Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 54 — page 47: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION else. But Sweet might be anywhere on the face of the globe, and there was no telling where. Sweet was... Sweet was... Another hallucination? A character in a dream? He had certainly seemed too good to be true. He had materialised out of the mist of an early spring night, a big blond man who made the worn chairs in Tyler’s apartment seem all too small. He looked forty at first glance. But Tyler soon realised that he was still in his twenties and all that fat wasn’t middle-age spread, but the result of a glandular ~ disorder. He seemed to be wearing a faint twisted smile. He looked at Tyler and winked. Tyler instinctively smiled back. Then understood that his unknown ‘visitor was not all that pleased to see him. The twisted mouth and the twitching eyelid were symptoms of a nervous tic. ““Mr. Tyler, I presume?” The stranger’s voice was weak for such a bulk. It had a rising note to it as though. its owner were protesting. “Yes. You wish to see me?”’ 46 - “T wouldn’t go so far as to say that. I have to see you, but I’d rather contemplate the Rokeby Venus.”’ Tyler froze. ‘“‘Now, see here, I don’t know who you are, but 4 The fat man jammed a card so hard into Tyler’s hand that it hurt. ““That’s who I am.”’ Despite himself, Tyler looked at the card. It said, tersely: CHARLES SWEET. Mr. Sweet might have been any- thing from a mortician to a magician, but the card was reticent about his profession. It also refused to divulge his address. “T’ve never heard the name,” said Tyler. “I’m not surprised. I made it up.” Tyler stared at him for a moment and then said: “You might have picked a more suitable pseudonym. Now, Mr. Sweet, I don’t know what you’re selling, but you’re wasting both your time and mine. I can’t buy anything. [I’m a poor man, but a busy one——”’ “I can imagine that. There was a lot of work in your paper in the Journal of In- comiclooks.cormn