By CHARLES F. MYERS
Marc Pillsworth decided he needed a
vacation—so he went on a trip. But where
Marc went, Toffee followed—with trouble.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic Adventures July 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Glumly, situated in sandy discomfort, Marc Pillsworth watched asanother blustering wave tripped, fell flat on its watery face, andembarrassedly dissolved into a foolish fringe of giggling froth. Itwas the sameness of the thing that was getting him down, the businessof being constantly sold short on a promise of something interesting.He rolled carefully over, onto his stomach, which had, by now, becomea bloody shade of vermillion, and transferred the sunny torture to hisback, which had only reached a color, approximately that of tomatosoup. Taken either way, front or back, and considering his brightyellow trunks, he was, as the biographers always say, a pretty colorfulcitizen. Also, as the biographers never say, he was a pretty dejectedone.
With one slender finger he traced a circle in the gritty surfacebefore him, then jabbed viciously into its center. There was somethingfrightening, deliberate in the action, especially when it was knownthat, to Marc, the circle represented the eye of a rascally unknownwriter of magazine articles. It seemed only a matter of time before heentered into the refreshing pastime of sticking pins into wax effigies.He didn't really wish the fellow any harm; only that he'd break histreacherous neck by next Saturday at the latest.
Marc was certain that on the eve of his last earthly day he would beable to point an enfeebled finger squarely at the present day and thethree preceding it, and assuredly say, "That was the darkest periodof my life." He didn't know which magazine article had planted thehideous idea of separate vacations in Julie's golden head, but hehad already sworn violence, bloodshed, and even sudden death to itsauthor if ever he found out. That a man should spend two weeks in abeach house without his wife was plainly, to him, a new and outstandinghigh in sheerest idiocy. He was only surprised that in a country sonearly glutted with legislation of all descriptions, there should be nolaws to protect an unwary husband against the published oozings of soloathsomely promiscuous a mind as would endorse, and even encourage,the diabolical arrangement of separate vacations.
Ennui was setting in like a sort of spiritual rigor mortis. The firstday, he had golfed and gotten sunburned, the second, he had ridden andgotten sunburned, and the third, he had fished and gotten sunburned.Now, in desperation, he was reducing the whole tortuous process to itsprimary element, and simply getting roasted to a flaming crisp with aslittle exertion as possible.
With eyes that were as optimistic as a slab in the morgue, he gazedup the face of the cliff, beyond the highway running along its edge,and to the beach house on the hill at the other side. It was just ashe had supposed. There was no car out front ... no jaunty blueconvertible ... and more to the point, no Julie. She hadn't changed hermind. He didn't know why he should think she would. It would serve herright, he thought spitefully, if Toffee chose this precise time to makea new entrance into his life.
He folded his hands before him and muzzled his chin into their hollow.He'd been too busy to give Toffee much thought lately, but now thatshe'd slipped into his consciousness, he found that he recalled herwith curiously mixed feelings. Pleasure finally proved to be thestrongest, however, and he began to smile for the first time