Jean Lanni could see that his girl friend, Judy Stokes, thought it was the lamest excuse she had ever heard. If your ballpoint pen won’t write as you want it to, your life doesn’t stop, she probably was thinking. You just get yourself another pen--You don’t call off a marriage...

Skeptically the girl with the long, golden red hair pointed at his breast pocket. “This Droozle I must see. And who’s that other member of the partnership there beside him? An Eversharp pencil named Blackie?”

“No, that is the other end of Droozle. Permit me to introduce you.” Blandly the tall, young artist slid Droozle from his breast pocket, straightened him from his U-shape and handed his twelve-inch pen to her.

“A snake!” she shrieked.

“What else?”

“Why, I thought those ruby eyes were jewels! I must have squeezed right up against him when I kissed you,” she cried indignantly.

“You did. I felt him squirm a little.”

“Oh! And here I thought it was your heart beating wildly.”

“Well, maybe it was. It does that sometimes.”

“Let’s try again. And this time hold your snake behind you.” The long-legged girl stood on tiptoe to reach him.

“It was your heart beating wildly,” she decided a moment later. “Which makes me think you might not just be trying to get rid of me by a silly excuse.”

“Believe me, I’m not,” he urged. “Droozle is the key to all my fortunes.”

“All right, tell me about it. But first tell me where in the universe you got him.”

“Oh, that was just after I graduated from art school. I was on my grand tour. We had an unexpected stopover at the Coffin planetary system. I discovered ballpoint snakes are the chief export of Coffin Two. When we lifted ship, I had acquired my little puppy snake, Droozle.”

“Is a puppy snake like a puppy dog?” she asked, fascinated. “I mean, do they have their little domestic troubles, such as the calls of nature?”

“Oh, he was thoroughly pocket-broken before I acquired him. But he did like his little jokes, and I learned to leave him curled up in a circular ashtray until maturity sobered him.”

“Well, I should say! You drew sketches with him, didn’t you tell me?”

He nodded. “At first he only had one color of ink--red--and if I sketched with him all day he would commence to look wretchedly anemic. He took two days to refill, normally. But I could use him again in only one day’s time provided I didn’t mind the top three-fourths of my pen laying on my arm.”

“I hope his weight didn’t get tiresome,” she commiserated, holding in her amusement.

“I coped somehow,” he answered sturdily. “Later he learned--after I squeezed him on the liver a few times just to show him how--to switch to a lovely shade of ochre, which was delightful on pale green or pink paper. Why, what’s the matter, Judy?”

“Go on,” she choked. “Go go go!”

He beamed. “I write my letters with him too. Every day I wrote with him, first in red, and then in ochre to give him a rest. He seemed to love to write more than to sketch. He would jump into my hand with tail happily pointed downward as I sat down to my writing desk. And when I later saw his dark green stripes turning pastel and knew that anemia was imminent, and started to lay him down for a earned rest, he would stiffen himself as if to say, ‘Oh, come, come! I’m good for half a page yet!’”

“It sounds as though he was a willing worker, but I still can’t see why his malfunction makes our marriage impossible.”

“I haven’t gotten to his career as a novelist yet. There lies the heart of the tragedy.”

“Please proceed to the heart of the tragedy.”

“It all began when I found him arched up one morning, writing by himself--with difficulty, it is true. His first message to the world was, ‘I hold that the supine viewpoint is seldom downward!‘“

“I don’t see how he could stand up on end to write for very long, even with such a magnificent philosophy to bolster him.”

“What a terrible pun,” Jean groaned. “He couldn’t stand up very long at first. But I saw he had talent. I gladly learned the skill of holding him upright in a relaxed manner so that he could express himself on paper. In no time at all, he had written what was to be his first, sensational, best-selling shocker, Naked Bellies in the Grass.”

“That does sound sensational.”

“Not for snakes. He neglected to mention his characters were snakes. _I Fang You Very Much_ followed swiftly afterward and was just as successful. Mothers were amused with its lispy title and got it for the children.”

“Sounds like a story with some meat in it.”

“Yes! Something you can get your teeth into. However, his next offering, A Snake Pit Full of Love, was by far the topper. It was banned in Boston.”

“You haven’t mentioned anything tragic so far,” she observed. “In fact, you have made a pot of money.”

“Right. After my snake had filed his income tax returns, we still had enough money to purchase this house and to support us for a couple of years. The only trouble is, his royalties have stopped coming in and that money is all used up. I still haven’t been able to sell any of my landscape paintings. So we haven’t any income, and that’s why you and I can’t marry for a long time yet--if ever!”

Her exquisite brows wrinkled with concentration. “I don’t understand. Has Droozle written himself out?”

“Far from it,” answered Jean, seating himself and parking Droozle on his knee. “He’s writing more than ever.”

“The quality is gone, then?”

Jean shook his head. “No, he’s writing superlatively.”

“Then what is the problem?” she asked, now thoroughly mystified.

“He’s writing classics!” burst out Jean in baffled irritation. “He won’t write anything else! Easily seeing the approaching catastrophe, I wrote long persuading essays to him. It was pathetically useless. Proudly he continued to write his Rise and Fall of the Western Plainsman in a lucid, passionate prose which would evoke an imperishable picture--but in three thousand pages.”

“I think classics are nice,” protested Judy, “and one of these days I’m going to read another one.”

Huskily Jean told her the worst. “Writing classics consumes paper by the ton. And if you ever get your 750,000 word story finished, you must then start shrinking it back to an acceptable 75,000 words. This is a nearly hopeless task. Of course if you can get it back to 75,000 words the digest magazines will have no trouble shrinking it to 15,000 words or fifteen pictures, and you then get your fingers in the till.” He paused and all hope fled from his face. “Droozle won’t live nearly long enough to get all of that shrinking done. And in the meantime that scribbling snake is writing me out of house and home!”

“Are you going to let him get away with it?” the girl challenged.

“I don’t know whether I am or not,” replied the young artist, looking worried. “I thought I had the problem solved at first. He got so sassy when we were arguing about him writing classics that I had no hesitation about applying a pinch of glue to his glittering little extremity. That put him out of the writing business until he came to terms.”

“Well, now. You were enterprising!” she approved.

“It didn’t do any good though,” Jean grumbled despondently, bowing his head.

“He wouldn’t bargain?” she asked incredulously.

“He didn’t have to. He knew right where the cheese grater was.”

“Ooh!”

“My sentiments exactly. But I don’t know what to do with him now.”

“You’re all out of ideas?”

“Oh we could sell this house and move down to skid row where the rents are cheap,” he flung out airily, but quite plainly worried sick.