Short Stories by Robert A. Heinlein Vol 2 Part 80

Where's Doc?'

'Gone for the day. Don't you, really? Seems to me my nurses always wore shoes.'

'Oh yes, everybody does - but there's no law to make you.'

'Then I'll wear them. But I can't say that I like them. They feel dead, like a pair of disconnected waldoes. But I want to learn how.'

'How to wear shoes?'

'How to act like people act. It's really quite difficult,' he said seriously.

Stevens felt a sudden insight, a welling of sympathy for this man with no background and no friends. It must be odd and strange to him.

He felt an impulse to confess something which had been on his mind with respect to Waldo. 'You really are strong now, aren't you?'

Waldo grinned happily. 'Getting stronger every day. I gripped two hundred pounds this morning. And see how much fat I've worked off.'

'You're looking fit, all right. Here's a funny thing. Ever since

I first met you I've wished to high heaven that you were as strong as an ordinary man.'

'You really did? Why?'

'Well . .. I think you will admit that you used some pretty poisonous language to me, one time and another. You had me riled up all the time. I wanted you to get strong so that I could just beat the h.e.l.l out of you.'

Waldo had been walking up and down, getting used to his shoes. He stopped and faced Stevens. He seemed considerably startled. 'You mean you wanted to fist-fight me?'

'Exactly. You used language to me that a man ought not to use unless he is prepared to back it up with his fists. If you had not been an invalid I would have pasted you one, oh, any number of times.'

Waldo seemed to be struggling with a new concept. 'I think I see,' he said slowly. 'Well - all right.' On the last word he delivered a roundhouse swipe with plenty of power behind it. Stevens was not in the least expecting it; it happened to catch him on the b.u.t.ton. He went down. out cold.

When he came to he found himself in a chair. Waldo was shaking him. 'Wasn't that right?' he said anxiously.

'What did you hit me with?'

'My hand. Wasn't that right? Wasn't that what you wanted?'

'Wasn't that what I-' He still had little bright lights floating in front of his eyes, but the situation began to tickle him.

'Look here - is that your idea of the proper way to start a fight?'

'Isn't it?'

Stevens tried to explain to him the etiquette of fisticuffs, contemporary American. Waldo seemed puzzled, but finally he nodded. 'I get it. You have to give the other man warning.

All right - get up, and we'll do it over.'

'Easy, easy! Wait a minute. You never did give me a chance to finish what I was saying. I was sore at you, but I'm not any more. That is what I was trying to tell you. Oh, you were utterly poisonous; there is no doubt about that. But you couldn't help being.'

'I don't mean to be poisonous,' Waldo said seriously.

'I know you don't, and you're not. I rather like you now -now that you're strong.'

'Do you really?'

'Yes, I do. But don't practise any more of those punches on me.'

'I won't. But I didn't understand. But, do you know, Dr Stevens, it's-'

'Call inc Jim.'

'Jim. It's a very hard thing to know just what people do expect.

There is so little pattern to it. Take belching; I didn't know it was forbidden to burp when other people are around. It seems obviously necessary to me. But Uncle Gus says not.'

Stevens tried to clear up the matter for him - not too well, as he found that Waldo was almost totally lacking in any notion, even theoretical, of social conduct. Not even from fiction had he derived a concept of the intricacies of mores, as he bad read almost no fiction. He had ceased reading stories in his early boyhood, because he lacked the background of experience necessary to appreciate fiction.

He was rich, powerful, and a mechanical genius, but he still needed to go to kindergarten.

Waldo had a proposition to make. 'Jim, you've been very helpful.

You explain these things better than Uncle Gus does. I'll hire you to teach me.'

Stevens suppressed a slight feeling of pique. 'Sorry. I've got a job that keeps me busy.'

'Oh, that's all right. I'll pay you better than they do. You can name your own salary. It's a deal.'

Stevens took a deep breath and sighed. 'You don't understand. I'm an engineer and I don't hire out for personal service. You can't hire me. Oh, I'll help you all I can, but I won't take money for it.

'What's wrong with taking money?'

The question, Stevens thought, was stated wrongly. As it stood it could not be answered. He launched into a long, involved discussion of professional and business conduct. He was really not fitted for it; Waldo soon bogged down.

'I'm afraid I don't get it. But see here - could you teach me how to behave with girls ~ Uncle Gus says he doesn't dare take me out in company.

'Well, I'll try. I'll certainly try. But, Waldo, I came over to see you about some of the problems we're running into at the plant. About this theory of the two s.p.a.ces that you were telling me about-'

'It's not theory; it's fact.'

'All right. What I want to know is this: When do you expect to go back to Freehold and resume research? We need some help.'

'Go back to Freehold? I haven't any idea. I don't intend to resume research.'

'You don't? But, my heavens, you haven't finished half the investigations you outlined to me.'

'You fellows can do 'em. I'll help out with suggestions, of course.'

'Well - maybe we could interest Gramps Schneider,' Stevens said doubtfully.