“Are you Emir the Inexhaustible?”
“You know the answer, sir. You were in here just last week. You brought in a wallet and I tried to turn you away because I can enchant only things I have never enchanted before, and wallets are always being brought to me.”
“I thought I had you when I showed you it had a picture of Popeye on it.”
“It was highly ingenious, sir. When I told you I had made another Popeye wallet inexhaustible some eighty years ago, you showed me it was a cheap knockoff, and misspelled. I had to admit I’d never enchanted a POPYE wallet.”
“And you made it inexhaustible, so I would find money every time I opened it. And I got home and found a penny inside. And then another penny. Every time I open it, I get another single, solitary penny.”
“Thus fulfilling the bargain, sir. An inexhaustible supply of money. Or ‘cash’, as I believe you put it at the time.”
“Yeah, thanks. Well, I’m here to try again. Take a gander at this.”
“Another wallet, sir? Really?”
“From the same company, too. Have you ever enchanted an OLYVE OIL wallet?”
“I have not, sir. Hold it up, sir, and I will give it an inexhaustible supply of…what would you have now, sir?”
“Same as…not EXACTLY the same. I’d like inexhaustible money this time, but not something I’ll have to spend the rest of my life opening and closing the wallet before I have enough to buy onion rings at the diner. Folding money. And not one dollar bills. Something bigger.”
“Very well, sir.”
“But not so big it makes people suspicious. A ten thousand dollar bill would be nice, but it raises eyebrows when I want to get change.”
“Very well, sir. Your wallet will be made inexhaustible.”
“Ow!”
“I thought you would remember the burst of energy when the spell takes effect.”
“That’s why I couldn’t open the wallet until I got home. But I’m not leaving this time until I check… Oo. Ouch. Wait…this is….”
“A one hundred dollar bill, sir. Far more efficient, I think.”
“A one hundred dollar bill from a Monopoly set! I…..”
“…did not specify legal tender. Will you be back tomorrow, sir, with another wallet?”
“With the kind of work you do, it’s hardly…. Hang on. Do you know Mike?”
“Sir? I have met thousands of men named….”
“He’s about five eight, has a crewcut, and there’s a star-shaped scar on the palm of his right hand. He said he’d heard of you but he never said….”
“Yes, the heat when the spell becomes effective is rather more pronounced with larger objects.”
“I knew it! A coffee pot?”
“Yes, sir. For some reason he wanted a coffee pot that would never be empty, so he wouldn’t have to keep washing and refilling it.”
“He’s our superintendent of facilities. THAT explains the coffee pot in the break room: was it dark brown glass with a cracked yellow plastic rim?”
“That would be the one.”
“So that’s why there’s always a quarter inch of muddy sludge in the pot. It has an inexhaustible supply of coffee the same way I have an inexhaustible supply of money.”
“I cannot be held responsible for customers whose wishes are not sufficiently specific. Was there anything else, sir? I do have other duties to….”
“Does everyone get an inexhaustible supply of something completely worthless? I…. Wait, I…. No, never mind.”
“What troubles you, sir?”
“I was going to ask about my mother and those pickle jars in her refrigerator but I think I don’t want to know.”
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