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why everybody raised hell while he was romping all over Willy s piano. The cats, mean
used to sit on top of the finch cage and let the birds pick fur for their nests in mating tim
It became time for the Chicago convention, to the best of my recollection the firs
the big ones. With some careful eyeballing of the calendar, some trouble developed w
some relays that a few of the Chicago manufacturing companies were making, and I h
go to Chicago to iron out the wrinkles. So Willy and I decided to share a room; I left on
Wednesday morning; he was to join me on Saturday and, without standing in the line, m
me at the room.
Okay, so I got to Chicago on Wednesday, went to one of the relay fellows, got th
main problem settled, and then registered, according to my reservation, at the Morriso
Hotel, where the Chicago group had rented the Terrace Gardens for their meeting plac
This is about 8:00 in the evening. I m registered. The bellhop grabs my bag, wav
the key, starts across the lobby floor, and then pauses, looking at the key.
 Pardon me, Mr. Smith. I think there s a screw-up on this. Let me check.
He disappears, leaving me in the middle of the lobby with my bag. He returned a
fifteen minutes later, and explained that he had been right, the room I d been assigned
hadn t been vacated. But, says he, cheerfully, there is a nice room high up in the tower
if I don t mind, hasn t been cleaned yet. But, he says with equal cheer, this inconvenien
small, and it s all caused by a big convention that starts on the weekend, and you ll be
above all that noise and confusion.
Frankly, I wanted to be where the action was. But well, the hotel had a sort of 
door in which you could put things to be cleaned and have them back there in the mor
The bellhop is explaining this all to me in a loud voice when the door on the opposite s
the hall opened and a well-remembered voice said,  It sounds like George O. Smith, a
is George O. Smith. Behind Robert Bloch follows Bob Tucker, Bea Mahaffey, and a c
of other early arrivers.
It turned out that the bellhop was a science fiction fan, who had taken on the job
bellhop to be with the convention, and he was seeing to it, when he could, to put all the
on the same floor.
One more incident about the Chicago convention. The  Little Men s Chowder,
Marching, and Science Fiction Society was plumping for the next year s convention an
show that they could do it, had hired the grand ballroom of the Morrison for the after-ba
masquerade ball, all by themselves. The banquet speaker was Hugo Gernsback, who
proud of explaining to all that he had invented everything that Edison hadn t. Now, that
thing is a bit oddball; technically, the ancient Greeks invented radar because one of the
theories about eyesight was that something in the eye sent out something that reflecte
the sights to be seen, and returned to the eye with the information. Now, that s radar
omitting a few of the minor details and all of the major details.
So I left, and went to see what the Little Men were doing. They were working like
mad, decorating the ballroom. As I walked in, one of them (and if I remembered his na
this late date, I d mention him) came out and greeted me with the attitude of a returned
long-lost relative.  Boy, George, am I glad to see you!
 For what?
 Well, you see, we don t know how much alcohol to add to the pineapple juice to
make a good punch.
 Alcohol ? Pineapple juice ?
He went into the kitchen and returns with a one-liter bomb, carefully sealed, of
Absolute Alcohol. The label was scientifical:  Ehtanol, Absolute, it said in large capita
letters, and below in smaller:  CH
CH2OH, 100% and below that a list of impurities starting
2
with sulphuric acid, silver nitrate, sodium chloride, and so on, all of them tabulated in th
neighborhood of  0.00X% and at the bottom,  Water: Trace.
 Urn, says I,  where did you get this stuff?
 Oh, we liberated about fifteen liters of it from the university.
Fifteen liters. For you who live in the past, that s somewhat better than fifteen qua
Liberated. Then drove it across six or seven state lines and into Chicago, where they w
going to serve it to their guests, in the grand ballroom of the Hotel Morrison in the Loop
Now and then we hear of someone bragging that he could take the pure quill. Do
believe him. Absolute is 100% alcohol, equal to 200 proof. Alcohol can t be distilled b
about 95%, or 190 proof; to get the rest remaining, the process takes a bit of chemistr
which the water is dissolved with sulphuric acid, then the solute is treated to an insolub
salt, which is treated and filtered and so forth, which is why that list of  0.00X% impuri
Even to claim drinking 190 proof is a wild brag; it would burn the tongue and throat and
whole intake system on the first swallow, and the chances of the victim taking the seco
swallow (of anything!) vary from unlikely to never. There are liquors in the eastern part
Europe that run to 140 proof (70%), and one can toss off a shot provided one smothe
fire with cold water as a chaser.
After some thinking, I replied,  Now, the better vodkas run 100 proof, so mix one
of the stuff with one liter of water and you have 100 proof Vodka. Drown it with five par
more of water, and you have a stiff vodka highball. Drown the 100 proof with about ten
of juice and you ll start a drinking party that will end up with all of us flat on the floor by
midnight.
Ultimately, they mixed it about twenty to 1; that would be forty parts of juice again
one part of absolute, and everybody had a high old time. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]