He felt a little ashamed of it—they’d been such friendly people. They had treated him so kindly and had him stay for dinner and had sat and talked with him and shown him about the farm and even asked him to stop by if he went through that way again.
He’d wasted the entire day, he thought, and he rather hated that, but maybe it had been worth it to build up his reputation out that way as the sort of character who had softening of the head and didn’t know the value of a dollar. That way, maybe some other day, he could do some more business in the neighborhood.
He heard the television set as he opened the back door, sounding loud and clear, and he went clattering down the basement stairs in something close to a panic. For now that he’d traded off the table model, Abbie’s set was the only one downstairs and Abbie’s set was broken.
It was Abbie’s set, all right. It stood just where he and Beasly had put it down that morning and there was nothing wrong with it—nothing wrong at all. It was even televising color.
Televising color!
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and leaned against the railing for support.
The set kept right on televising color.
Taine stalked the set and walked around behind it.
The back of the cabinet was off, leaning against a bench that stood behind the set, and he could see the innards of it glowing cheerily.
He squatted on the basement floor and squinted at the lighted innards and they seemed a good deal different from the way that they should be. He’d repaired the set many times before and he thought he had a good idea of what the working parts would look’ like. And now they all seemed different, although just how he couldn’t tell.
A heavy step sounded on the stairs and a hearty voice came booming down to him.
“Well, Hiram, I see you got it fixed.”
Taine jackknifed upright and stood there slightly frozen and completely speechless.
Henry Horton stood foursquarely and happily on the stairs, looking very pleased.
“I told Abbie that you wouldn’t have it done, but she said for me to come over anyway—Hey, Hiram, it’s in color! How did you do it, man?”
Taine grinned sickly. “I just got fiddling around,” he said.
Henry came down the rest of the stairs with a stately step and stood before the set, with his hands behind his back, staring at it fixedly in his best executive manner.
He slowly shook his head. “I never would have thought,” he said, “that it was possible.”
“Abbie mentioned that you wanted color.”
“Well, sure. Of course I did. But not on this old set. I never would have expected to get color on this set. How did you do it, Hiram?”
Taine told the solemn truth. “I can’t rightly say,” he said.
Henry found a nail keg standing in front of one of the benches and rolled it out in front of the old-fashioned set. He sat down warily and relaxed into solid comfort.
“That’s the way it goes,” he said. “There are men like you, but not very many of them. Just Yankee tinkerers. You keep messing around with things, trying one thing here and another there and before you know it you come up with something.”
He sat on the nail keg, staring at the set.
“It’s sure a pretty thing,” he said. “It’s better than the color they have in Minneapolis. I dropped in at a couple of the places the last time I was there and looked at the color sets. And I tell you honest, Hiram, there wasn’t one of them that was as good as this.”
Taine wiped his brow with his shirt sleeve. Somehow or other, the basement seemed to be getting warm. He was fine sweat all over.
Henry found a big cigar in one of his pockets and held it out to Taine.
“No, thanks. I never smoke.”
“Perhaps you’re wise,” said Henry. “It’s a nasty habit.”
He stuck the cigar into his mouth and rolled it east to west.
“Each man to his own,” he proclaimed, expansively. “When it comes to a thing like this, you’re the man to do it. You seem to think in mechanical contraptions and electronic circuits. Me, I don’t know a thing about it. Even in the computer game, I still don’t know a thing about it; I hire men who do. I can’t even saw a board or drive a nail. But I can organize. You remember, Hiram, how everybody snickered when I started up the plant?”
“Well, I guess some of them did, at that.”
“You’re darn tooting they did. They went around for weeks with their hands up to their faces to hide smart-aleck grins. They said, what does Henry think he’s doing, starting up a computer factory out here in the sticks; he doesn’t think he can compete with those big companies in the east, does he? And they didn’t stop their grinning until I sold a couple of dozen units and had orders for a year or two ahead.”
He fished a lighter from his pocket and lit the cigar carefully, never taking his eyes off the television set.
“You got something there,” he said, judiciously, “that may be worth a mint of money. Some simple adaptation that will fit on any set. If you can get color on this old wreck, you can get color on any set that’s made.”
He chuckled raoistly around the mouthful of cigar. “If RCA knew what was happening here this minute, they’d go out and cut their throats.”
“But I don’t know what I did,” protested Taine.
“Well, that’s all right,” said Henry, happily. “I’ll take this set up to the plant tomorrow and turn loose some of the boys on it. They’ll find out what you have here before they’re through with it.”
He took the cigar out of his mouth and studied it intently, then popped it back in again.
“As I was saying, Hiram, that’s the difference in us. You can do the stuff, but you miss the possibilities. I can’t do a thing, but I can organize it once the thing is done. Before we get through with this, you’ll be wading in twenty-dollar bills clear up to your knees.”
“But I don’t have—”
“Don’t worry. Just leave it all to me. I’ve got the plant and whatever money we may need. We’ll figure out a split.”
“That’s fine of you,” said Taine mechanically.
“Not at all,” Henry insisted, grandly. “It’s just my aggressive, grasping sense of profit. I should be ashamed of myself, cutting in on this.”
He sat on the keg, smoking and watching the TV perform in exquisite color.
“You know, Hiram,” he said, “I’ve often thought of this, but never got around to doing anything about it. I’ve got an old computer up at the plant that we will have to junk because it’s taking up room that we really need. It’s one of our early models, a sort of experimental job that went completely sour. It sure is a screwy thing. No one’s ever been able to make much out of it. We tried some approaches that probably were wrong—or maybe they were right, but we didn’t know enough to make them quite come off. It’s been standing in a corner all these years and I should have junked it long ago. But I sort of hate to do it. I wonder if you might not like it—just to tinker with.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Taine.
Henry assumed an expansive air. “No obligation, mind you. You may not be able to do a thing with it—I’d frankly be surprised if you could, but there’s no harm in trying. Maybe you’ll decide to tear it down for the salvage you can get. There are several thousand dollars’ worth of equipment in it. Probably you could use most of it one way or another.”
“It might be interesting,” conceded Taine, but not too enthusiastically.
“Good,” said Henry, with an enthusiasm that made up for Taine’s lack of it. “I’ll have the boys cart it over tomorrow. It’s a heavy thing. I’ll send along plenty of help to get it unloaded and down into the basement and set up.”
Henry stood up carefully and brushed cigar ashes off his lap.