“
....
and shake 'em up well
....
”
“
....
hail you all, impale you all, jail you all
....
”
“Mr. Ingleby, can you spare me a moment?”
At Mr. Hankin's mildly sarcastic accents, the scene dislimned as by magic. The door-post drapers and Miss Parton's bosom-friend melted out into the passage, Mr. Willis, rising hurriedly with the tray of carbons in his hand, picked a paper out at random and frowned furiously at it, Miss Parton's cigarette dropped unostentatiously to the floor, Mr. Garrett, unable to get rid of his coffee-cup, smiled vaguely and tried to look as though he had picked it up by accident and didn't know it was there, Miss Meteyard, with great presence of mind, put the sweep counterfoils on a chair and sat on them, Miss Rossiter, clutching Mr. Armstrong's carbons in her hand, was able to look businesslike, and did so. Mr. Ingleby alone, disdaining pretence, set down his cup with a slightly impudent smile and advanced to obey his chief's command.
“This,” said Mr. Hankin, tactfully blind to all evidences of disturbance, “is Mr. Bredon. You will–er–show him what he has to do. I have had the Dairyfields guard-books sent along to his room. You might start him on margarine. Er–I don't think Mr. Ingleby was up in your time, Mr. Bredon–he was at Trinity. Your Trinity, I mean, not ours.” (Mr. Hankin was a Cambridge man.)
Mr. Bredon extended a well-kept hand.
“How do you do?”
“How do you do?” echoed Mr. Ingleby. They gazed at one another with the faint resentment of two cats at their first meeting. Mr. Hankin smiled kindly at them both.
“And when you've produced some ideas on margarine, Mr. Bredon, bring them along to my room and we'll go over them.”
“Right-ho!” said Mr. Bredon, simply.
Mr. Hankin smiled again and padded gently away.
“Well, you'd better know everybody,” said Mr. Ingleby, rapidly. “Miss Rossiter and Miss Parton are our guardian angels–type our copy, correct our grammar, provide us with pencils and paper and feed us on coffee and cake. Miss Parton is the blonde and Miss Rossiter the brunette. Gentlemen prefer blondes but personally I find them both equally seraphic.”
Mr. Bredon bowed.
“Miss Meteyard–of Somerville. One of the brighter ornaments of our department. She makes the vulgarest limericks ever recited within these chaste walls.”
“Then we shall be friends,” said Mr. Bredon cordially.
“Mr. Willis on your right, Mr. Garrett on your left–both comrades in affliction. That is the whole department, except Mr. Hankin and Mr. Armstrong who are directors, and Mr. Copley, who is a man of weight and experience and does not come and frivol in the typists' room. He goes out for his elevenses, and assumes seniority though he hath it not.”
Mr. Bredon grasped the hands extended to him and murmured politely.
“Would you like to be in on the Derby sweep?” inquired Miss Rossiter, with an eye to the cash-box. “You're just in time for the draw.”
“Oh, rather,” said Mr. Bredon. “How much?”
“Sixpence.”
“Oh, yes, rather. I mean, it's jolly good of you. Of course, absolutely–must be in on the jolly old sweep, what?”
“That brings the first prize up to a pound precisely,” said Miss Rossiter, with a grateful sigh. “I was afraid I should have to take two tickets myself. Type Mr. Bredon's for him, Parton. B,R,E,D,O,N–like summer-time on Bredon?”
“That's right.”
Miss Parton obligingly typed the name and added another blank ticket to the collection in the biscuit-box.
“Well, I suppose I'd better take you along to your dog-kennel,” said Mr. Ingleby, with gloom.
“Right-ho!” said Mr. Bredon. “Oh, rather. Yes.”
“We're all along this corridor,” added Mr. Ingleby, leading the way. “You'll find your way about in time. That's Garrett's room and that's Willis's, and this is yours, between Miss Meteyard and me. That iron staircase opposite me goes down to the floor below; mostly group managers and conference rooms. Don't fall down it, by the way. The man whose room you've got tumbled down it last week and killed himself.”
“No, did he?” said Mr. Bredon, startled.
“Bust his neck and cracked his skull,” said Mr. Ingleby. “On one of those knobs.”
“Why do they put knobs on staircases?” expostulated Mr. Bredon. “Cracking fellows' skulls for them? It's not right.”
“No, it isn't,” said Miss Rossiter, arriving with her hands full of scribbling-blocks and blotting-paper. “They're supposed to prevent the boys from sliding down the hand-rail, but it's the stairs themselves that are so–oh, I say, push on. There's Mr. Armstrong coming up. They don't like too much being said about the iron staircase.”
“Well, here you are,” said Mr. Ingleby, adopting this advice. “Much the same as the rest, except that the radiator doesn't work very well. Still, that won't worry you just at present. This was Dean's room.”
“Chap who fell downstairs?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Bredon gazed round the small apartment, which contained a table, two chairs, a rickety desk and a bookshelf, and said:
“Oh!”
“It
was
awful,” said Miss Rossiter.
“It must have been,” agreed Mr. Bredon, fervently.
“Mr. Armstrong was just giving me dictation when we heard the most
frightful
crash. He said, 'Good God, what's that?' I thought it must be one of the boys, because one of them fell down last year carrying an Elliot-Fisher type-writer and it sounded exactly like it, only worse. And I said, 'I think one of the boys must have fallen downstairs, Mr. Armstrong,' and he said, 'Careless little devil,' and went on dictating and my hand was so shaky I could hardly make my outlines and then Mr. Ingleby ran past and Mr. Daniels' door opened and then we heard the most terrific shriek, and Mr. Armstrong said, 'Better go and see what's happened,' so I went out and looked down and I couldn't see anything because there was such a bunch of people standing round and then Mr. Ingleby came tearing up, with
such
a look on his face–you were as white as a sheet, Mr. Ingleby, you really were.”
“Possibly,” said Mr. Ingleby, a little put out. “Three years in this soul-searing profession have not yet robbed me of all human feeling. But that will come in time.”
“Mr. Ingleby said, 'He's killed himself!' And I said, 'Who?' and he said, 'Mr. Dean,' and I said, 'You don't mean that,' and he said, 'I'm afraid so,' and I went back to Mr. Armstrong and said, 'Mr. Dean's killed himself,' and he said, 'What do you mean, killed himself?' and then Mr. Ingleby came in and Mr. Armstrong gave one look at him and went out and I went down by the other staircase and saw them carrying Mr. Dean along to the board-room and his head was all hanging sideways.”
“Does this kind of thing happen often?” inquired Mr. Bredon.
“Not with such catastrophic results,” replied Mr. Ingleby, “but that staircase is definitely a death-trap.”
“I fell down it myself one day,” said Miss Rossiter, “and tore the heels off both my shoes. It was awfully awkward, because I hadn't another pair in the place and–”
“I've drawn a horse, darlings!” announced Miss Meteyard, arriving without ceremony. “No luck for you, Mr. Bredon, I'm afraid.”
“I always was unlucky.”
“You'll feel unluckier still after a day with Dairyfields Margarine,” said Mr. Ingleby, gloomily. “Nothing for me, I suppose?”
“Nothing, I'm afraid. Of course Miss Rawlings has drawn the favourite–she always does.”
“I hope it breaks its beastly leg,” said Mr. Ingleby. “Come in, Tallboy, come in. Do you want me? Don't mind butting in on Mr. Bredon. He will soon become used to the idea that his room is a public place within the meaning of the act. This is Mr. Tallboy, group-manager for Nutrax and a few other wearisome commodities. Mr. Bredon, our new copy-writer.”
“How do you do?” said Mr. Tallboy, briefly. “Look here, about this Nutrax 11-inch double. Can you possibly cut out about thirty words?”
“No, I can't,” said Mr. Ingleby. “I've cut it to the bone already.”
“Well, I'm afraid you'll have to. There isn't room for all this guff with a two-line sub-head.”
“There's plenty of room for it.”
“No, there isn't. We've got to get in the panel about the Fifty-six Free Chiming Clocks.”
“Damn the clocks and the panel! How do they expect to display all that in a half-double?”
“Dunno, but they do. Look here, can't we take out this bit about 'When your nerves begin to play tricks on you,' and start off with 'Nerves need Nutrax'?”
“Armstrong liked that bit about playing tricks. Human appeal and all that. No, take out that rot about the patent spring-cap bottle.”
“They won't stand for dropping that,” said Miss Meteyard. “That's their pet invention.”
“Do they think people buy nerve-food for the sake of the bottle? Oh, well! I can't do it straight away. Hand it over.”
“The printer wants it by two o'clock,” said Mr. Tallboy, dubiously.
Mr. Ingleby damned the printer, seized the proof and began cutting the copy, uttering offensive ejaculations between his teeth.
“Of all beastly days of the week,” he observed, “Tuesday is the foulest. There's no peace till we get this damned 11-inch double off our chests. There! I've cut out twenty-two words, and you'll have to make it do. You can take that 'with' up into the line above and save a whole line, and that gives you the other eight words.”
“All right, I'll try,” agreed Mr. Tallboy. “Anything for a quiet life. It'll look a bit tight, though.”
“Wish
I
was tight,” said Mr. Ingleby. “Take it away, for God's sake, before I murder anybody.”
“I'm going, I'm going,” said Mr. Tallboy, and vanished hastily. Miss Rossiter had departed during the controversy, and Miss Meteyard now took herself out of the way, remarking,
[Pg 13]
“If Pheidippides wins, you shall have a cake for tea.”
“Now we'd better start
you
off,” observed Mr. Ingleby. “Here's the guard-book. You'd better have a look through it to see the kind of thing, and then think up some headlines. Your story is, of course, that Dairyfields' 'Green Pastures' Margarine is everything that the best butter ought to be and only costs ninepence a pound. And they like a cow in the picture.”
“Why? Is it made of cow-fat?”
“Well, I daresay it is, but you mustn't say so. People wouldn't like the idea. The picture of the cow suggests the taste of butter, that's all. And the name–Green Pastures–suggests cows, you see.”
“It suggests niggers to me,” said Mr. Bredon. “The play, you know.”
“You mustn't put niggers in the copy,” retorted Mr. Ingleby. “Nor, of course, religion. Keep Psalm 23 out of it. Blasphemous.”
“I see. Just something about 'Better than Butter and half the price.' Simple appeal to the pocket.”
“Yes, but you mustn't knock butter. They sell butter as well.”
“Oh!”
“You can say it's as good as butter.”
“But in that case,” objected Mr. Bredon, “what does one find to say in favour of butter? I mean, if the other stuff's as good and doesn't cost so much, what's the argument for buying butter?”
“You don't need an argument for buying butter. It's a natural, human instinct.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Anyway, don't bother about butter. Just concentrate on Green Pastures Margarine. When you've got a bit done, you take it along and get it typed, and then you buzz off to Mr. Hankin with the result. See? Are you all right now?”
“Yes, thanks,” said Mr. Bredon, looking thoroughly bewildered.
“And I'll push along about 1 o'clock and show you the decentest place for lunch.”
“Thanks frightfully.”
“Well, cheerio!” Mr. Ingleby returned to his own room.
“
He
won't stay the course,” he said to himself. “Goes to a damned good tailor, though. I wonder–”
He shrugged his shoulders and sat down to concoct a small, high-class folder about Slider's Steel Office Tables.
Mr. Bredon, left alone, did not immediately attack the subject of margarine. Like a cat, which, in his soft-footed inquisitiveness, he rather resembled, he proceeded to make himself acquainted with his new home. There was not very much to see in it. He opened the drawer in his writing-table and found a notched and inky ruler, some bitten-looking pieces of india-rubber, a number of bright thoughts on tea and margarine scribbled on scraps of paper, and a broken fountain-pen. The bookcase contained a dictionary, a repellent volume entitled
Directory of Directors
, a novel by Edgar Wallace, a pleasingly got-up booklet called
All about Cocoa
,
Alice in Wonderland
, Bartlett's
Familiar Quotations
, the
Globe
edition of the
Works of Wm. Shakespeare
, and five odd numbers of the
Children's Encyclopædia
. The interior of the sloping desk offered more scope for inquiry; it was filled with ancient and dusty papers, including a Government Report on the Preservatives in Food (Restrictions) Act of 1926, a quantity of rather (in every sense) rude sketches by an amateur hand, a bundle of pulls of advertisements for Dairyfields commodities, some private correspondence and some old bills. Mr. Bredon, dusting fastidious fingers, turned from this receptacle, inventoried a hook and a coat-hanger on the wall and a battered paper-file in a corner, and sat down in the revolving-chair before the table. Here, after a brief glance at a paste-pot, a pair of scissors, a new pencil and a blotting-pad, two scribbling-blocks and a grubby cardboard box-lid full of oddments, he propped up the Dairyfields guard-book before him, and fell to studying his predecessor's masterpieces on the subject of Green Pastures Margarine.
An hour later, Mr. Hankin pushed open the door and looked in upon him.
“How are you getting on?” he inquired kindly. Mr. Bredon sprang to his feet.
“Not frightfully well, I'm afraid. I don't seem to get the atmosphere altogether, if you follow me.”
“It will come,” said Mr. Hankin. He was a helpfully-minded man, who believed that new copy-writers throve on encouragement. “Let me see what you are doing. You are starting with the headlines? Quite right. The headline is more than half the battle,
IF YOU WERE A COW
–no, no, I'm afraid we mustn't call the customer a cow. Besides, we had practically the same headline in–let me see–about 1923, I think. Mr. Wardle put it up, you'll find it in the last guard-book but three. It went '
IF YOU KEPT A COW IN THE KITCHEN
you could get no better bread-spread than G. P. Margarine'–and so on. That was a good one. Caught the eye, made a good picture, and told the whole story in a sentence.”