The Big Front Yard by Clifford Simak

Author:Clifford Simak [Simak, Clifford]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-12-30T10:14:41+00:00

Hours later Henry Horton showed up. He was accompanied by a very urbane gentleman, who was faultlessly turned out and who carried beneath his arm an impressive attache case.

Henry and the man stopped on the steps in sheer astonishment.

Taine was squatted on the ground with a length of board and he was daubing paint on it while the aliens watched. From the daubs here and there upon their anatomies, it was plain to see the aliens had been doing some daubing of their own. Spread all over the ground were other lengths of half-painted boards and a couple of dozen old cans of paint.

Taine looked up and saw Henry and the man.

“I was hoping,” he said, “that someone would show up.”

“Hiram,” said Henry, with more importance than usual, “may I present Mr. Lancaster. He is a special representative of the United Nations.”

“I’m glad to meet you, sir,” said Taine. “I wonder if you would—”

“Mr. Lancaster,” Henry explained grandly, “was having some slight difficulty getting through the lines outside, so I volunteered my services. I’ve already explained to him our joint interest in this matter.”

“It was very kind of Mr. Horton,” Lancaster said. “There was this stupid sergeant—”

“It’s all in knowing,” Henry said, “how to handle people.”

The remark, Taine noticed, was not appreciated by the man from the U.N.

“May I inquire, Mr. Taine,” asked Lancaster, “exactly what you’re doing?”

“I’m dickering,” said Taine.

“Dickering. What a quaint way of expressing—”

“An old Yankee word,” said Henry quickly, “with certain connotations of its own. When you trade with someone you are exchanging goods, but if you’re dickering with him you’re out to get his hide.”

“Interesting,” said Lancaster. “And I suppose you’re out to skin these gentlemen in the sky-blue vests—”

“Hiram,” said Henry, proudly, “is the sharpest dickerer in these parts. He runs an antique business and he has to dicker hard—”

“And may I ask,” said Lancaster, ignoring Henry finally, “what you might be doing with these cans of paint? Are these gentlemen potential customers for paint or—”

Taine threw down the board and rose angrily to his feet.

“If you’d both shut up!” he shouted. “I’ve been trying to say something ever since you got here and I can’t get in a word. And I tell you, it’s important—”

“Hiram!” Henry exclaimed in horror.

“It’s quite all right,” said the U.N. man. ‘We have been jabbering. And now, Mr. Taine?“

“I’m backed into a corner,” Taine told him, “and I need some help. I’ve sold these fellows on the idea of paint, but I don’t know a thing about it—the principle back of it or how it’s made or what goes into it or-”

“But, Mr. Taine, if you’re selling them the paint, what difference does it make—”

“I’m not selling them the paint,” yelled Taine. “Can’t you understand that? They don’t want the paint. They want the idea of paint, the principle of paint. It’s something that they never thought of and they’re interested. I offered them the paint idea for the idea of their saddles and I’ve almost got it—”

“Saddles? You mean those things over there, hanging in the air?”

“That is right.

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