Free If I Were You by L. Ron Hubbard

O’Brien. “You can’t—”
    “What’s he got in that thermos bottle?” piped Frankie. “Make him show it. He just poured it outa that glass and it smells the same!”
    “Don’t!” yelped O’Brien. He grabbed at the bottle of Borneo syrup and the thermos in the vain hope of beating his way out. But too many hands were reaching for him.
    And then came catastrophe! The zealous henchmen, in their tackle, sent both syrup and thermos flying against the beer taps. The splinter of glass was music in O’Brien’s ears. The syrup was splattered beyond retrieve, for most of it had gone down the drain. But O’Brien had no more than started to breathe when he realized that only the syrup bottle had broken. The thermos, no matter how jammed up inside, still contained the shrinko cocktail.
    What would happen now? If he drank that shrinko he might never, never, never again be able to get any syrup to swell up again!
    One of the gangsters, having vaulted the bar, was unscrewing the thermos for Frankie’s inspection. Smelling of it, Frankie announced that it was the right stuff, all right, all right. Another gangster came over the bar.
    And then O’Brien was upon his back on the duckboards and a dose of shrinko was being forcibly administered. He gagged and choked and swore, but it went on down just the same.
    “There,” said one of the men in a satisfied voice. “Now shrink, damn you.”
    He put the cap back on the bottle and the bottle on the bar, mentally listing a number of persons who might benefit from a dose.
    The first thing O’Brien noticed was the looseness of his clothes. He instinctively reached for his belt to tighten it, but he knew it would do no permanent good.
    “Come on in the office, all of you,” said the gangster lieutenant. He prodded the three customers and O’Brien ahead of him. O’Brien tripped over his drooping pants. As he reached the office door he fell sprawling. A gangster booted him and he slid across the floor, leaving most of his clothes behind him. The remaining garments fell off when he struggled to his feet. The walls and ceiling were receding. The men and the furniture were both receding and growing to terrifying size.
    He was shivering with cold, though the late-May air was warm. And he felt marvelously light. He jumped up, feeling as active as a terrier despite his paunch. He was sure he could jump to twice his own height.
    “Watch the door, Vic,” said the head gangster. His voice sounded to O’Brien like a cavernous rumble. One of his companions opened the door a little and stood with his face near the crack. The head gangster put down Guanella, who was now O’Brien’s own size. Guanella had a weapon that looked to O’Brien like an enormous battle-ax, until he realized that it consisted of an unshaped pencil split lengthwise, with a razor blade inserted in the cleft, and the whole tied fast with string. Guanella swung his ponderous-looking weapon as if it were a feather.
    The head gangster said, “Frankie couldn’t pull a trigger no more, so he figured this out all by himself. He’s smott.”
    Guanella advanced across the floor toward O’Brien. He was smiling, and there was death in his sparkling black eyes. No weapon had been produced for O’Brien, but then he did not really expect one. This was a gangster’s idea of a sporting chance.
    Guanella leaped forward and swung. The razor-ax went swish, but O’Brien had jumped back just before it arrived. His agility surprised both himself and Guanella, who had never fought under these grasshoppery conditions. Guanella rushed again with an overhead swing. O’Brien jumped to one side like a large pink cricket. Guanella swung across. O’Brien, with a mighty leap, sailed clear over Guanella’s head. He fell when he landed, but bounced to his feet without appreciable effort.

    The razor-ax went swish, but O’Brien had jumped back just before it arrived. His agility surprised both himself and Guanella, who had never fought