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 fountain decorated with fresh fruits and bottles of stuff which would catch the eye and I was always thinking up new drinks with fancy names, even naming some of 'em after particularly good customers, which, of course, tickled 'em. I tried to sell the world the idea that it was thirsty and that the stuff I had on tap was the kitten's vest when it come to quenching. But when I left, the mob from the prep school stopped coming in, because Ajariah wouldn't go out of his way to hold their trade. He liked to be what he calls "independent." About the only time you can be independent and be in business too is if you got maybe the only fire extinguisher to sell there is in Hades!

Ajariah's biggest mistake was looking on his soda fountain as being about the same kind of a accommodation for his customers as keeping postage stamps. Before he realized that the fountain was his biggest money maker, he had killed it dead.

Well, in a few minutes, Ajariah is offering me my old job back at fourteen fish a week—two dollars more than I got before. I told him I was now "Six-Second Smith," the welterweight, and my soda-jerking days was over, but I'd see if I couldn't figure something to help him. I should of been off Ajariah for life, as far as that part of it goes, because he was always riding me when I worked for him and he fired me without a second's notice. But Ajariah's a old man and he's up against it, so why should I rub it in?

I'm sitting there thinking just what would build Ajariah's trade up again, when all of a sudden a idea hits me smack between the eyes. Ajariah's droning