Tales From Gavagan's Bar Read online

  Table of Contents

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  PREFACE

  ELEPHAS FRUMENTI

  THE ANCESTRAL AMETHYST

  HERE, PUTZI!

  MORE THAN SKIN DEEP

  BEASTS OF BOURBON

  THE GIFT OF GOD

  THE BETTER MOUSETRAP

  NO FORWARDING ADDRESS

  THE UNTIMELY TOPER

  THE EVE OF ST. JOHN

  THE LOVE NEST

  THE STONE OF THE SAGES

  CORPUS DELECTABLE

  THE PALIMPSEST OF ST. AUGUSTINE

  WHERE TO, PLEASE?

  METHOUGHT I HEARD A VOICE

  ONE MAN'S MEAT

  MY BROTHER'S KEEPER

  A DIME BRINGS YOU SUCCESS

  OH, SAY! CAN YOU SEE

  THE RAPE OF THE LOCK

  BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE

  ALL THAT GLITTERS

  GIN COMES IN BOTTLES

  THERE'D BE THOUSANDS IN IT

  THE BLACK BALL

  THE GREEN THUMB

  CAVEAT EMPTOR

  THE WEISSENBROCH SPECTACLES

  BY AND ABOUT

  TALES FROM GAVAGAN'S BAR

  (Expanded Edition)

  By

  L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt

  The Weirdest Drinking Establishment in the Universe Gavagan's Bar - presided over by Mr. Aloysius P. Cohan, bartender. Where you will meet such not-so-regular customers as: Councilman Maguire, who brought his own leprechaun with him from Ireland. Mrs. Vacarescu and her husband Putzi, the were-dachshund. Mr. Murdoch, who borrowed a very small dragon to rid his apartment of mice and lost it. and assorted witches, magicians, devils, dryads, and the occasional demigod.

  To John Drury Clark, Ph.D., a longtime friend of both authors.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  eISBN: 978-1-62579-230-3

  Copyright © 1978 by L. Sprague de Camp

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  Electronic Version by Baen Books

  http://www.baen.com

  First Printing, July 1978

  COPYRIGHTS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The copyright notices are listed below and on the following page, which constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

  "Elephas Frumenti" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for Winter-Spring 1950; copyright © 1950 by Fantasy House, Inc.

  "The Ancestral Amethyst" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for August 1952; copyright © 1952 by Fantasy House, Inc.

  "More Than Skin Deep" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for April 1951; copyright © 1951 by Fantasy House, Inc.

  "Beasts of Bourbon" was first published In The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for October 1951; copyright © 1951 by Fantasy House, Inc.

  "The Gift of God" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for Winter-Spring 1950; copyright © 1950 by Fantasy House, Inc.

  "The Better Mousetrap" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for December 1950; copyright © 1950 by Fantasy House, Inc.

  "The Untimely Toper" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for July 1953; copyright © 1953 by Fantasy House, Inc.

  "Where To, Please?" was first published in Weird Tales for September 1952; copyright © 1952 by Weird Tales, Inc.

  "Methought I Heard a Voice" was first published, as "When the Night Wind Howls," in Weird Tales for November 1951; copyright © 1951 by Weird Tales, Inc.

  "One Man's Meat" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for September 1952; copyright © 1952 by Fantasy House, Inc.

  "Oh, Say! Can You See" was first published, as "Ward of the Argonaut," in Fantastic Universe Science Fiction for January 1959; copyright © 1958 by King-Size Publications, Inc.

  "The Rape of the Lock" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for February i52; copyright © 1951 by Fantasy House, Inc.

  "Bell, Book, and Candle" was first published in Fantastic Universe Science Fiction for October 1959; copyright © 1959 by Great American Publications, Inc.

  "The Black Ball" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for October 1952; copyright © 1952 by Fantasy House, Inc.

  "The Green Thumb" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for February 1953; copyright © 1953 by Fantasy House, Inc.

  "Caveat Emptor" was first published in Weird Tales for March 1953; copyright © 1953 by Weird Tales, Inc.

  "The Weissenbroch Spectacles" was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for November 1954; copyright © 1954 by Fantasy House, Inc.

  "Here, Putzil," "The Eve of St. John," "No Forwarding Address," "The Love Nest," "The Stone of the Sages," "Corpus Delectable," "The Palimpsest of St. Augustine," "My Brother's Keeper," "A Dime Brings You Success," "All That Glitters," and "Gin Comes in Bottles" were first published in the volume Tales from Gavagan's Bar, copyright © 1953 by Twayne Publishers.

  "There'd Be Thousands In It" was published in the expanded edition, 1978.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  L. Sprague de Camp, author or coauthor of over 80 books, has written fantasy (The Tritonian Ring), science fiction (The Hostage of Zir and The Great Fetish), popularizations of science (The Ancient Engineers and Citadels of Mystery) and the biography of H. P. Lovecraft. He is now at work on the life of Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan, to whose saga he has contributed many tales. Educated at the California Institute of Technology, he has been a patent expert and served as a lieutenant-commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve before settling down to a career as a free-lance writer. He now makes his home with his wife Catherine in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

  Fletcher Pratt (1897–1956) was a connoisseur of heroic fantasy before that term was invented. He read Norse sagas in the original and greatly admired Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros. His own efforts in this genre produced The Well of the Unicorn and The Blue Star. Born on an Indian reservation, he became a prizefighter in the flyweight class before entering Hobart College in Geneva, N.Y. Early in his career he worked for Hugo Gernsback translating European science fiction novels; later, as a writer living in New York City, he collaborated with de Camp on fantasy stories and made his reputation with a popular history of the Civil War, Ordeal by Fire.

  PREFACE

  In compiling this record of certain of the somewhat dubious episodes centering around Gavagan's, we have enjoyed unusual advantages. In the first place, both of us can take shorthand. To be sure, neither of us has a degree of proficiency that would arouse envy in a court stenographer; and this makes necessary the warning that we cannot vouch for the absolute accuracy of all the quotations. But it is quite possible for either of your reporters—we reject the name of "author"—to sit at one of the back tables with a notebook concealed in his newspaper and surreptitiously set down the remarks of the various guests without any of them being aware that they are talking for posterity.

  In the second place, we were fortunate enough to have met Gavagan (rhymes with "pagan") at a comparatively early date—before the unfortunate accident that cost him the use of his left foot and compelled him to abandon his profession as a field oil geologist. He had some money to invest, and the amount was largely increased by his disability insurance. The operation of a beneficent Providence and the fact that Gavagan and Mr. Cohan were fellow parishioners of Father McConaghy led the injured scientist to put his funds into the bar that now bears his name—a business whose details he could handle by remote control, as it were, and without physical activity.

  The place was rather run-down at the time, and the clientele was chiefly drawn from the lower orders of society. Gavagan, whose taste is in the direction of the social and intellectual, indeed the refined, redecorated the place in a manner designed to appeal to the carriage trade and solicited the patronage of the better elements in town. It is doubtful whether he would have succeeded but for the influence, talents, and wise acquaintanceship of Mr. Cohan.

  This gentleman—Aloysius P. Cohan, to give him his full name and distinguish him from his brother Julius, an officer of the police force—brought with him to Gavagan's a quantity of patronage that immediately established the place in the position it has never lost. Decidedly portly these days, he was at one time a remarkably fine performer at the Irish game of hurling, and is said to have once beaten the champion of Scotland at tossing the caber. His prowess with a bung starter has relieved many difficult situations in Gavagan's. His early biography is somewhat obscure, but the name appears to have been Cohen (pronounced co-hen) at one time; he and his brother Julius changed the spelling, not for any reasons rooted in racism, but because they were constantly receiving appeals from both the Jewish and the Catholic charity organizations. Being men of heart, they found it difficult either to refuse the appeals or to support the drain on their resources.

  Mr. Cohan had been working in a bar on the far side of town (a city in the northeastern United States) when Gavagan suffered his accident. At about the same time, this place was purchased by a chain bar-and-restaurant organization, which insisted on serving ice cream in all its establishments. This so revolted Mr. Cohan (a fundamental
ist on the subject of liquor) that he resigned on the spot. He was on the point of returning to Sligo when Father McConaghy placed him in touch with Gavagan. The former geologist did not hesitate for a moment at the opportunity of simultaneously obtaining a bartender of unrivalled virtuosity and the patronage that would turn his bar into the kind of place he wished to maintain. He not only obtained the refund of his passage money for Mr. Cohan but also paid back to his new factotum the amount that had been expended on passport and visa.

  Mr. Cohan's value to Gavagan's will become more apparent in the course of our reports. The material for them has been gathered over a considerable space of time, and we believe that, taken together, they constitute a document of no small social importance. Too little investigation has been given, and too little importance has previously been attached to certain sequences of incident for which Mr. Cohan, both as a bartender and an unlettered philosopher, acts as a catalytic agent.

  L. Sprague de Camp

  Fletcher Pratt

  September 1952

  ELEPHAS FRUMENTI

  The thin, balding man in tweeds almost tipped over his glass as he set it down with a care that showed care had become necessary. "Think of dogs," he said. "Really, my dear, there is no practical limit to what can be accomplished by selective breeding."

  "Except that where I come from, we sometimes think of other things," said the brass-blonde, emphasizing the ancient New Yorker joke with a torso-wiggle that was pure Police Gazette.

  Mr. Witherwax lifted his nose from the second Martini. "Do you know them, Mr. Cohan?" he asked.

  Mr. Cohan turned in profile to swab a glass. "That would be Professor Thott, and a very educated gentleman, too. I don't rightly know the name of the lady, though I think he has been calling her Ellie, or something like that. Would you like to be meeting them, now?"

  "Sure. I was reading in a book about this selective breeding, but I don't understand it so good, and maybe he could tell me something about it."

  Mr. Cohan made his way to the end of the bar and led ponderously toward the table. "Pleased to meet you, Professor Thott," said Witherwax.

  "Sir, the pleasure is all mine, all mine. Mrs. Jonas, may I present an old friend of mine, yclept Witherwax? Old in the sense that he is aged in the admirable liquids produced by Gavagan's, while the liquids themselves are aged in wood, ha—ha—a third-premise aging. Sit down, Mr. Witherwax. I call your attention to the remarkable qualities of alcohol, among which peripeteia is not the least."

  "Yeah, that's right," said Mr. Witherwax, his expression taking on a resemblance to that of the stuffed owl over the bar. "What I was going to ask—"

  "Sir, I perceive that I have employed a pedantry more suitable to the classroom, with the result that communication has not been established. Peripeteia is the reversal of roles. While in a state of saintly sobriety, I pursue Mrs. Jonas; I entice her to alcoholic diversions. But after the third Presidente, she pursues me, in accordance with the ancient biological rule that alcohol increases feminine desire while decreasing masculine potency."

  From the bar, Mr. Cohan appeared to have caught only a part of this speech. "Rolls we ain't got," he said. "But you can have some pretzel sticks." He reached under the bar for the bowl. "All gone; and I just laid out a new box this morning. That's where Gavagan's profits go. In the old days it was the free lunch, and now it's pretzel sticks."

  "What I was going to ask—" said Witherwax.

  Professor Thott stood up and bowed, a bow which ended in his sitting down again rather suddenly. "Ah, the mystery of the universe and music of the spheres, as Prospero might have phrased it! Who pursues? Who flies? The wicked. One preserves philosophy by remaining at the Platonian mean, the knife edge between pursuit and flight, wickedness and virtue. Mr. Cohan, a round of Presidentes please, including one for my aged friend."

  "Let me buy this one," said Witherwax firmly. "What I was going to ask was about this selective breeding."

  The Professor shook himself, blinked twice, leaned back in his chair, and placed one hand on the table. "You wish me to be academic? Very well; but I have witnesses that it was at your own request."

  Mrs. Jonas said: "Now look what you've done. You've got him started and he won't run down until he falls asleep."

  "What I want to know—" began Witherwax, but Thott beamingly cut across: "I shall present only the briefest and most non-technical of outlines," he said. "Let us suppose that, of sixteen mice, you took the two largest and bred them together. Their children would in turn be mated with those of the largest pair from another group of sixteen. And so on. Given time and material enough, and making it advantageous to the species to produce larger members, it would be easy to produce mice the size of lions."

  "Ugh!" said Mrs. Jonas. "You ought to give up drinking. Your imagination gets gruesome."

  "I see," said Witherwax, 'like in a book I read once where they had rats so big they ate horses and wasps the size of dogs."

  "I recall the volume," said Thott, sipping his Presidente. "It was The Food of the Gods, by H. G. Wells. I fear, however, that the method he describes was not that of genetics and therefore had no scientific validity."

  "But could you make things like that by selective breeding?" asked Witherwax.

  "Certainly. You could produce houseflies the size of tigers. It is merely a matter of—"

  Mrs. Jonas raised a hand. "Alvin, what an awful thought. I hope you don't ever try it."

  "There need be no cause for apprehension, my dear. The square-cube law will forever protect us from such a visitation."

  "Huh?" said Witherwax.

  "The square-cube law. If you double the dimensions, you quadruple the area and octuple the masses. The result is—well, in a practical non-technical sense, a tiger-sized housefly would have legs too thin and wings too small to support his weight."

  Mrs. Jonas said: "Alvin, that's impractical. How could it move?"

  The Professor essayed another bow, which was even less successful than the first, since it was made from a sitting position. "Madame, the purpose of such an experiment would not be practical but demonstrative. A tiger-sized fly would be a mass of jelly that would have to be fed from a spoon." He raised a hand. "There is no reason why anyone should produce such a monster; and since nature has no advantages to offer insects of large size, it will decline to produce them. I agree that the thought is repulsive; myself, I should prefer the alternative project of producing elephants the size of flies—or swallows."

  Witherwax beckoned to Mr. Cohan. "These are good. Do it again. But wouldn't your square-cube law get you in Dutch there, too?"

  "By no means, sir. In the case of size reduction, it works in your favor. The mass is divided by eight, but the muscles remain proportionately the same, capable of supporting a vastly greater weight. The legs and wings of a tiny elephant would not only support him, but give him the agility of a hummingbird. Consider the dwarf elephant of Sicily during the Plish—"

  "Alvin," said Mrs. Jonas, "you're drunk. Otherwise you'd remember how to pronounce Pleistocene, and you wouldn't be talking about elephants' wings."

  "Not at all, my dear. I should confidently expect such a species to develop flight by means of enlarged ears, like the Dumbo of the movies."