Thunder and Roses Read Online Free PDF Page A

thoughtfully. “I believe you would.”
    “It’s just that you—Oh Mel, everything’s so balanced now! My work is finally going the way I want it to go, and I just don’t
need
anything else.” She held up a hand, quickly. “If you say anything about ductless glands I’ll walk out of here and never see you again!”
    “I won’t, Peg.”
    There was a strained silence. Finally Peg said, “Are you almost ready?”
    Mel nodded and went back to the bench. “You can bring him in now.”
    Peg went out into the reception office. Something white and swift swished past her face, went rocketing up into the corner of the ceiling, hovered, and then drifted down to the floor in slow spirals. “What in—”
    “Oh—Sorry, Peg,” Robin said, grinning sheepishly. He went and picked up the white object, and held it out to her. “Tandem monoplane,” he explained. “The Langley principle. If Langley had only had a decent power plant, aviation history would have been drastically different. The thing is really airworthy.”
    “Robin, you’re impossible. Mel’s ready. Where’s the thing he asked you to sign?”
    “Hm-m-m? Oh, that—this is it.”
    “You made that airplane out of it?”
    “Well, I wanted to see if I could do it without tearing the paper. I did, too.” He disassembled the craft busily, and smoothed the papers. “They’re all right, see?”
    “I ought to make you stand in the corner,” she said, half angrily. She looked at him and suddenly, violently, resented Mel for what he had intimated. “Come on, Robin,” she said. She took his hand and led him into the laboratory.
    “Sit down, Robin,” said Warfield without looking up.
    “Per–dition!” said Robin, wide-eyed. “You’ve got more glassware here than the Biltmore Bar. As the hot, cross Bunsen said to the evaporator, ‘Be still, my love.’ ”
    Peg moaned. Warfield said, “And what did the evaporator say to that?”
    “ ‘Thank you very much.’ You see,” said Robin solemnly, “It was a retort courteous.”
    “Do you think,” gasped Peg, “that we’ll be able to put a stop to that kind of thing with these treatments?”
    “Here,” said Warfield, handing him a glass. “Bottoms up.”
    Robin rose, accepted the glass, bowed from the waist, and said, “Well, here’s to champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends. Exit wastrel.” And he drained the glass.
    “Now if you’ll rope him and throw him,” said Warfield, approaching with a hypodermic. Robin sat on the examining table, quite relaxed, as the needle sank into his arm.
    “Never felt a thing,” he said briskly, and then collapsed. Peg caught his head before it could strike the pillow and lowered it gently. She took his wrist. His pulse felt as if it had lost its flywheel.
    “Post-pituitary syncope,” said Warfield. “I half expected that. He’ll be all right. It’s compensated for. There just isn’t any way of slowing down neopituitrin. Watch what happens when the pineal starts kicking up.”
    Peg suddenly clutched at the limp wrist. “He’s … he’s—Oh Mel, it’s stopped.”
    “Hang on, Peg. Just a few more seconds, and it should—”
    Under Peg’s desperate fingers, the pulse beat came in full and strong, as suddenly as if it had been push button turned. With it, Peg began to breathe again. She saw Warfield wipe his eyes. Sweat, probably.
    Robin’s eyes opened slowly, and an utterly beatific expression crossed his face. He sighed luxuriously. “Beautiful,” he said clearly.
    “What is it, Robin?”
    “Did you see it? I never thought of that before. It’s the most perfectly functional, aesthetically balanced thing produced by the mind of man.” Sheer wonder suffused his face. “I
saw
one!”
    “What was it?”
    “A baseball bat!”
    Warfield’s chin came up. “Well I’ll be … Peg, don’t laugh.” Peg was hardly likely to. “You know, he’s about right?”
    “I’ll think about aesthetics later,” said Peg