The Penultimate Trump By R. C. W. ETTINGER [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Startling Stories, March 1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Harley D. Haworth had been a doughty warrior in the American manner. Many a powerful Wall Street foe had bowed to his strength and thousands of innocent victims had cursed his name. But that was many a misty year ago. Now even his son was an aged philanthropist and H.D. himself was relegated almost to legend. But at ninety-two the old battler was locked in his most desperate struggle, vainly trying with his failing strength to beat off the grimmest, most relentless of all antagonists. If the man in the street ever heeded or mentioned this struggle, it was to disinter a corny, dog-in-the-manger joke. "Old Harley D. Haworth," he would say patronizingly, "is such a guy--if he can't take it with him, he just don't _go_." But he was going all right, battle by battle, losing his war. Not that his forces were small--two billion greenbacked stalwarts comprised his army. The resources of the planet were his. Only his generals, the world's fanciest physicians, were incompetent to maneuver these forces to advantage. They gave him gland extracts, they gave him vitamins, they gave him blood transfusions. They gave him false teeth, eyeglasses, arch-supports. They cut out his varicose veins, his appendix, one of his kidneys. And in the end the learned doctors held a conference and this was the sum of their wisdom--eat crackers-and-milk. At this juncture there was a shake-up in the high command. The new Chief of Staff was not a physician but an engineer named Jones. "What man can imagine, man can do." So runs the optimistic saw. The boy, Garibaldi Jones, had had firm faith in said saw, and imagined himself a great lawyer and famous statesman. With the passage of time, however, there gradually came to Garibaldi, as to many another before and since, the suspicion whoever said that was kidding. Now Baldy Jones had long since conceded that _his_ imagination, at least, far outran his capabilities. He had settled down, when he realized he lacked the persuasive gift, to being a reasonably competent mechanical engineer. An ordinary slip-stick jockey, that was the work-a-day Jones. But sometimes, on a Sunday, Jones the general-statesman-scientist-prophet-and-all-around-wiseacre would hold forth from his armchair on life, love, art, literature, science, religion, politics and various other manifestations of nature that are dignified by names. On a certain portentous Sunday in the summer of 1947, about the time the doctors were prescribing crackers-and-milk as a specific for senile debility, Garry had found a particularly depressing article in his Supplement. Goodwife Nancy was relaxed with the Women's Section.