He’d hardly stretched his legs out under his desk when the interoffice phone clicked. It was Miss Williams’ voice: “Good morning, Mr. Savage. We’ve been waiting for you… Mr. Moorehouse says please step into his office, he wants to speak with you a minute before the staff conference.” Dick got up and stood a second with his lips pursed rocking on the balls of his feet looking out the window over the ashcolored blocks that stretched in a series of castiron molds east to the chimneys of powerplants, the bridge, the streak of river flashing back steel at the steelblue sky. Riveters shrilly clattered in the new huge construction that was jutting up girder by girder at the corner of Fortysecond. They all seemed inside his head like a dentist’s drill. He shuddered, belched and hurried along the corridor into the large corner office.
J.W. was staring at the ceiling with his big jowly face as expressionless as a cow’s. He turned his pale eyes on Dick without a smile. “Do you realize there are seventyfive million people in this country unwilling or unable to go to a physician in time of sickness?” Dick twisted his face into a look of lively interest. He’s been talking to Ed Griscolm, he said to himself. “Those are the people the Bingham products have got to serve. He’s touched only the fringes of this great potential market.” “His business would be to make them feel they’re smarter than the bigbugs who go to Battle Creek,” said Dick. J.W. frowned thoughtfully.
Ed Griscolm had come in. He was a sallow long man with an enthusiastic flash in his eye that flickered on and off like an electriclight sign. He had a way of carrying his arms like a cheerleader about to lead a college yell. Dick said “Hello” without warmth. “Top of the morning, Dick… a bit over hung I see… Too bad, old man, too bad.”
“I was just saying, Ed,” J.W. went on in his slow even voice, “that our talkingpoints should be first that they haven’t scratched the top of their potential market of seventyfive million people and second that a properlyconducted campaign can eradicate the prejudice many people feel against proprietary medicines and substitute a feeling of pride in their use.”
“It’s smart to be thrifty… that sort of thing,” shouted Ed.
“Selfmedication,” said Dick. “Tell them the average sodajerker knows more about medicine today than the family physician did twentyfive years ago.”
“They think there’s something hick about patent medicines,” yelled Ed Griscolm. “We got to put patent medicines on Park Avenue.” “Proprietary medicines,” said J.W. reprovingly.
Dick managed to wipe the smile off his face. “We’ve got to break the whole idea,” he said, “into its component parts.”
“Exactly.” J.W. picked up a carvedivory papercutter and looked at it in different angles in front of his face. The office was so silent they could hear the traffic roaring outside and the wind whistling between the steel windowframe and the steel window. Dick and Ed Griscolm held their breath. J.W. began to talk. “The American public has become sophisticated… when I was a boy in Pittsburgh all we thought of was display advertising, the appeal to the eye. Now with the growth of sophistication we must think of the other types of appeal, and the eradication of prejudice… Bingo… the name is out of date, it’s all wrong. A man would be ashamed to lunch at the Metropolitan Club with a bottle of Bingo at his table… that must be the talkingpoint… Yesterday Mr. Bingham seemed inclined to go ahead. He was balking a little at the cost of the campaign…”
“Never mind,” screeched Ed Griscolm, “we’ll nail the old buzzard’s feet down yet.”
“I guess he has to be brought around gently just as you were saying last night, J.W.,” said Dick in a low bland voice. “They tell me Halsey of Halsey O’Connor’s gone to bed with a nervous breakdown tryin’ to get old Bingham to make up his mind.” Ed Griscolm broke into a tittering laugh.
J.W. got to his feet with a faint smile. When J.W. smiled Dick smiled too. “I think he can be brought to appreciate the advantages connected with the name… dignity… established connections…” Still talking J.W. led the way down the hall into the large room with a long oval mahogany table in the middle of it where the whole office was gathered. J.W. went first with his considerable belly waggling a little from side to side as he walked, and Dick and Ed Griscolm, each with an armful of typewritten projects in paleblue covers, followed a step behind him. Just as they were settling down after a certain amount of coughing and honking and J.W. was beginning about how there were seventyfive million people, Ed Griscolm ran out and came back with a neatlydrawn chart in blue and red and yellow lettering showing the layout of the proposed campaign. An admiring murmur ran round the table.
Dick caught a triumphant glance in his direction from Ed Griscolm. He looked at J.W. out of the corner of his eye. J.W. was looking at the chart with an expressionless face. Dick walked over to Ed Griscolm and patted him on the shoulder. “A swell job, Ed old man,” he whispered. Ed Griscolm’s tense lips loosened into a smile. “Well, gentlemen, what I’d like now is a snappy discussion,” said J.W. with a mean twinkle in his paleblue eye that matched for a second the twinkle of the small diamonds in his cufflinks.
While the others talked Dick sat staring at J.W.’s hands spread out on the sheaf of typewritten papers on the table in front of him. Oldfashioned starched cuffs protruded from the sleeves of the perfectlyfitting doublebreasted grey jacket and out of them hung two pudgy strangely hicklooking hands with liverspots on them. All through the discussion Dick stared at the hands, all the time writing down phrases on his scratchpad and scratching them out. He couldn’t think of anything. His brains felt boiled. He went on scratching away with his pencil at phrases that made no sense at all. On the fritz at the Ritz… Bingham’s products cure the fits.
It was after one before the conference broke up. Everybody was congratulating Ed Griscolm on his layout. Dick heard his own voice saying it was wonderful but it needed a slightly different slant. “All right,” said J.W. “How about finding that slightly different slant over the weekend? That’s the idea I want to leave with every man here. I’m lunching with Mr. Bingham Monday noon. I must have a perfected project to present.”
Dick Savage went back to his office and signed a pile of letters his secretary had left for him. Then he suddenly remembered he’d told Reggie Talbot he’d meet him for lunch at “63” to meet the girlfriend and ran out, adjusting his blue muffler as he went down in the elevator. He caught sight of them at a table with their heads leaning together in the crinkled cigarettesmoke in the back of the crowded Saturday-afternoon speakeasy. “Oh, Dick, hello,” said Reggie, jumping to his feet with his mild smile, grabbing Dick’s hand and drawing him towards the table. “I didn’t wait for you at the office because I had to meet this one… Jo, this is Mr. Savage. The only man in New York who doesn’t give a damn… What’ll you have to drink?” The girl certainly was a knockout. When Dick let himself drop on the redleather settee beside her, facing Reggie’s slender ashblond head and his big inquiring lightbrown eyes, he felt boozy and tired.
“Oh, Mr. Savage, what’s happened about the Bingham account? I’m so excited about it. Reggie can’t talk about anything else. I know it’s indiscreet to ask.” She looked earnestly in his face out of long-lashed black eyes. They certainly made a pretty couple.