I looked at him. "Yeah. M-hmm." I looked down at Red. She was sitting on my kneecap, combing her hair. "So just what seems to be the problem?"

His eyes were pathetic. "Again, like I told you. I'm too big for her."

"Yeah," I said. "Uh-huh." It had to be as simple as that. Something practical-like; for w.i.l.l.y, like I said, was basically a practical guy.

Or practically a basic guy. I frowned at him, for the answer was also a simple one.

"Then why don't you draw her full size?" I asked.

w.i.l.l.y looked miserable. "I do."

I said, "Mmm?"

"I _do_ draw her full-size. That's Red's full size. Twelve inches."

I nodded, following his lips.

"Once," he continued, "I drew her a little larger."

From her perch on my kneecap Red said, coolly, "Don't you dare try _that_ again."

"No, dear," w.i.l.l.y said, sadly.

I rubbed my head. To w.i.l.l.y I said, "You can't--project her?"

w.i.l.l.y started to answer, but Red interrupted. She looked piqued.

"Of course he can't project me. That would be a distortion of myself. It wouldn't," she yawned, ruffling her red locks, "be me."

I rubbed my head again. I couldn't think of anything to say.

w.i.l.l.y shifted. "I can draw her smaller," he said. "But that would make it even worse, of course."

I nodded. "Of course." Because it seemed practical to say it, I said it: "But wouldn't that be a distortion too?"

"Of course not," Red said, and I had the fleeting impression of being faced by a school teacher in the minute end of a telescope. "Minimized elements are true elements, merely condensed. Maximized elements are bloated, therefore distorted." She sniffed. "Any figment knows that."

I tossed it around in my floundering mind, but it still came out the way it sounded. There was another silence. I could see that the two of them were losing faith in my G.o.dmaternal fairyhood. So just to keep the conversation jogging, I tried another tack. To w.i.l.l.y I said:

"If Red's a figment of your imagination, why didn't you imagine her a more practical size in the first place?"

w.i.l.l.y chewed on it for a couple minutes. Red turned away in disgust to leap from my kneecap to w.i.l.l.y's. She seated herself primly and began fussing with her infinitesimal nails. w.i.l.l.y said, "After all, she does have a mind of her own, Jim. She wanted to be imagined the size she is, so--" He looked at me and shrugged.

"Why," demanded the little woman, "should I go up to him? Why can't he come down to me?"

I was getting riled. "You love him, don't you?"

She frowned. "He loves me, doesn't he?"

This had a familiar feminine ring to it which balked pursuit of _that_ subject. I wouldn't have believed that w.i.l.l.y possessed such a dogmatic objective imagination. If _I_ wanted to conjure up a babe I'd make sure beforehand that she came out the way I whimmed her. Red had a mind of her own, which was the negative, or feminine, part of w.i.l.l.y's mind.

All these thoughts popped up in my head because I had to keep this in a practical light to insure against a return of the shakes. If I started considering the _impractical_ side of it I'd recognize it in its true light, which was unmitigated madness.

w.i.l.l.y and Red remained silent, inferring that I was to carry the ball.

"What I'm dim about, w.i.l.l.y, is how this ties in with your professional livelihood. Why do you have to give up art?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

I shook my head meekly. w.i.l.l.y sighed and reached for a pastel stick. He sketched quickly on the layout pad, first in greys, then filling in with the three basics. It was a martini gla.s.s, and the first basic was the cherry in it. Then he addressed his signature under the sketch.

He picked up the martini gla.s.s and drained it.

Looking apologetically at my ogle he picked up the pastels again and said, "Sorry. Care for one?"

I said sure. You have to go all the way or nowhere with these things.

Besides, a drink might stop the rumbling in my stomach. "Make it a rye,"

I said. "Triple."

He sketched it and signed it and handed it to me, and I said, "I see what you mean. Everything you sketch, huh?" The rye was good.

w.i.l.l.y sighed morosely. "Anything in color. And I made my name in color work. I can't do a black and white for beans."

"Why don't you--"

"Leave off my signature?" He smiled wanly. "You know better than that, Jim."

I did. He had a big name, and that, as is the way of commerce, is what the buyers paid for. Things looked hopeless for w.i.l.l.y. We sat. Red got up and stretched, then adjusted her halter, into which w.i.l.l.y had put too much imagination. She jumped from w.i.l.l.y's knee to the drawing desk, and stretched out on the pad. w.i.l.l.y looked at her hungrily, and she smiled warmly back at him. I was beginning to get that "third party"

feeling--and then it hit me.

I leaned forward excitedly. "We will make a million!" I roared.

They stared at me. Coolly. I went to the back of the chair again. After a few minutes their contemptuous stares got my neck.

"Okay, okay," I muttered. "We _won't_ make a million."

They waited expectantly for a compatible solution. To show that I was still working on it I started talking again.

"Let's sum up. You and Red want to get together. Which is only right, because you literally belong to each other. Check. But you can't, because Red's too small and you're too tall."

"Check," they said simultaneously. I stumbled on.

"Okay." I addressed Red. "Let's take you first. You are your--uh--natural size. You are satisfied with it. You cannot be projected up because it would distort you."

Red nodded. "I would consider it indecent."

"And anyway, you are satisfied with your element. You prefer it to w.i.l.l.y's."