Brian chuckled.

"What?" Asked Dave.

"Sorry," said Brian, "you caught me off guard with that one. I was thinking you wanted Dave small."

It was Dave's turn to chuckle.

"You may have noticed," he said, "but I'm already small."

"I've seen smaller." Brian replied. "How tall are you?"

"One sixty five."

Brian nodded. He hadn't really sized Dave up, but apparently the man was a good 10cm shorter than him. Brian knew he was pretty much average, so yeah, Dave could be called small, though he still had nothing on Scott at the moment.

"I know someone who'd call you tall." Said Brian. "But I take your point."

"Your friend?" Adel asked

"Yeah," said Brian "he's smaller than last time you saw him too."

"I liked him better when I saw him this morning."

Brian laughed. Despite Scott's feelings on the matter, he did look impressive as a giant.

"So you want to shrink?" Brian asked Adel.

"I'd like to grow." Said Dave. "We're having a disagreement on that."

"I'd say that there's a limit on how big you can conveniently be," said Brian, "do it outside and you'll draw attention, which I guess you don't want.  Do it inside you're limited by ceilings and walls. You can get a bigger size difference by shrinking."

"I'm not getting as small as your friend was." Said Adel.

"OK," said Brian, "how small will you go?" Then he turned to Dave, "And how big."

There was silence as they thought.

"Well we want to keep it inside. Our lounge room has a double height ceiling, so probably the biggest I could go is four times." Said Dave.

"I'm not going any smaller than a quarter, then." Countered Adel.

"So," said Brian, "that would make you one sixteenth of his size if we did both."

Adel appeared to gulp a little.

"How small was your friend at lunch?" She asked.

"Scott." Said Brian "He was one twentieth."

"That was small." she said.

"Really, I'd play it a little by ear." Brian continued, "Scott decided he wanted to be one fiftieth earlier, so I made him smaller. We can see how you feel when we get there"

"How big?" Adel and Dave asked together. Brian held up his hand, finger and thumb about 4cm apart.

"That's crazy." Said Dave. "I can't imagine wanting to be small. Especially that small."

"I think," Brian offered, "that it's a matter of perspective. He's a big guy normally. And I reckon he'll want get back to normal tomorrow, he's training for the national championships."

"So will you do it?" Asked Adel.

Brian thought for a moment. He'd reduced Scott to one fiftieth his normal size, he was smaller than his pinkie finger, and only he could make him big again.  The power the machine gave was fantastic, and he was being asked to use it again.  How could he turn this couple down?  The waiter arrived with the first of their meals.

"Yes," said Brian, "yes I will."

"Excellent," said Adel, "let’s enjoy our dinner and then head back to our place."