The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Big Bounce, by Walter S. Tevis,
Illustrated by Johnson

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Title: The Big Bounce

Author: Walter S. Tevis

Release Date: October 23, 2007 [eBook #23153]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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THE BIG BOUNCE

by

WALTER S. TEVIS

_Seeing it in action, anybody would quaver in
alarm: What hath Farnsworth overwrought?_

Illustrated by Johnson

"Let me show you something," Farnsworth said. He set his near-empty
drink--a Bacardi martini--on the mantel and waddled out of the room
toward the basement.

I sat in my big leather chair, feeling very peaceful with the world,
watching the fire. Whatever Farnsworth would have to show to-night
would be far more entertaining than watching T.V.--my custom on other
evenings. Farnsworth, with his four labs in the house and his very
tricky mind, never failed to provide my best night of the week.

When he returned, after a moment, he had with him a small box, about
three inches square. He held this carefully in one hand and stood by
the fireplace dramatically--or as dramatically as a very small, very
fat man with pink cheeks can stand by a fireplace of the sort that
seems to demand a big man with tweeds, pipe and, perhaps, a saber
wound.

Anyway, he held the box dramatically and he said, "Last week, I was
playing around in the chem lab, trying to make a new kind of rubber
eraser. Did quite well with the other drafting equipment, you know,
especially the dimensional curve and the photosensitive ink. Well, I
approached the job by trying for a material that would absorb graphite
without abrading paper."

I was a little disappointed with thi