A police car drove up and tried to stop. Apparently neither brakes nor tires would hold. It skidded about, banged against the curb once, and finally stopped down the street beyond the slippery zone. The cop—he was a fairly important cop, a captain—got out and charged the mansion.
He fell down, too. He tried to keep going on hands and knees. But every time he applied a horizontal component of force to a hand or knee, the hand or knee simply slid backward. The sight reminded Johnny of the efforts of those garter snakes to crawl on the smooth concrete floor of the Central Park Zoo monkey house.
When the police captain gave up and tried to retreat, the laws of friction came back on. But when he stood up, all his clothes below the waist, except his shoes, disintegrated into a cloud of textile fibers.
“My word!” said the English zoologist, who had just arrived. “Just like one of those Etruscan statues, don’t you know!”
The police captain bawled at Bruce Inglehart: “Hey, you, for gossakes gimmie a handkerchief!”
“What’s the matter; got a cold?” asked Inglehart innocently.
“No, you dope! You know what I want it for!”
Inglehart suggested that a better idea would be for the captain to use his coat as an apron. While the captain was knotting the sleeves behind his back, Inglehart and Johnny explained their version of the situation to him.
“Hm-m-m,” said the captain. “We don’t want nobody to get hurt, or the place to get damaged. But suppose he’s got a death ray or sumpm?”
“I don’t sink so,” said Johnny. “He has not hurt anybody. Jus’ prayed jokes.”
The captain thought for a few seconds of ringing up headquarters and having them send an emergency truck. But the credit for overpowering a dangerous maniac singlehanded was too tempting. He said: “How’ll we get into the place, if he can make everything so slippery?”
They thought. Johnny said: “Can you get one of zose sings wiss a wood stick and a rubber cup on end?”
The captain frowned. Johnny made motions. Inglehart said: “Oh, you mean the plumber’s friend! Sure. You wait. I’ll get one. See if you can find a key to the place.”
The assault on Methuen’s stronghold was made on all fours. The captain, in front, jammed the end of the plumber’s friend against the rise of the lowest front step. If Methuen could abolish friction, he had not discovered how to get rid of barometric pressure. The rubber cup held, and the cop pulled himself, Inglehart and Johnny after him. By using the instrument on successive steps, they mounted them. Then the captain anchored them to the front door and pulled them up to it. He hauled himself to his feet by the door handle, and opened the door with a key borrowed from Dr. Wendell Cook.
At one window, Methuen crouched behind a thing like a surveyor’s transit. He swiveled the thing toward them, and made adjustments. The captain and Inglehart, feeling their shoes grip the floor, gathered themselves to jump. But Methuen got the contraption going, and their feet went out from under them.
Johnny used his head. He was standing next to the door. He lay down, braced his hind feet against the door frame, and kicked out. His body whizzed across the frictionless floor and bowled over Methuen and his contraption.
The professor offered no more resistance. He seemed more amused than anything, despite the lump that was growing on his forehead. He said: “My, my, you fellows are persistent. I suppose you’re going to take me off to some asylum. I thought you and you”—he indicated Inglehart and Johnny—“were friends of mine. Oh, well, it doesn’t matter.”
The captain growled: “What did you do to my pants?”
“Simple. My telelubricator here neutralizes the interatomic bonds on the surface of any solid on which the beam falls. So the surface, to a depth of a few molecules, is put in the condition of a supercooled liquid as long as the beam is focused on it. Since the liquid form of any compound will wet the solid form, you have perfect lubrication.”
“But my pants—”
“They were held together by friction between the fibers, weren’t they? And I have a lot more inventions like that. My soft-speaker and my three-dimensional projector, for instance, are—”
Inglehart interrupted: “Is that how you made that phony fire, and that whatchamacallit that scared the people at the dinner? With a three-dimensional projector?”
“Yes, of course, though, to be exact, it took two projectors at right angles, and a phonograph and amplifier to give the sound effect. It was amusing, wasn’t it?”
“But,” wailed Johnny, “why do you do zese sings? You trying to ruin your career?”
Methuen shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Johnny, as you’d know if you were in my… uh… condition. And now, gentlemen, where do you want me to go? Wherever it is, I’ll find something amusing there.”
Dr. Wendell Cook visited Ira Methuen on the first day of his incarceration in the New Haven Hospital. In ordinary conversation Methuen seemed sane enough, and quite agreeable. He readily admitted that he had been the one responsible for the jokes. He explained: “I painted your and Dalrymple’s face with a high-powered needle sprayer I invented. It’s a most amusing little thing. Fits in your hand and discharges through a ring on your finger. With your thumb you can regulate the amount of acetone mixed in with the water, which in turn controls the surface tension and therefore the point at which the needle spray breaks up into droplets. I made the spray break up just before it reached your face. You were a sight, Cook, especially when you found out what was wrong with you. You looked almost as funny as the day I painted those feet on my rubbers and substituted them for yours. You react so beautifully to having your dignity pricked. You always were a pompous ass, you know.”
Cook puffed out his cheeks and controlled himself. After all, the poor man was mad. These absurd outbursts about Cook’s pompousness proved it. He said sadly: “Dalrymple’s leaving tomorrow night. He was most displeased about the face-painting episode, and when he found that you were under observation, he told me that no useful purpose would be served by his remaining here. I’m afraid that’s the end of our endowment. Unless you can pull yourself together and tell us what’s happened to you and how to cure it.”
Ira Methuen laughed. “Pull myself together? I am all in one piece, I assure you. And I’ve told you what’s the matter with me, as you put it. I gave myself my own treatment. As for curing it, I wouldn’t tell you how even if I knew. I wouldn’t give up my present condition for anything. I at last realize that nothing really matters, including endowments. I shall be taken care of, and I will devote myself to amusing myself as I see fit.”
Johnny had been haunting Cook’s office all day. He waylaid the president when the latter returned from the hospital.
Cook told Johnny what had happened. He said: “He seems to be completely irresponsible. We’ll have to get in touch with his son, and have a guardian appointed. And we’ll have to do something about you, Johnny.”
Johnny didn’t relish the prospect of the “something.” He knew he had no legal status other than that of a tamed wild animal. The fact that Methuen technically owned him was his only protection if somebody took a notion to shoot him during bear-hunting season. And he was not enthusiastic about Ralph Methuen. Ralph was a very average young schoolteacher without his father’s scientific acumen or whimsical humor. Finding Johnny on his hands, his reaction would be to give Johnny to a zoo or something.