Did it ever strike you on such a morning as this that drowning would be happiness and peace?
—CHARLES DICKENS
What had seemed like a brilliant idea at midnight was quite another thing at the grim hour of ten. His head ached. His stomach was fiery and rebellious. His cold was straddling his shoulders, jabbing at his sinuses and his raw, dripping nose.
He studied the card unhappily:
William A. “Bill” Johnson
Hedonics, Inc.
Graduate, Institute of Applied Hedonics
He turned it over. On the back was a quotation.
There is no duty we underrate so much as the duty of being happy.
—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
He looked back at William A. “Bill” Johnson. Johnson was a youngish man, not over thirty, with sandy hair, a frank, open face, and an annoyingly cheerful disposition. He was just the type, Josh decided, to mulct widows of their savings.
“Mr. Johnson,” he began, speaking painfully through his nose, “I—”
“Call me ‘Bill,’” the salesman interrupted eagerly.
“Bill,” Josh said, surrendering weakly. “I’m afraid I’ve changed my mind—”
“Surely you have a few minutes,” Bill said, “to learn something about the service we offer.”
Josh shrugged and sank back in his chair, blowing his nose sadly.
Webster, it seemed, had been incomplete. Besides “a Ethics...” and “b Psychology...” there should have been a third definition labeled “c Science...”
“Science?” Josh echoed. “A science of happiness?”
Bill nodded cheerfully. “That’s exactly it. Happiness can be located more accurately than pitchblende, refined easier than uranium, synthesized more certainly than plutonium, and utilized more efficiently than a nuclear reactor. The entire curriculum of the Institute of Applied Hedonics consists of hedonics.”
“And where is that institute located?” Josh asked sharply.
“Smithfield, Massachusetts,” Bill answered quickly.
Josh silently repeated the name several times.
Hedonics, Bill said, wasn’t an overnight miracle. It was a blending of many discoveries, many techniques. Some of them had been available for many years, and some of them had been developed only recently. But until a few years ago, no one had noticed their interrelationships and combined them into a single master science of happiness.
“And happiness, after all,” Bill said, “is the aim of living, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps,” Josh admitted grudgingly.
“Let me put it this way,” Bill said brightly, “we shun pain—or, to be more accurate, unpleasure—and we choose between two courses the one that seems less unpleasant.”
Basically hedonics was a discipline. It was a psychological science. As such, its greatest value lay in the future, its greatest virtue was in the training of the young.
“That’s fine,” Josh said drily, “but what can it do for me—now—today.”
Hedonics, it seemed, could do many things. Most firms specialized in a single service: cleaning, banking, accounting, plumbing, repairs of all kinds, delivery, employment.... Hedonics, Inc., did everything. The client’s problems became the problems of Hedonics, Inc. If the client needed a job, a job was found for him; more important, it was not just any job but a job that would make the client happy.
In addition, hedonics relieved pains, cured the sick, reshaped neurotic and psychopathic personalities, toned up the body, straightened out the mind, and removed such sources of unhappiness as salary worries, investment difficulties, budget impossibilities, marital problems, extramarital dilemmas, thwarted desires, and guilty satisfactions....
“In short, Mr. Hunt,” Bill said earnestly, “we provide the ultimate personal service. We do everything necessary to make you happy. That is our guarantee.”
“How do you make it?”
“In writing, as an integral part of the contract.”
“Fantastic,” Josh muttered, adding, as he looked up, “that I haven’t heard of your firm before. It’s a novel and comprehensive service!”
“Yes, it is, Mr. Hunt. The company is new, but we are already on a sound financial footing, and we are bonded against contract failure. We have been doing business privately, on a small scale, for several years, you see, and we are just now opening our service to the public. Actually, this is a test operation in this locality...”
“I see,” Josh said quickly, cutting off the sales talk. “You can make me well, you said.”
“And happy,” Bill added.
“You can cure this cold?”
“Certainly.”
Josh sat back, momentarily silenced by the beautiful audacity. “It must be very expensive,” he said finally.
“As some of our advertising material says, it’s a service you can’t afford,” Bill said, “to be without. As a matter of fact, it isn’t nearly so expensive as you might think, not nearly as much, even, as purchasing those services individually that are available outside the company. During this special trial period, now, you can buy a limited service contract, including full diagnosis and indicated medical and psychological services, for only one hundred dollars.”
“I take it, then, that you have an unlimited service contract?” Josh asked shrewdly.
Bill shrugged. “Oh, yes. But we aren’t pushing it at this time. Now I have a contract with me right here...”
In a few moments Josh was alone. He had a contract, an appointment for that afternoon, and Bill had his check for one hundred dollars.
Josh smiled grimly. If the service was as slick as the salesman, it was a very clever operation indeed.