Getting Even Read Online Free PDF Page A

commission by the Queen to fix “something special” for a luncheon with the Spanish ambassador. He works day and night, tearing up hundreds of blueprints, but finally-at 4:17 A.M., April 27, 1758-he creates a work consisting of several strips of ham enclosed, top and bottom, by two slices of rye bread. In a burst of inspiration, he garnishes the work with mustard. It is an immediate sensation, and he is commissioned to prepare all Saturday luncheons for the remainder of the year.
       1760: He follows one success with another, creating “sandwiches,” as they are called In his honor, out of roast beef, chicken, tongue, and nearly every conceivable cold cut. Not content to repeat tried formulas, he seeks out new ideas and devises the combination sandwich, for which he receives the Order of the Garter.
       1769: Living on a country estate, he is visited by the greatest men of his century; Haydn, Kant, Rousseau, and Ben Franklin stop at his home, some enjoying his remarkable creations at table, others ordering to go.
       1778: Though aging physically he still strives for new forms and writes in his diary, “I work long into the cold nights and am toasting everything now in an effort to keep warm.” Later that year, his open hot roast-beef sandwich creates a scandal with its frankness.
       1783: To celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday, he invents the hamburger and tours the great capitals of the world personally, making burgers at concert halls before large and appreciative audiences. In Germany, Goethe suggests serving them on buns-an idea that delights the Earl, and of the author of Faust he says, “This Goethe, he is some fellow.” The remark delights Goethe, although the following year they break intellectually over the concept of rare, medium, and well done.
       1790: At a retrospective exhibition of his works in London, he is suddenly taken ill with chest pains and is thought to be dying, but recovers sufficiently to supervise the construction of a hero sandwich by a group of talented followers. Its unveiling in Italy causes a riot, and it remains misunderstood by all but a few critics.
       1792: He develops a genu varum, which he fails to treat in time, and succumbs in his sleep. He is laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, and thousands mourn his passing.
       At his funeral, the great German poet Holderlin sums up his achievements with undisguised reverence: “He freed mankind from the hot lunch. We owe him so much.”

Death Knocks
        (The play takes place in the bedroom of the Nat Ackermans’ two-story house, somewhere in Kew Gardens. The carpeting is wall-to-wall. There is a big double bed and a large vanity. The room is elaborately furnished and curtained, and on the walls there are several paintings and a not really attractive barometer. Soft theme music as the curtain rises. Nat Ackerman, a bald, paunchy fifty-seven-year-old dress manufacturer is lying on the bed finishing off tomorrow’s Daily News. He wears a bathrobe and slippers, and reads by a bed light clipped to the white headboard of the bed. The time is near midnight. Suddenly we hear a noise, and Nat sits up and looks at the window.)
       Nat: What the hell is that?
        (Climbing awkwardly through the window is a sombre, caped figure. The intruder wears a black hood and skintight black clothes. The hood covers his head but not his face, which is middle-aged and stark white. He is something like Nat in appearance. He huffs audibly and then trips over the windowsill and falls into the room.)
       Death (for it is no one else): Jesus Christ. I nearly broke my neck.
       Nat (watching with bewilderment) : Who are you?
       Death: Death.
       Nat: Who?
       Death: Death. Listen-can I sit down? I nearly broke my neck. I’m shaking like a leaf.
       Nat: Who are you?
       Death: Death. You got a glass of water?
       Nat: Death? What do you mean, Death?
       Death: What is wrong with you? You see the black