Be Young Again! By Murray Leinster (author of "Nobody Saw The Ship") FEATURE NOVEL _Just about every confidence gag had been tried on old Vachti, except the Elixir of Youth. Only this was different--Professor Barr had a unique pitch on it, but Buck had the real goods!_ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Future combined with Science Fiction Stories July-August 1950. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Me and a guy named Hermes Trismigestus take care of the situation when Jode gets in a very tight place. This guy Trismigestus is anyways a thousand years old, if he's alive anywhere, and I am sixteen, but we co-operate. The tight place is caused by Prof Henry Barr, who urgent regrets the matter later on, and by Mr. Vachti, who is an elderly bootlegger baron in the dear dead days; he still has bodyguards hanging around him bloodthirsty. If you think an old guy like Mr. Vachti can't figure in a tight place--he's got some tough-looking goons around and a yacht and a private island estate and other trimmings--all I got to say is you never met Mr. Vachti. Old Jode gets into it because he thinks it will top off his career. Pride. He is the party who once worked a handkerchief-switch on Ma Mandelbaum, who I understand was the biggest lady fence in the world in her day, and wasn't to be swindled by an amateur. He also once sells a gold brick to the United States Mint in Denver, Colorado. And once he persuades the police department of a certain fair city that he is a Fed man with a tip-off on a bank robbery that is gonna take place. He has every cop in town ambushed around that bank that night, while he lurks inside with a tommy-gun, waiting for the bold bad burglars that never arrive. He acts much embarrassed next morning. But a coupla days later the liquid assets of the bank turn up in the mail addressed to him, because he has spent those long hours packing them neat in Manilla envelopes and mailing them in the mail-slot that is in the bank for the convenience of depositors. But, still, Jode feels that taking Mr. Vachti over the hurdles will crown his career. Mr. Vachti was a very big shot once, when his business staff included not only income-tax men and tommy-gun experts, but also gentlemen who specialize in putting people in barrels of concrete and dumping them in the Chicago River.