Ernie finds a strange suitcase in the back of his car one day, left there by a physicist. This suitcase provides the science fictional conceit of the story, and provides Ernie with a lesson about laziness and taking the easy way out.
I'd have liked to see more characterization of the wife and the physicist, given the length of this novelette. Ernie learns his lesson, and it seems to be helping him solve his own problems, but I'd have liked to see more resolution of the physicist's problem, it's brought up, made to seem very significant, and then completely dropped, never to be mentioned again.
It was engaging writing, and an interesting invention in the suitcase, although the story itself feels pretty slight, especially for a novelette. And if you're going to namedrop Hemmingway three times, it should actually be relevant somehow. It wasn't.
3 cab fares out of 5.
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