"No, Ben, I haven't."
"Neither have I, except once to Mexico."
" Mexico, south of the Rio Grande."
"Juarez, across the river from El Paso. Well, when I came back, I thought I'd bring in some perfume. Just a fool notion I had, but-"
"Well, we all get drunk."
"Just what I said to myself. Now get this: On some of that perfume, they got a rule that the customs officer has to destroy the label before it's brought in. You got that?"
"Gee, you sure can spread light, Ben."
"You know how he destroyed it?"
"No, but I'm dying to hear."
"He drew a blue pencil across it. He made one blue mark on it, and legally that destroyed it. Listen, Joe, if one blue mark will destroy a label, why won't it destroy a pinball machine?"
Mr. Cantrell jammed his hands into his trousers pockets and stared at Ben for a long time. "Say, you can think of things, can't you?"
"I do my best."
"You mean, destroy it legally?"
"Yeah, legally."
"If you got a blue pencil, I could try."
"I got one, right here."
"Then we'll see."
"And one other thing."
"Yeah, Ben?"
"You'll want those trucks again, hey? To haul the destroyed machines over to the Reservoir Street dump?"
"Why-they got to be put some place."
"O.K.-I'll have them here tonight. And if you don't mind, have a police photographer at that dump tomorrow, to take pictures of the destroyed machines. Of course they'll be nothing but junk, but it'll prove I hauled them-and that you destroyed them."
"Funny how a blue pencil ruins stuff, isn't it?"
"Oh, and another thing."
"Just one?"
"Sign these vouchers."
"What vouchers?"
"For the trucks! The trucks I furnished the city yesterday, to haul these gambling machines from various and sundry addresses, here to the Ninth Street station house. Three hundred bucks in all-"
"Hey, what is this?"
"You think trucks work for nothing?"
"No, but I got to check-"
"Costs money to clean a town up, you ought to know that. Now if you'll sign there, where I put the pencil check, I can get over to the hotel with them before they close the safe, and-"
"Won't they keep till tomorrow?"
"Joe, I need cash to pay workmen. I-"
"O.K., Ben, but don't run a good thing to death."
"Nuts, it's the people's will."
"What?"
"You forgot that mandate to cleanliness. Sign."
Around nine, however, Ben wasn't so cynically confident. He walked up and down the main room of a big warehouse with a neat little man in a blue gabardine suit and a soft straw hat. It was a shabby warehouse, and the only illumination was from a single poisonous light hanging very high. He kept looking at his watch, but presently a horn sounded outside, and he hurried to open the big trolley door at one end. Shaking the building, while the man in gabardine yelled to "cut those lights," a truck rolled in, and when it was squarely in the middle of the room, stopped. Cutting lights and motor, three men jumped down, peeled tarpaulins from the load, and proceeded to unload it. It was the same equipment as had been seized, condemned, and legally destroyed in the last twenty-four hours, but appeared to be in quite passable condition. Working rapidly, under the direction of the man in gabardine, the three from the truck stacked the machines against the wall and departed, saying the other crew would report at ten, and from then on they'd make time.
The man in gabardine looked over the machines with professional interest, testing springs here, counting bright steel balls there. Ben, however, seemed uneasy. Presently he said, "Listen, Mr. Roberts-of course I'm sure you know your business, but are you really sure these games can be transformed?"
"Of course I am."
"Yeah, but-look, this is what I mean. Like in golf, which is one of the games we're going to have, there's only so many things a player can do. He can get in the rough, he can shoot past the green, he can pitch on the green, he can sink a putt-I don't know how many, but it's just 50 many. Well, suppose that don't correspond to the number of holes on the table? Without we plug some holes up, or put new ones in, or redesign the whole thing, how do we-"
"O.K., now-pick out a table."
"Well, that one. What do we make out of it?"
"Baseball."
"How?"
"I'll show you."
Taking off his coat, Mr. Roberts went over to a chest that stood in one corner, opened it, and took out a hammer and screw driver, then selected a number of metal clips from little compartments inside that were arranged like printers' type cases. These he dropped into a paper bag. Then he took the table Ben had pointed out, upended it, and screwed legs into it. Then he stood it rightside up, and for a moment inspected its metal fittings, its gleaming pins, springs, and bells. Then he motioned at the legend LUCKY BALL WIN 50-100-250-$1, which rose over one end. "You understand, that comes off and the new one goes on: Baseball, the National Game, Play One Whole Inning for Five Cents-"
"Yeah, I understand about that part."
"O.K., then. Watch."
Deftly, Mr. Roberts began unscrewing tags that labeled each hole with numbers from 0 to 1,000. Soon Ben interrupted: "All right, I've doped this out. The batter can get a strike, or a ball, or he can single, double, triple, or pole one over the fence, or he can sacrifice, or maybe a couple of other things. Not over fifteen, though. That's top. Well there's exactly twenty holes on that table. What then?"
Without answering, Mr. Roberts began screwing new tags in front of the holes. They bore legends, in neat red letters, of "Strike," "Ball," "Out on Fly," etc., just as Ben had anticipated, but when all of them had been screwed into place there were still four unlabeled holes. Mr. Roberts smiled.
"Now, then, here's where we equalize."
So saying, he screwed on four tags. Ben, peering, saw that two of them read: "Out on foul," and two others, "Hit into Double." On the last two, Mr. Roberts dropped loose metal covers. "Those holes are dead till there's a man on base. Can't have a double play without anybody on. Same way with a sacrifice. But don't you get it? If there's too many holes we equalize by having a few of those holes read the same thing-that doubles the chances for foul balls, maybe, but who says this ain't fast pitching we got? If there's not enough holes, we knock? out sacrifice bunt, advance on error, whatever we want. Look: they play the game you got, not the game you wish you had. You get it?"
"Well, gee, it's simple, isn't it?"
"O.K., you be the Gi'nts, I'll be the Dodgers."
"You mean that's all? We can play now?"
"I like pinball. Buck on the side?"
"McPhail, show what you got."
"I've singled, big boy."
The midsummer twilight was fading as Ben entered his living room and lit it, not with the wall brackets, which were harsh, but with the floor lamps, which were soft. He checked the contents of a tray which had arrived a few minutes before: shaker, evidently full; two glasses, bottoms up, in a bowl of ice; a saucer of cherries, with fork; a dish of tiny canapes, six anchovies, six eggs, six cheese; two napkins, folded. The buzzer sounded, and he hastened to the door with the springy stride that seemed never to desert him.
June came in, nodded, and sat down, pulling off her gloves. She too had changed since that night a few months ago when she had made the speech at the high school auditorium, and a man had made a note in a little red book. The neat, school-teacherish blue silk had given way to a smart black polka-dot, with belt, bag, and shoes of coral alligator skin, hat of red straw, and stockings of powdery sheer that set off an exciting pair of legs. It all combined beautifully with her dark, creamy good looks, and it seemed that perhaps she knew it. She came in with languid hauteur, or at least the imitation of languid hauteur; it might be recent, but it was innocent.