Or, at least, it was kind of adventurous, until Artie started in on his scheme of three weeks ago: a workable anti-gravity machine. And now, I'm feeling my first tremors of regret that I ever hooked up with the guy. Because—Well, it happened like this:
"It looks great," I said, lifting my face from the blueprint, and nodding across the workbench at Artie. "But what the hell does it do?"
Artie shoved a shock of dust-colored hair back off his broad, dull pink forehead, and jabbed excitedly with a grimy forefinger at the diagram. "Can't you tell, Burt? What does this look like!"
My eyes returned to the conglomeration of sketchy cones beneath his flailing finger, and I said, as truthfully as possible, "A pine forest on a lumpy hill."
"Those," he said, his tone hurt as it always was when I inadvertently belittled his draftmanship, "are flywheels."
"Cone-shaped flywheels?" I said. "Why, for pete's sake?"
"Only," he said, with specious casualness, "in order to develop a centrifugal thrust that runs in a straight line!"
"A centr—" I said, then sat back from the drawings, blinking. "That's impossible, Artie."
"And why should it be?" he persisted. "Picture an umbrella, with the fabric removed. Now twirl the handle on its axis. What do the ribs do?"