"He thinks I'm drunk!" Artie groaned, slamming down the receiver. "I only wish I were!"
I gave a stoical shrug, and pointed to the bright red neon lure across the street. "Don't just stand there wishing. Join me?" I started across toward the bar.
"But Burt—" Artie babbled, hurrying along beside me. "We can't just forget about it...."
"We did our bit," I said. "You told your contact, right? Well, by tomorrow morning, when the total is up to over three thousand (I calculated five-thousand-fifty sets by the time the machine reaches the hundred-foot mark, a little better than twenty-eight hours from the starting time), somebody's sure to notice all the birds in the region, if only an ornithologist, and—"
"Birds?"
"Eating the cornflakes," I said, and when he nodded in comprehension, went on, "—pretty soon the word'll get to the government."
"Or," said Artie, hopefully, "the batteries and engine'll wear out.... Won't they?"
"It's a radium-powered motor," I said, as we slipped into the coolness of a booth at the rear of the bar. "The power-source will deplete itself by half in about six hundred years, maybe. Meantime, what'll we do with all those cornflakes?"
The waiter came by and we ordered two beers.
"Wait—" said Artie, gripping my sleeve. "As the machine reaches the upper atmosphere, the soundwaves'll thin out, weaken, as the medium grows scarce."