"Your chips. Turn them in."
"What for?"
"For money -- I think they call it now."
"Oh, bother." Allison turned to a heavy-set man sitting at the black-jack table. "Here!" She dumped the chips in the man's lap. "You take them. All right, Larry. Let's go!"
The cab pulled up in front of Larry's apartment.
"Is this where you live?" Allison asked, gazing up at the building. "It's not very modern, is it?"
"No." Larry pushed the door open. "And the plumbing isn't very good, either. But what the hell."
"Larry?" Allison stopped him as he started to get out.
"Yes?"
"You won't forget about tomorrow, will you?"
"Tomorrow?"
"We have so much to do. I want you to be up bright and early, ready to go places. So we can get things done."
"How about six o'clock in the evening? Is that early enough?" Larry yawned. It was late, and cold.
"Oh, no. I'll be by for you at ten a.m."
"Ten! But my job. I got to work!"
"Not tomorrow. Tomorrow is our day."
"How the hell am I going to live if I don't --"
Allison reached up, putting her slender arms around him. "Don't worry; it'll be all right. Remember? This is my world." She pulled him down to her, kissing him on the mouth. Her lips were sweet and cool. She held onto him tightly, her eyes closed.
Larry broke away. "All right, already." He straightened his tie, standing up on the pavement.
"Tomorrow, then. And don't worry about your old job. Goodbye, Larry darling." Allison slammed the door. The cab drove off down the dark street. Larry gazed after it, still dazed. Finally he shrugged and turned toward the apartment house.
Inside, on the table in the hall, was a letter for him. He scooped it up, opening it as he climbed the stairs. The letter was from his office, Bray Insurance Company. The annual vacation schedule for the staff, listing the two weeks doled out to each employee. He didn't even have to find his name to know when his began.
"Don't worry," Allison had said.
Larry grinned ruefully, stuffing the letter in his coat pocket. He unlocked his apartment door. Ten o'clock did she say? Well, at least he would have a good night's sleep.
The day was warm and bright. Larry Brewster sat out on the front steps of the apartment building, smoking and thinking while he waited for Allison.
She was doing all right; no doubt about that. A hell of a lot of things seemed to fall like ripe plums into her lap. No wonder she thought it was her world... She was getting the breaks, all right. But some people were like that. Lucky. Walked into fortune every time; won on quiz shows; found money in the gutter; bet on the right horse. It happened.
people were like that. Lucky. Walked into fortune every time; won on quiz shows; found money in the gutter; bet on the right horse. It happened.
A horn sounded, and Larry glanced up. A two-tone convertible was parked in front of him, the top down. Allison waved. "Hi! Come on!"
Larry got up and came over. "Where did you get this?" He opened the door and slid in slowly.
"This?" Allison started the car up. It zoomed out into traffic. "I forget; I think someone gave it to me."
"You forget!" He stared at her. Then he relaxed against the soft seat. "Well? What's first on the list?"
"We're going to look at our new house."
"Whose new house?"
"Ours. Yours and mine."
Larry sank down into the seat. "What! But you --"
Allison spun the car around a corner. "You'll love it; it's nice. How big is your apartment?"
"Three rooms."
Allison laughed merrily. "This is eleven rooms. Two stories. Half an acre. Or so they tell me."
"Haven't you seen it?"
"Not yet. My lawyer just called me this morning."
"Your lawyer?"
"It's part of an estate left to me."
Larry pulled himself together slowly. Allison, in a scarlet two-piece outfit, gazed happily at the road ahead, her small face blank and contented. "Let me get all this straight. You've never seen it; your lawyer just called you; you get it as part of an estate."
"That's right. Some old uncle of mine. I forget his name. I didn't expect him to leave me anything." She turned toward Larry, beaming warmly at him. "But this is such a special time for me. It's important that everything go right. My whole world..."
"Yeah. Your whole world. Well, I hope you like the house after you see it."
Allison laughed. "I will. After all, it exists for me; that's what it's there for."
"You've got this worked out like an exact science," Larry murmured. "Everything that happens to you is for the best. You're pleased with everything. So it must be your world. Maybe you're just making the best of things -- telling yourself you really like the things that happen to you."
"Do you think so?"
He frowned in thought as they zipped along. "Tell me," he said finally, "how did you learn about these multiple worlds? Why are you so sure this one is yours?"
She smiled at him. "I worked it out myself," she said. "I studied logic and philosophy, and history -- and there was always something that puzzled me. Why were there so many vital changes in the fortunes of people and nations that seemed to come about providentially, just at the right moment? Why did it really seem as if my world had to be just the way it was, so that all through history, strange things happened which make it work out that way?
"I'd heard the 'This Is the Best of All Possible Worlds' theory, but it didn't make sense the way I read about it. I studied the religions of mankind, and scientific speculations of the existence of a Creator -- but something was lacking, something which either couldn't be accounted for, or was just overlooked."
Larry nodded. "Well, sure. It's easy; if this is the best of all possible worlds, then why is there so much suffering -- unnecessary suffering -- in it, if there's a benevolent and all-powerful Creator, as so many millions have believed, do believe, and will believe in the future, no doubt, then how do you account for the existence of evil?" He grinned at her. "And you worked out the answer to all that, eh -just tossed it off like a martini?"
Allison sniffed. "You don't have to put it that way... Well, it is simple and I'm not the only one who's figured it out, although obviously I'm the only one in this world..."
"Okay," Larry broke in, "I'll hold back objections until you've told me how you did it."
"Okay," Larry broke in, "I'll hold back objections until you've told me how you did it."
"Thank you," he said.
"It's simple, like the egg-trick, once you know the angle. The reason why both the benevolent Creator and the 'Best of All Possible Worlds' theory seem to bog down is because we start out with an unjustified assumption -- that this is the only world. But suppose we try a different approach: assume a Creator of infinite power; surely, such a being would be capable of creating infinite worlds... or at least, so large a number of them to seem infinite to us.
"If you assume that, then everything else makes sense. The Creator set forces into motion; He created separate worlds for every single human being in existence; each one exists for that human being alone. He's an artist, but He uses an economy of means, so that there's much duplication of themes and events and motives throughout the worlds."
"Oh," Larry replied softly, "now I begin to see what you're driving at. In some worlds, Napoleon won the battle of Waterloo -- although only in his own world did everything work out just right for him; in this one he had to lose..."
"I'm not sure Napoleon ever existed in my world," Allison said thoughtfully. "I think he's just a name in the records, although some such person did exist in other worlds. In my world, Hitler was defeated, Roosevelt died -- I'd be sorry about that, only I didn't know him, and he wasn't very real, anyway; they were both just images carried over from other people's worlds
"All right," he said. "And everything worked out wonderfully for you, all your life, huh? You were never really sick, or hurt, or hungry..."