Tales From Gavagan's Bar by L. Sprague de Camp, Fletcher Pratt Read Free Book Online Page B

agreement not to get along together. Everything he tried went wrong somehow. Not in a spectacular way, but a little off the beam, so he was always being disappointed.
     
                  He travelled in toys. It will give you an idea of what I mean about the disappointments, when I tell you that although he was good at it and made plenty of money, he didn't like the life, rushing around and meeting people and going to conventions. He liked to stay home and read—a lot of things like astrology and Oriental lore. The part of the toy business that really interested him was designing toy animals —woolly pandas that would walk, and so on. But there isn't much of a full-time job in designing, so they'd only let him do it a week or so at a time, and then send him out on the road again.
     
                  He was always falling in love, too; not that he was a woman-chaser. He'd get into real deep, off-the-end-of-the-dock love with some girl, who always turned him down in the end. You've heard of people being hard r boiled? Well, I would say Campbell Van Nest was too soft-boiled. It broke him all up when one of these girls said no; and because it was the way he learned to do things from other salesmen, he'd go off on a two-day binge.
     
                  As near as I can make out, this business started with a day when everything went wrong at once. Van's latest girl threw him down; somebody got into his car and stole all the accessories; and a store to which he had made a big sale went broke, so he lost the commission. He went off on a bender that made the rest of them look like tea parties. It lasted three days; and the worst of it was that it wasn't public, either. He just kept buying bottle after bottle of whiskey and sat there in his room, loading up on it and reading these Oriental books. His landlady called me up on the third day; and I went up there and found the place a shambles, with bottles and books mixed up together all over the floor.
     
                  I got him into bed and picked up some of the things, and while I was doing it I noticed that Van hadn't been merely reading while he was on this particular hoot. The place was filled with papers on which he had apparently been sketching designs for new animal toys, and some of them would nearly turn your stomach to see.
     
                  [Mr. Gross said: "Just like my cousin Louie, the time he stole all them ants." Willison gave him a glance of withering firmness and went on.]
     
                  That was all I could do at the time, so I left. The next part of the story comes from Van himself. When he came to, about noon the next day, this thing was sitting on the foot of his bed. I only got a glance at it later, but it looked like some kind of monkey, only bigger, with eyes like saucers and enormously long fingers. I don't know whether it resembled any of the designs Van had made while he was pie-eyed or not. It had what you might call an evil expression.
     
    # ★ #
     
                  A stocky pug-nosed man with glasses, who had been consulting a Daiquiri, spoke up: "I think that would be the spectral tarsier."
     
                  "Yes?" said Willison, facing him. "Are they blue?"
     
                  "I know of one that was," said the stocky man. "But that . . . Sorr y to interrupt your story, old man. There may be a connection. Go on."
     
    # ★ #
     
                  Van had never had d.t.'s before [Willison continued], and his first idea was that this was something that had escaped from a zoo. But with his hangover and all, he didn't like the idea of trying to capture it. An animal like that can give you a nasty bite. So he got himself a Bromo-Seltzer and some clothes, figuring that when he was outside, he'd call up the zoo or the S.P.C.A. and have it taken away. This spectral what-is-it just sat there quietly on the foot of the bed, following