"Well. 'The astounding thing about a waltzing bear is not, how gracefully it waltzes but that it waltzes at all.' Not me, some other bloke; I'm quoting. Let's see what it has."
Weatheral gestured; the shorter technician hurried to the machine, pulled a copy for each of them, fetched them back.
Lazarus looked his copy over. "Mmmm...yes. That next one isn't true-just a wisecrack. Must reword the third one little. Hey! It put a question mark after this one. What an impudent piece of junk; I checked that one out centuries before it was anything but unmined ore. Well, at least it didn't try to revise it. Don't recall saying that, 'but it's true and I durned near got killed learning it."
Lazarus looked up from the printout copy. "Okay, 'Son. If you want this stuff on record, I don't mind. As long as I am allowed to check and revise it...for I don't want my words to be taken as Gospel unless I have a chance to winnow out the casual nonsense. Which I am just as capable of voicing as the next man."
"Certainly, sir. Nothing will go into the records without your approval. Unless you choose to use that switch...n which case any unedited remarks you have left behind I will have to try to edit myself. That's the best I can do."
"Trying to trap me, huh? Hmm- Ira, suppose I offer you a Scheherazade deal in reverse."
"I don't understand."
"Is Scheherazade lost at last? Did Sir Richard Burton live in vain?"
"Oh, no, sir! I have read The Thousand Nights and a Night in the Burton original...and her stories have come down through the centuries, changed again and again to make them understandable to new generations-but with, I think, the flavor retained. I simply do not understand what you are proposing."
"I see. You told me that talking with me is the most important thing you have to do."
"It is."
"I wonder. If you mean that, then you will be here every day to keep me company-and chat. For I'm not going to bother babbling to your machine no matter how smart it is."
"Lazarus, I will be not only honored but much pleased to be allowed to keep you company as long as you will let me."
"We'll see. 'When a man makes a sweeping statement, he often has mental reservations. I mean every day, Son, and all day. And you-not a deputy. Show up two hours after breakfast, say, and stay till I send you home. But any day you miss- Well, if it's so urgent you just have to miss, phone your excuses and send over a pretty girl to visit me. One who speaks Classic English but has sense enough to listen instead-as an old fool will often talk to a pretty girl who just bats her lashes at him and looks impressed. If she pleases me, I might let her stay. Or I might be so petulant that I would send her away and use that switch you promised to have reinstalled. But I won't suicide in the presence of a guest; that's rude. Understand me?"
"I think I do," Ira Weatheral answered slowly. "You'll be both Scheherazade and King Shabryar, and I'll be-no, that's not right; I am the one who has to keep it going for a thousand nights-I mean 'days'-and if I miss-but I won't!- you are free to-"
"Don't push an analogy too far," Lazarus advised. "I'm simply calling your bluff. If my maunderings are as all-fired important to you as you claim, then you'll show up and listen. You can skip once, or even twice, if the girl is pretty enough and knows how to tickle my vanity-of which I have plenty- just right. But if you skip too often, I'll know you're bored and the deal is off. I'm betting that your patience will' wear out long before any thousand days and a day have passed- whereas I do know how to be patient, for year after year if necessary; that's a prime reason I'm still alive. But you're still a youngster; I'm betting I can outsit you."
"I accept the bet. This girl-if I must be away some day- would you object if I sent one of my daughters? She's very pretty."
"Hunh? You sound like an Iskandrian slave factor auctioning his mother. Why your daughter? I don't want to marry her, nor even to bed her; I simply want to be amused and flattered. Who told you she was pretty? If she really is your' daughter, she probably looks like you."
"Come off it, Lazarus; you can't annoy me that easily. I admit to a father's prejudice but I've seen the effect she has on others. She is quite young, less than eighty, and has been contractually married only once. But you specified a pretty girl who speaks your milk language. Scarce. But this one of my daughters shares my talent for languages and is much excited by your presence here-wants to meet you. I can stall off emergencies long enough for her to become letter-perfect in your language."
Lazarus grinned and shrugged. "Suit yourself. Tell her not to bother with a chastity girdle; I don't have the energy. But I'll still win the bet. Probably without laying eyes on her; it won't take you long to decide that I am an unbearable old bore. Which I am and have been almost as long as the Wandering Jew-a crashing bore if I ever met one-did I tell you I had met him?"
"No. And I don't believe you have. He's a myth."
"A fat lot you know about it, Son. I have met him, he is authentic. Fought the Romans in 70 A.D. when Jerusalem was sacked. Fought in every Crusade-incited one of them. Redheaded of course; all of the natural long-lifers bear the mark of Gilgamesh. When I met him he was using the name Sandy Macdougal, that being a better handle for the time and placc for his current trade, which was the long con, with a variant on the badger game.* (* While this passage bears inner contradictions, the idioms are authentic for North America of the twentieth century. They name certain types of financial dishonesty. See "Swindles" under "Fraud" in Krishnamurti's New Golden Bough, Academe Press, New Rome. J.F. 45th) The latter involved- Look, Ira, if you don't believe my stories, why are you going to so much trouble to get them on record?"
"Lazarus, if you think you can bore me to death-correction: to your death-why are you bothering to invent fictions to entertain me? Whatever your reasons, I'll listen as carefully-and as long-as King Shabryar. As may be, my master computer is recording whatever you choose to say-without editing; I guaranteed that-but it has incorporated into it a most subtle truth analyzer quite capable of earmarking any fictions you include. Not that I care about historicity as long as you will talk ... as it is clear to me that you automatically include your evaluations-those 'gems of wisdom'-no matter what you say."
"'Gems of wisdom.' Youngster, use that expression once more and you'll stay after school and clean the blackboards. That computer of yours- Better instruct it that my most outlandish tales are the ones most likely to be true-as that is the literal truth. No storyteller has ever been able to dream up anything as fantastically unlikely as what really does happen in this mad Universe."
"It knows that. But I will caution it again. You were telling me about Sandy Macdougal, the Wandering Jew."
"Was I? If so and if he was using that name, that must have been late in the twentieth century and in Vancouver, as I recall. Vancouver was a part of the United States where the people were so clever that they never paid taxes to Washington-Sandy should have operated in New York, which was outstanding in stupidity even then. I won't give details of his swindles; it might corrupt your machine. Let it suffice that Sandy used the oldest principle for separating a fool from his money: Pick a sucker who likes the best of it.
"That's all it takes, Ira. If a man is greedy, you can cheat him every time. Trouble was, Sandy Macdougal was even greedier than his marks, and it led him into the folly of excess, and often forced him to leave town while it was dark, sometimes leaving the boodle behind. Ira, when you skin a man, you have to let him recuperate and grow more hide-or he gets nervous. If you respect this simple rule, a real mark can be skinned over and over again, and it just keeps him healthy and productive. But Sandy was too greedy for that; he lacked patience."