Part 18 (1/2)

SPLURGE: You're quite right, sir; you're quite right. That's a weak bit.

I'll cut it. (_He scratches it out. Reads._) ”Cheezo is the great new food. It builds up body and brain.”

SLADDER: That's good.

SPLURGE: ”There is a hundred times more lactic fluid in an ounce of Cheezo than in a gallon of milk.”

SLADDER: What's lactic fluid, Splurge?

SPLURGE: I don't know, sir, but it's good stuff all right. It's the right thing to have in it. It's a good man that I got to write this.

SLADDER: All right. Go on.

SPLURGE: ”Cheezo makes darling baby grow.”

SLADDER: Good. Very good. Very good indeed, Splurge.

SPLURGE: Yes, I think that catches them, sir.

SLADDER: Go on.

SPLURGE: ”Cheezo. The only food.”

SLADDER: ”The only food”? I don't like that.

SPLURGE: It will go down all right, sir, so long as the posters are big enough.

SLADDER: Go down all right! I wasn't fool enough to suppose that it wouldn't go _down_ all right. What are posters for if the public doesn't believe them? Of course it will go _down_ all right.

SPLURGE: O, I beg your pardon, sir. Then what don't you quite like about it?

SLADDER: I might invent another food one of these days, and then where should we be?

SPLURGE: I hadn't thought of that, sir.

SLADDER: Out with it.

SPLURGE: (_Scratches with pencil_). ”Cheezo is made out of the purest milk from purest English cows.”

SLADDER: Y-e-s, y-e-s. I don't say you're wrong. I don't say you're exactly wrong. But in business, Splurge, you want to keep more to generalities. Talk about the bonds that bind the Empire, talk about the Union Jack, talk by all means about the purity of the English cow; but definite statements you know, definite statements----

SPLURGE: O, yes, I know, sir; but the police never interfere with anything one puts on a poster. It would be bad for business, a jury would never convict, and----

SLADDER: I didn't say they would; but if some interfering a.s.s were to write to the papers to say that Cheezo wasn't made from milk, we should have to go to the expense of buying a dozen cows, and photographing them, and one thing and another. (_He gets up and goes to cupboard._) Now, look here. I quite understand what you say, purity and all that, and a very good point too, but you look at this.

[_He unrolls a huge poster representing a dairymaid smirking in deadly earnest. On it is printed: ”WON'T YOU HAVE SOME?” and on another part of the poster ”CHEEZO FOR PURITY.”_

You see. Your whole point's there. We state nothing and we can make the dairymaid as suggestive as we like.

SPLURGE: Yes, sir, that is excellent. Quite splendid.