On this particular Tuesday, exasperation was intensified. To begin with, the weather was exceptionally close, with a thunderstorm impending, and the top floor of Pym’s Publicity was like a slow oven beneath the broad lead roof and the great glass skylights. Secondly, a visit was expected from two directors of Brotherhood’s, Ltd., that extremely old-fashioned and religiously-minded firm who manufacture boiled sweets and non-alcoholic liquors. A warning had been sent round that all female members of the staff must refrain from smoking, and that any proofs of beer or whisky advertising must be carefully concealed from sight. The former restriction bore hardly upon Miss Meteyard and the copy-department typists, whose cigarettes were, if not encouraged, at least winked at in the ordinary way by the management. Miss Parton had been further upset by a mild suggestion from Mr. Hankin that she was showing rather more arm and neck than the directors of Brotherhood’s, Ltd., would think seemly; out of sheer perversity, she had covered the offending flesh with a heavy sweater, and was ostentatiously stewing and grumbling and snapping the head off every one who approached her. Mr. Jollop, who was, if anything, slightly more cautious than Mr. Toule, arrived particularly early for the weekly Nutrax conference, and had distinguished himself by firmly killing no less than three advertisements which Mr. Toule had previously passed. This meant that Mr. Hankin had been obliged to send out his S O S nearly a month earlier than usual. Mr. Armstrong had toothache, and had been exceptionally short with Miss Rossiter, and something had gone wrong with Miss Rossiter’s typewriter, so that its spacing was completely unreliable.
To Mr. Ingleby, perspiring over his guard-books, entered the detested form of Mr. Tallboy, a sheet of paper in his hand.
“Is this your copy?”
Mr. Ingleby stretched out a languid hand, took the paper, glanced at it and returned it.
“How often have I got to tell you blasted incompetents,” he demanded amiably, “that those initials are on the copy for the purpose of identifying the writer? If you think my initials are DB you’re either blind or potty.”
“Who is DB anyway?”
“New fellow, Bredon.”
“Where is he?”
Mr. Ingleby jerked his thumb in the direction of the next room.
“Empty,” announced Mr. Tallboy, after a brief excursion.
“Well, have a look for him,” suggested Ingleby.
“Yes, but look here,” said Mr. Tallboy, persuasively, “I only want a suggestion. What the devil are the Studio to do with this? Do you mean to say Hankin passed that headline?”
“Presumably,” said Ingleby.
“Well, how does he or Bredon or anybody suppose we’re going to get it illustrated? Has the client seen it? They’ll never stand for it. What’s the point in laying it out? I can’t think how Hankin came to pass it.”
Ingleby stretched his hand out again.
“Brief, bright and brotherly,” he observed. “What’s the matter with it?”
The headline was:
____________________!
IF LIFE’S A BLANK
TAKE NUTRAX
“And in any case,” grumbled Tallboy, “the Morning Star won’t take it. They won’t put in anything that looks like bad language.”
“Your look-out,” said Ingleby. “Why not ask ’em?”
Tallboy muttered something impolite.
“Anyway, if Hankin’s passed it, it’ll have to be laid out, I suppose,” said Ingleby. “Surely the Studio-oh! hullo! here’s your man. You’d better worry him. Bredon!”
“That’s me!” said Mr. Bredon. “All present and correct!”
“Where’ve you been hiding from Tallboy? You knew he was on your tail.”
“I’ve been on the roof,” admitted Bredon, apologetically. “Cooler and all that. What’s the matter. What have I done?”
“Well, this headline of yours, Mr. Bredon. How do you expect them to illustrate it?”
“I don’t know. I left it to their ingenuity. I always believe in leaving scope to other people’s imagination.”
“How on earth are they to draw a blank?”
“Let ’em take a ticket in the Irish Sweep. That’ll larn ’em,” said Ingleby.
“I should think it would be rather like a muchness,” suggested Bredon. “Lewis Carroll, you know. Did you ever see a drawing of a muchness?”
“Oh, don’t fool,” growled Tallboy. “We’ve got to do something with it. Do you really think it’s a good headline, Mr. Bredon?”
“It’s the best I’ve written yet,” said Bredon enthusiastically, “except that beauty Hankie wouldn’t pass. Can’t they draw a man looking blank? Or just a man with a blank face, like those ‘Are these missing features yours?’ advertisements?”
“Oh, I suppose they could,” admitted Tallboy, discontentedly. “I’ll put it up to them anyhow. Thanks,” he added, belatedly, and bounced out.
“Cross, isn’t he?” said Ingleby. “It’s this frightful heat. Whatever made you go up on the roof? It must be like a gridiron.”
“So it is, but I thought I’d just try it. As a matter of fact, I was chucking pennies over the parapet to that brass band. I got the bombardon twice. The penny goes down with a tremendous whack, you know, and they look up all over the place to see where it comes from and you dodge down behind the parapet. It’s a tremendous high parapet, isn’t it? I suppose they wanted to make the building look even higher than it is. It’s the highest in the street in any case. You do get a good view from up there. ‘Earth hath not anything to show more fair.’ It’s going to rain like billy-ho in about two ticks. See how black it’s come over.”
“You seem to have come over pretty black, if it comes to that,” remarked Ingleby. “Look at the seat of your trousers.”
“You do want a lot,” complained Bredon, twisting his spine alarmingly. “It is a bit sooty up there. I was sitting on the skylight.”
“You look as if you’d been shinning up a pipe.”
“Well, I did shin down a pipe. Only one pipe-rather a nice pipe. It took my fancy.”
“You’re loopy,” said Ingleby, “doing acrobatics on dirty pipes in this heat. Whatever made you?”
“I dropped something,” said Mr. Bredon, plaintively. “I went down on to the glass roof of the wash-place. I nearly put my foot through. Wouldn’t old Smayle have been surprised if I’d tumbled into the wash-basin on top of him? And then I found I needn’t have gone down the pipe after all; I came back by the staircase-the roof-door was open on both floors.”
“They generally keep them open in hot weather,” said Ingleby.
“I wish I’d known. I say, I could do with a drink.”
“All right, have a glass of Sparkling Pompayne.”
“What’s that?”
“One of Brotherhood’s non-alcoholic refreshers,” grinned Ingleby. “Made from finest Devon apples, with the crisp, cool sparkle of champagne. Definitely anti-rheumatic and non-intoxicant. Doctors recommend it.”
Bredon shuddered.
“I think this is an awfully immoral job of ours. I do, really. Think how we spoil the digestions of the public.”
“Ah, yes-but think how earnestly we strive to put them right again. We undermine ’em with one hand and build ’em with the other. The vitamins we destroy in the canning, we restore in Revito, the roughage we remove from Peabody ’s Piper Parritch we make up into a package and market as Bunbury’s Breakfast Bran; the stomachs we ruin with Pompayne, we re-line with Peplets to aid digestion. And by forcing the damn-fool public to pay twice over-once to have its food emasculated and once to have the vitality put back again, we keep the wheels of commerce turning and give employment to thousands-including you and me.”