don’t own a toy factory, and have never been near one as far as I was able to find out. Now, your business is certainly your own, Doc, but I sure am interested in what you intend to do with orders for” — he glanced down at the paper on which he had done a little computing — “one million, four hundred and eighty-six thousand, one hundred and nineteen Nagle Rockets.”
Mart straightened soberly. “It just so happens, Sam, that I have also done a little checking on you. I discover that the Samar Toy Plant is probably the best equipped and most modern plant of its kind in the country for producing toys of the complexity of my little rocket. It is also financially sound and respected in the industry. I’m sorry that people aren’t buying rocket-firing jet fighters this season, but it seems to me that a little expansion could convert the Samar plant to production of Nagle Rockets with profit to both of us. In short, the patents on the rockets are available for licensing to interested parties. And the contracts you have in your hand are for sale.”
“I’m an interested party, Doc,” said Sam. “I don’t mind telling you that we counted on making it this year. We thought we had the merchandise that would do it. And we would have, if it hadn’t been for you. No hard feelings, you understand, that’s all part of the racket. How about a cup of coffee while we see if we can make a deal?”