The Midas Plague

both of them. “Women. Can’t live with them and can’t live without them. First you sigh and pant and chase after ’em—you like poetry?” he demanded suddenly.

Morey said cautiously, “Some poetry.”

Howland quoted: “’How long, my love, shall I behold this wall between our gardens—yours the rose, and mine the swooning lily.’ Like it? I wrote it for Jocelyn—that’s my wife—when we were first going together.”

“It’s beautiful,” said Morey.

“She wouldn’t talk to me for two days.” Howland drained his drink. “Lots of spirit, that girl. Anyway, I hunted her like a tiger. And then I caught her. Wow!”

Morey took a deep drink from his own glass. “What do you mean, wow?” he asked.

“Wow” Howland pointed his finger at Morey. “Wow, that’s what I mean. We got married and I took her home to the dive I was living in, and wow we had a kid, and wow I got in a little trouble with the Ration Board—nothing serious, of course, but there was a mixup— and wow fights.

“Everything was a fight,” he explained. “She’d start with a little nagging, and naturally I’d say something or other back, and bang we were off. Budget, budget, budget; I hope to die if I ever hear the word ‘budget’ again. Morey, you’re a married man; you know what it’s like. Tell me the truth, weren’t you just about ready to blow your top the first time you caught your wife cheating on the budget?”

“Cheating on the budget?” Morey was startled. “Cheating how?”

“Oh, lots of ways. Making your portions bigger than hers. Sneaking extra shirts for you on her clothing ration. You know.”

“Damn it, I do not know!” cried Morey. “Cherry wouldn’t do anything like that!”

Howland looked at him opaquely for a long second. “Of course not,” he said at last. “Let’s have another drink.”

Ruffled, Morey held out his glass. Cherry wasn’t the type of girl to cheat. Of course she wasn’t. A fine, loving girl like her—a pretty girl, of a good family; she wouldn’t know how to begin.

Howland was saying, in a sort of chant, “No more budget. No more fights. No more ‘Daddy never treated me like this.’ No more nagging. No more extra rations for household allowance. No more—Morey, what do you say we go out and have a few drinks? I know a place where—”

“Sorry, Howland,” Morey said. “I’ve got to get back to the office, you know.”

Howland guffawed. He held out his wristwatch. As Morey, a little unsteadily, bent over it, it tinkled out the hour. It was a matter of minutes before the office closed for the day.

“Oh,” said Morey. “I didn’t realize—Well, anyway, Howland, thanks, but I can’t. My wife will be expecting me.”

“She certainly will,” Howland sniggered. “Won’t catch her eating up your rations and hers tonight.”

Morey said tightly, “Howland!”

“Oh, sorry, sorry.” Howland waved an arm. “Don’t mean to say anything against your wife, of course. Guess maybe Jocelyn soured me on women. But honest, Morey, you’d like this place. Name of Uncle Piggotty’s, down in the Old Town. Crazy bunch hangs out there. You’d like them. Couple nights last week they had—I mean, you understand, Morey, I don’t go there as often as all that, but I just happened to drop in and—”

Morey interrupted firmly. “Thank you, Howland. Must go home. Wife expects it. Decent of you to offer. Good night. Be seeing you.”

He walked out, turned at the door to bow politely, and in turning back cracked the side of his face against the door jamb. A sort of pleasant numbness had taken possession of his entire skin surface, though, and it wasn’t until he perceived Henry chattering at him sympathetically that he noticed a trickle of blood running down the side of his face.

“Mere flesh wound,” he said with dignity. “Nothing to cause you least conshter— consternation, Henry. Now kindly shut your ugly face. Want to think.”

And he slept in the car all the way home.

It was worse than a hangover. The name is “holdover.” You’ve had some drinks; you’ve started to sober up by catching a little sleep. Then you are required to be awake and to function. The consequent state has the worst features of hangover and intoxication; your head thumps and your mouth tastes like the floor of a bear-pit, but you are nowhere near sober.

There is one cure. Morey said thickly, “Let’s have a cocktail, dear.” Cherry was delighted to share a cocktail with him before dinner. Cherry, Morey thought lovingly, was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful-He found his head nodding in time to his thoughts and the motion made him wince.

Cherry flew to his side and touched his temple. “Is it bothering you, darling?” she asked solicitously. “Where you ran into the door, I mean?”

Morey looked at her sharply, but her expression was open and adoring. He said bravely, “Just a little. Nothing to it, really.”

The butler brought the cocktails and retired. Cherry lifted her glass. Morey raised his, caught a whiff of the liquor and nearly dropped it. He bit down hard on his churning insides and forced himself to swallow.

He was surprised but grateful: It stayed down. In a moment, the curious phenomenon of warmth began to repeat itself. He swallowed the rest of the drink and held out his glass for a refill. He even tried a smile. Oddly enough, his face didn’t fall off.

One more drink did it. Morey felt happy and relaxed, but by no means drunk. They went in to dinner in fine spirits. They chatted cheerfully with each other and Henry, and Morey found time to feel sentimentally sorry for poor Howland, who couldn’t make a go of his marriage, when marriage was obviously such an easy relationship, so beneficial to both sides, so warm and relaxing…

Startled, he said, “What?”

Cherry repeated, “It’s the cleverest scheme I ever heard of. Such a funny little man, dear. All kind of nervous, if you know what I mean. He kept looking at the door as if he was expecting someone, but of course that was silly. None of his friends would have come to our house to see him.”

Morey said tensely, “Cherry, please! What was that you said about ration stamps?”

“But I told you, darling! It was just after you left this morning. This funny little man came to the door; the butler said he wouldn’t give any name. Anyway, I talked to him. I thought he might be a neighbor and I certainly would never be rude to any neighbor who might come to call, even if the neighborhood was—”

“The ration stamps!” Morey begged. “Did I hear you say he was peddling phony ration stamps?”

Cherry said uncertainly, “Well, I suppose that in a way they’re phony. The way he explained it, they weren’t the regular official kind. But it was four for one, dear—four of his stamps for one of ours. So I just took out our household book and steamed off a couple of weeks’ stamps and—”

“How many?” Morey bellowed.

Cherry blinked. “About—about two weeks’ quota,” she said faintly. “Was that wrong, dear?”

Morey closed his eyes dizzily. “A couple of weeks’ stamps,” he repeated. “Four for one—you didn’t even get the regular rate.”

Cherry wailed, “How was I supposed to know? I never had anything like this when I was home! We didn’t have food riots and slums and all these horrible robots and filthy little revolting men coming to the door!”

Morey stared at her woodenly. She was crying again, but it made no impression on the case-hardened armor that was suddenly thrown around his heart.

Henry made a tentative sound that, in a human, would have been a preparatory cough, but Morey froze him with a white-eyed look.

Morey said in a dreary monotone that barely penetrated the sound of Cherry’s tears, “Let me tell you just