Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction April 1954. Extensiveresearch did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication wasrenewed.
If you ever get to drinking beer in your favoritesaloon and meet a scared little guy who wants tobuy you the joint, supply you with fur coats anddolls and run you for Congress—listen well! Thatis, if you really want the joint, the fur coats, thedolls and a seat in Congress. Just ask Mike Murphy....
Probability
By Louis Trimble
Illustration by Ed Emsh
The first time this little guycomes in I'm new on the job.He looks around as if he's scareda prohibition agent will pop out ofthe walls and bite him. Then hegets up his nerve and sidles to thebar. His voice is as thin as the restof him.
"Glass of beer."
I draw. He drinks and pays andgoes out.
That keeps on, Monday throughFriday at five-ten p.m., year in andyear out. He slips in, peers around,has his beer, and pops out. Even in'33, when we become legitimate, heacts the same way—scared of hisshadow. Except he isn't big enoughto have a shadow.
During the war, when we're rationed,I save him his daily glass.He never fails to come in exceptfor two weeks every summer whenhe's on vacation. From 1922 to1953 he drinks one daily beer.
In thirty-one years, he and Igrow older together, and after thefirst ten he talks a little so that overa period of time I manage to learnsomething about him. That firstday he'd come in, he was on hisfirst job out of college. Well, so wasI, only I went to bartending schoolto learn how to mix prohibitionliquor. But even so, it gave ussomething in common, and whenhe learned we had started life together—ashe put it—he talked alittle more.
His name is Pettis. Six monthsafter I learn that, I get his firstname. It's Rabelais, and I couldsee why he doesn't like it. But whenhe breaks down and tells me, hegets real bold and says:
"And what's yours, my maleHebe?"
"Mike Murphy."
"Naturally," he said. He laughs.It is the only time I hear himlaugh in thirty-one years. I can't seeanything funny.
He is a draftsman for those oldskinflints Cartner and Dillson.When they die, their sons take overand are even worse. In the depression,Pettis gets a little shabby buthe always has the price of a glassof beer. In '53 he's at the samedesk and doing the same job hestarted on in '22.
In '35 he gets married. He tellsme so. Tasting his beer, he says,"I'll be married this time tomorrow."I often wonder what his wifelooks like but I never see her. Noteven when it gets decent for ladiesto come in, she never shows. Marriagedoesn't seem to change him;he never looks happier or less shabbyor less browbeat.
In '42 I heard his first complaint.By then we're both getting intoour forties and, what with his lackof size and caved-in chest and myinsides all busted up from pre-WorldWar I football, the armydoesn't want us. So he nevermisses a day except on his vacation.
He says, "I can't get raw materials."About three months later,I understand what he means whenhe says, "My hobby is inventing."
In '45 I ask him, "What do youinvent?"
It takes him two years to decideto tell me. By now we are prettygood pals. He never tells anyoneelse that I know of. He says, "Iinvent machines. Super machines."
In '48 he says, "But the