“And so, good luck to everyone in the world. May one of you succeed in opening my vault—although I doubt it. Samuel B. Chipfellow. P.S. The thought-throwing shall begin one week after the reading of the will. I add this as a precaution to keep everyone from rushing to the vault after this will is read. You might kill each other in the stampede. S. B. C.”
There was a rush regardless. Reporters knocked each other down getting to the battery of phones set up to carry the news around the world. And Sam Chipfellow’s will pushed all else off the video screens and the front pages.
During the following weeks, millions were made through the sale of Chipfellow’s thought to the gullible. Great commercial activity began in the area surrounding the estate as arrangements were made to accommodate the hundreds of thousands who were heading in that direction.
A line began forming immediately at the gate to Chipfellow’s Folly and a brisk market got under way in positions therein. The going figure of the first hundred positions was in the neighborhood of ten thousand dollars. A man three thousand thoughts away was offered a thousand dollars two days before the week was up, and on the last day, the woman at the head of the line sold her position for eighteen thousand dollars.
There were many learned roundtables and discussions as to the nature of Chipfellow’s thought. The majority leaned to the belief that it would be scientific in nature because Chipfellow was the world’s greatest scientist.
This appeared to give scientifically trained brains the edge and those fortunate in this respect spent long hours learning what they could of Chipfellow’s life, trying to divine his performance in the realm of thought.
So intense was the interest created that scarcely anyone paid attention to the activities of Chipfellow’s closer relatives. They sued to break the will but met with defeat. The verdict was rendered speedily, after which the judge who made the ruling declared a recess and bought the eleven thousandth position in line for five hundred dollars.
On the morning of the appointed day, the gates were opened and the line moved toward the vault. The first man took his seat on the bench. A stopwatch clicked. A great silence settled over the watchers. This lasted for thirty seconds after which the watch clicked again. The man got up from the bench eighteen thousand dollars poorer.
The vault had not opened.
Nor did it open the next day, the next, nor the next. A week passed, a month, six months. And at the end of that time it was estimated that more than twenty-five thousand people had tried their luck and failed.
Each failure was greeted with a public sigh of relief—relief from both those who were waiting for a turn and those who were getting rich from the commercial enterprises abutting upon the Chipfellow estate.
There was a motel, a hotel, a few night clubs, a lot of restaurants, a hastily constructed bus terminal, an airport and several turned into parking lots at a dollar a head.
The line was a permanent thing and it was soon necessary to build a cement walk because the ever-present hopeful were standing in a ditch a foot deep.
There also continued to be an active business in positions, a group of professional standers having sprung up, each with an assistant to bring food and coffee and keep track of the ever fluctuating market in positions.
And still no one opened Chipfellow’s vault.
It was conceded that the big endowment funds had the inside track because they had the money to hire the best brains in the world; men who were almost as able scientifically as had been Chipfellow himself but unfortunately hadn’t made as much money. The monied interests also had access to the robot calculators that turned out far more plausible thoughts than there were positions in the line.
A year passed. The vault remained locked.
By that time the number of those who had tried and failed, and were naturally disgruntled, was large enough to be heard, so a rumor got about that the whole thing was a vast hoax—a mean joke perpetrated upon the helpless public by a lousy old crook who hadn’t any money in the first place.
Vituperative editorials were written—by editors who had stood in line and thrown futile thoughts at the great door. These editorials were vigorously rebutted by editors and columnists who as yet had not had a chance to try for the jackpot.
One senator, who had tried and missed, introduced a law making it illegal to sit on a stone bench and hurl a thought at a door.
There were enough congressional failures to pass the law. It went to the Supreme Court, but was tossed out because they said you couldn’t pass a law prohibiting a man from thinking.
And still the vault remained closed.
Until Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, farm people impoverished by reverses, spent their last ten dollars for two thoughts and waited out the hours and the days in line. Their daughter Susan, aged nine, waited with them, passing the time by telling her doll fairy tales and wondering what the world looked like to a bird flying high up over a tree top. Susan was glad when her mother and father reached the bench because then they all could go home and see how her pet rabbit was doing.
Mr. Wilson hurled his thought and moved on with drooping shoulders. Mrs. Wilson threw hers and was told to leave the bench. The guard looked at Susan. “Your turn,” he said.
“But I haven’t got any thought,” Susan said. “I just want to go home.”
This made no sense to the guard. The line was being held up. People were grumbling. The guard said, “All right, but that was silly. You could have sold your position for good money. Run along with your mother and father.”
Susan started away. Then she looked at the vault which certainly resembled a mausoleum and said, “Wait—I have too got a little thought,” and she popped onto the bench.
The guard frowned and snapped his stop watch.
Susan screwed her eyes tight shut. She tried to see an angel with big white wings like she sometimes saw in her dreams and she also tried to visualize a white-haired, jolly-faced little man as she considered Mr. Chipfellow to be. Her lips moved soundlessly as she said,
Dear God and all the angels—please have pity on poor Mr. Chipfellow for dying and please make him happy in heaven.
Then Susan got off the bench quickly to run after her mother and father who had not waited.
There was the sound of metal grinding upon metal and the great door was swinging open.
THE GREEN BERET
by Tom Purdom
It’s not so much the decisions a man does make that mark him as a Man—but the ones he refrains from making. Like the decision “I’ve had enough!”
Read locked the door and drew his pistol. Sergeant Rashid handed Premier Umluana the warrant.
“We’re from the UN Inspector Corps,” Sergeant Rashid said. “I’m very sorry, but we have to arrest you and bring you in for trial by the World Court.”
If Umluana noticed Read’s gun, he didn’t show it. He read the warrant carefully. When he finished, he said something in Dutch.
“I don’t know your language,” Rashid said.
“Then I’ll speak English.” Umluana was a small man with wrinkled brow, glasses and a mustache. His skin was a shade lighter than Read’s. “The Inspector General doesn’t have the power to arrest a head of state— especially the Premier of Belderkan. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must return to my party.”
In the other room people laughed and talked. Glasses clinked in the late afternoon. Read knew two armed men stood just outside the door. “If you leave, Premier, I’ll have to shoot you.”
“I don’t think so,” Umluana said. “No, if you kill me, all Africa will rise against the world. You don’t want me
