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And how had it known that he wanted these things done? Read his mind, perhaps?
He shivered at the thought, but the fact remained that it had done absolutely nothing except bubble merrily away
until he had returned. It had done nothing, perhaps, because it did not know what to do - until he had somehow told it
what to do. For as soon as he had returned, it had found out what to do and did it.
The door chimed and he got up to answer. It was Tony.
"Hi, Unk," he said. "You forgot your pajamas and I brought them back. You left them on the bed and forgot to pack
them."
He held out a package and it wasn't until then that he saw the room.
"Unk!" he yelled. "What happened? You got the place cleaned up!"
Packer shook his head in bewilderment. "Something funny, Tony."
Tony walked in and stared around in admiration and astonishment.
"You sure did a job," he said.
"I didn't do it, Tony."
"Oh, I see. You hired someone to do it while you were up at our place."
"No, not that. It was done this morning. It was done by that!"
He pointed at the basket.
"You're crazy, Unk," said Tony, firmly. "You have flipped your thatch."
"Maybe so," said Packer. "But the basket did the work."
Tony walked around the basket warily. He reached down and punched the yellow stuff with a stuck-out finger.
"It feels like dough," he announced.
He straightened up and looked at Packer.
"You aren't kidding me?" he asked.
"I don't know what it is," said Packer. "I don't know why or how it did it, but I'm telling you the truth."
"Unk," said Tony, "we may have something here!"
"There is no doubt of that."
"No, that's not what I mean. This may be the biggest thing that ever happened. This junk, you say, will really work
for you?"
"Somehow or other," said' Packer. "I don't know how it does it. It has a sense of order and it does the work you want.
It seems to understand you - it anticipates whatever you want done. Maybe it's a brain with enormous psi powers. I
was looking at a cover the other night and I saw this yellow stamp..."
Packer told him swiftly what had happened. Tony listened thoughtfully, pulling at his chin. "Well, all right, Unk," he
said, "we've got it. We don't know what it is or how it works, but let's put our thinking into gear. Just imagine a bucket
of this stuff standing in an office - a great big, busy office. It would make for efficiency such as you never saw before.
It would file a1l the papers and keep the records straight and keep the entire business strictly up to date. There'd never
be anything ever lost again. Everything would be right where it was supposed to be and could be located in a second,
When the boss or someone else should want a certain file - bingo! it would be upon his desk. Why, an office with one
of these little buckets could get rid of all its file clerks. A public library could be run efficiently without any personnel
at all. But it would be in big business offices - in insurance firms and industrial concerns and transportation companies
- where it would be worth the most."
Packer shook his head, a bit confused. "It might be all right, Tony; it might work the way you say. But who would
believe you? Who would pay attention? It's just too fantastic. They would laugh at you."
"You leave all that to me," said Tony. "That's my end of the business. That's where I come in."
"Oh," said Packer, "so we're in business now."
"I have a friend," said Tony, who always had a friend, "who'd let me try it out. We could put a bucket of this stuff in
his office and see how it works out."
He looked around, suddenly all business.
"You got a bucket, Unk?"
"Out in the kitchen. You'd find something there."
"And beef broth. It was beef broth, wasn't it?"
Packer nodded. "I think I have a can of it."
Tony stood and scratched his head. "Now let's get this figured out, Unk. What we want is a sure source of supply."
"I have those other covers. They all have stamps on them. We could start a new batch with one of them."
Tony gestured impatiently. "No, that wouldn't' do. They are our reserves. We lock them tight away against
emergency. I have a hunch that we can grow bucket after bucket of the stuff from what we have right here. Pull off a
handful of it and feed it a shot of broth -"
"But how do you know -"
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