"It's not worth a thousand, Eb."

"I know it's not. Fellow says, 'Give them more than they're worth. Don't worry about what you give them. We'll make it right with you. It doesn't exactly seem the smart way to do business, come to think about it, but if that's the way they want to operate I won't say a word against it."

"I'd have to think about it."

"That would leave five hundred for you to pay. And I can make it easy on you. Fellow said I should make it easy. Says they aren't so much interested in the money right now as getting a few of them Forever cars out, running on the road."

"I don't like the sound of it," protested Vickers. "Here this company springs up over night with no announcement at all with a brand new car. You'd think there would have been something in the papers about it. If I were putting out a new car, I'd plaster the country with advertising… big ads in the newspapers, announcements on television, billboards every mile or so."

"Well, you know," said Eb, "I thought of that one, too. I said, look, you fellows want me to sell this car and how am I going to sell it when you aren't advertising it? How am I going to sell it when no one knows about it? And he said that they figured the car was so good everyone would up and tell everybody else. Said there isn't any advertising that can beat word of mouth. Said they'd rather save the money they put in advertising and cut down the cost of the car. Said there was no reason to make the consumer pay for the cost of an advertising campaign."

"I can't understand it."

"It does sort of hit you that way," Eb admitted. "This gang that's putting out the Forever car isn't losing any money on it, you can bet your boots on that. Be crazy if they did. And if they aren't losing any money at it, can you imagine what the rest of them companies have been making all these years, two or three thousand for a pile of junk that falls apart second time you take it out? Makes you shiver to think of the money they been making, don't it?"

"When you get the cars in," said Vickers, "I'll be down to take a look at them. We might make a deal, at that."

"Sure," said Eb. "Be sure to do that. You say you was going to the city?"

Vickers nodded.

"Be a bus along any minute now," said Eb. "Catch it down at the drugstore corner. Get you there in a couple of hours. Those fellows really wheel it."

"I guess I could take a bus. I never thought of it."

"I'm sorry about the car," said Eb. "If I'd known you was going to use it, I'd have fixed her up. Not much wrong with it. But I wanted to see what you thought about this other deal before I run you up a bill."

The drugstore corner looked somehow unfamiliar and Vickers puzzled about it as he walked down the Street toward it. Then, when he got closer, he saw what it was that was unfamiliar.

Several weeks ago old Hans, the shoe repairman, had taken to his bed and died and the shoe repair shop, which had stood next to the drugstore for almost uncounted years, finally had been closed.

Now it was open again — or, at least, the display window had been washed, something which old Hans had never bothered to do in all his years, and there was a display of some sort. And there was a sign. Vickers had been so intent on figuring out what was wrong with the window that he did not see the sign until he was almost even with the store. The sign was new and neatly lettered and it said GADGET SHOP.

Vickers stopped before the window and looked at what was inside. A layer of black velvet had been laid along the display strip and arranged upon it were three items — a cigarette lighter, a razor blade and a single light bulb. Nothing else.

Just those three items. There were no signs, no advertising, no prices. There was no need of any. Anyone who saw that window, Vickers knew, would recognize the items, although the store would not sell only those. There would be a couple of dozen others, each of them in its own way as distinguished and efficient as the three lying on the strip of velvet.

There was a tapping sound along the walk and Vickers turned when it came close to him. It was his neighbor, Horton Flanders, out for his morning walk, with his slightly shabby, carefully brushed clothes and his smart malacca cane. No one else, Vickers told himself, would have the temerity to carry a cane along the streets of Cliffwood.

Mr. Flanders saluted him with the cane and moved in to stand beside him and stare at the window.

"So they're branching out," he said.

"Apparently," Vickers agreed.

"Most peculiar outfit," said Mr. Flanders. "You may know, although I presume you don't, that I have been most interested in this company. Just a matter of curiosity, you understand. I am curious, I might add, about many different things."

"I hadn't noticed." Vickers said.

"Oh, my, yes," said Mr. Flanders. "About so many things. About the carbohydrates, for instance. Most intriguing setup, don't you think so, Mr. Vickers?"

"I hadn't given it much thought. I have been so busy that I'm afraid…"

"There's something going on," said Mr. Flanders. "I tell you that there is."

The bus came down the street, passed them and braked to a stop at the drugstore corner.

"I'm afraid I shall have to leave you, Mr. Flanders," Vickers said. "I'm going to the city. If I'm back tonight, why don't you drop over."

"Oh, I will," Mr. Flanders told him. "I nearly always do."

CHAPTER FOUR

IT had been the blade at first, the razor blade that would not wear out. And after that the lighter that never failed to light, that required no flints and never needed filling. Then the light bulb that would burn forever if it met no accident. Now it was the Forever car.

Somewhere in there, too, would be the synthetic carbohydrates.

There is something going on, Mr. Flanders had said to him, standing there in front of old Hans' shop.

Vickers sat in his seat next to the window, well back in bus, and tried to sort it out in his mind.

There was a tie-up somewhere — razor blades, lighters, light bulbs, synthetic carbohydrates and now the Forever car. Somewhere there must be a common denominator to explain why it should be these five items and not five other things, say roller curtains and pogo sticks and yo-yos and airplanes and toothpaste. Razor blades shaved a man and light bulbs lit his way and a cigarette lighter would light a cigarette and the synthetic carbohydrates had ironed out at least one international crisis and had saved some millions of people from starvation or war.

There is something going on, Flanders had said, standing there in neat, but shabby clothes and with that ridiculous stick clutched in his fist, although, come to think of it, it was not ridiculous when Mr. Flanders held it.

The Forever car would run forever and it used no oil and when you died you willed it to your son and when he died he willed it to his son and if your great-great-grandfather bought one of the cars and you were the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son you would have it, too. One car would outlast many generations.

But it would do more than that. It would close every automotive plant in a year or so; it would shut down most of the garages and repair shops; it would be a blow to the steel industry and the glass industry and the fabric makers and perhaps a dozen other industries as well.

The razor blade hadn't seemed important, nor the light bulb, nor the lighter, but now they suddenly all were. Thousands of men would lose their jobs and they would come home and face the family and say: "Well, this is it. After all these years I haven't got a job."

The family would go about their everyday affairs in tight and terrible silence, with a queer air of dread hanging over them, and the man would buy all the newspapers and study the want ad columns, then go out and walk the streets and men in little cages or at desks in the outer offices would shake their heads at him.