The Servant Problem

The Servant Problem, by Robert
F. Young

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Title: The Servant Problem
Author: Robert F. Young
Release Date: October 29, 2007 [EBook #23232]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration]
The Servant Problem

Selling a whole town, and doing it inconspicuously, can be a little
difficult ... either giving it away freely, or in a more normal sense of
"selling". People don't quite believe it....
by Robert J. Young
Illustrated by Schoenherr
[Illustration]
If you have ever lived in a small town, you have seen Francis Pfleuger,
and probably you have sent him after sky-hooks, left-handed
monkey-wrenches and pails of steam, and laughed uproariously behind
his back when he set forth to do your bidding. The Francis Pfleugers of
the world have inspired both fun and laughter for generations out of
mind.
The Francis Pfleuger we are concerned with here lived in a small town
named Valleyview, and in addition to suffering the distinction of being
the village idiot, he also suffered the distinction of being the village
inventor. These two distinctions frequently go hand in hand, and afford,
in their incongruous togetherness, an even greater inspiration for fun
and laughter. For in this advanced age of streamlined electric can
openers and sleek pop-up toasters, who but the most naïve among us
can fail to be titillated by the thought of a buck-toothed, wall-eyed
moron building Rube Goldberg contrivances in his basement?
The Francis Pfleuger we are concerned with did his inventing in his
kitchen rather than in his basement; nevertheless, his machines were in
the Rube Goldberg tradition. Take the one he was assembling now, for
example. It stood on the kitchen table, and its various attachments
jutted this way and that with no apparent rhyme or reason. In its center
there was a transparent globe that looked like an upside-down goldfish
bowl, and in the center of the bowl there was an object that startlingly
resembled a goldfish, but which, of course, was nothing of the sort.
Whatever it was, though, it kept growing brighter and brighter each
time Francis added another attachment, and had already attained a
degree of incandescence so intense that he had been forced to don

cobalt-blue goggles in order to look at it. The date was the First of
April, 1962--April Fool's Day.
Actually, the idea for this particular machine had not originated in
Francis' brain, nor had the parts for it originated in his
kitchen-workshop. When he had gone out to get the milk that morning
he had found a box on his doorstep, and in the box he had found the
goldfish bowl and the attachments, plus a sheet of instructions entitled,
DIRECTIONS FOR ASSEMBLING A MULTIPLE MÖBIUS-KNOT
DYNAMO. Francis thought that a machine capable of tying knots
would be pretty keen, and he had carried the box into the kitchen and
set to work forthwith.
He now had but one more part to go, and he proceeded to screw it into
place. Then he stepped back to admire his handiwork. Simultaneously
his handiwork went into action. The attachments began to quiver and to
emit sparks; the globe glowed, and the goldfishlike object in its center
began to dart this way and that as though striking at flies. A blue halo
formed above the machine and began to rotate. Faster and faster it
rotated, till finally its gaseous components separated and flew off in a
hundred different directions. Three things happened then in swift
succession: Francis' back doorway took on a bluish cast, the sheet of
instructions vanished, and the machine began to melt.
A moment later he heard a whining sound on his back doorstep.
Simultaneously all of the residents of Valleyview heard whining
sounds on their back doorsteps.
Naturally everybody went to find out about the whining.
* * * * *
The sign was a new one. At the most it was no more than six months
old. YOU ARE ENTERING THE VILLAGE OF VALLEYVIEW, it
said. PLEASE DRIVE CAREFULLY--WE ARE FOND OF OUR
DOGS.

Philip Myles drove carefully. He was fond of dogs, too.
Night had tiptoed in over the October countryside quite some time ago,
but the village of Valleyview had not turned on so much as a single
streetlight--nor, apparently, any other kind of light. All was in darkness,
and not a soul was to