“Marshmallow, chocolate fudge, shredded coconut, and good thick chocolate coating,” said George Lockwood. “But there’s something else in there, mixed in with the fudge, I guess.”
“Yes, you’re right, there is,” said Charley Bohm. “But I’ll tell you frankly, I don’t know what it is. I could have it analyzed, but what’s to stop the chemist from making this himself? You agree it’s good. I say it’s as tasty a piece of candy as I ever ate, and I eat a lot of candy to keep from drinking booze. The recipe was invented by a woman in this town in Ohio, and I would like to put the God damn thing on the market. So would Ray. We’re sold on it.”
“To such a degree that we’ve looked into what it would cost to put on a national advertising campaign. First we think up a good name, and then we’re off to the races. Saturday Evening Post. Collier’s. Kids’ magazines. Newspapers. Billboards. Car cards. We get somebody like Norman Bel Geddes to design the package and decide what shape the mould should be. The candy itself is going to cost nothing. The money is going into the advertising campaign. We’ll create a demand before anybody ever sees the God damn candy, and that’s why we need money. What do you think, Pen?”
“Well—I like the candy, but personally I wouldn’t want to put up Lockwood & Company money for an advertising campaign. That can vanish into thin air, and if the candy is a failure, how much can you recover from an advertising campaign? Nothing. That’s my opinion. George may differ with me.”
“I don’t differ with my brother, as far as Lockwood & Company are concerned. He has to think of various other individuals.”
“Well, in other words, the answer is no,” said Turner.
“I didn’t say quite that,” said George Lockwood. “How much money are you planning to spend, and how much are you going to need?”
“Well, George, the exact figures are confidential,” said Turner. “But upwards of a million, and the lion’s share goes into advertising the candy. That much I’ll tell you, even if you don’t think much of the investment.”
“You can put me down for a hundred and fifty thousand,” said George Lockwood.
“What? Are you kidding?” said Turner.
“I don’t kid about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” said George Lockwood.
“Well, say,” said Charley Bohm.
“Pen, you ought to get in on this, your own money,” said George Lockwood.
“I’m afraid not,” said Penrose Lockwood.
“Fifty thousand?” said George Lockwood.
“Sorry, George. I believe in spending money on advertising when you have a product to sell, but this would be advertising without a product.”
“You tasted the candy,” said George Lockwood.
“But they’re going to advertise first and manufacture later. If it was a new automobile, you’d at least have some scrap iron if the car was a failure. Sorry, George. No.”
“Well, gentlemen, I’m in,” said George Lockwood. “Pen, you’re excused. We’re going to have a private meeting.”
Penrose Lockwood rose. “I’ll be a son of a bitch if I’ve ever known a more unpredictable man, and he’s my own brother. Ray, thanks for the lunch. Charley. And good luck, all three of you. Maybe I’ll be sorry, but maybe not. At least I won’t lie awake nights when I see those ads in The Saturday Evening Post. So long.” He departed.
“Now then, Ray, Charley, let’s see what you have on paper. Who else are in on this, and for how much, and have you signed up a man from one of the big candy companies? That’s good candy. It leaves a good taste. It can be marketed for a nickel, of course?”
“In quantity, we can make money on a nickel,” said Ray Turner.
“There’ll be quantity,” said George Lockwood. “Now there’s only one hitch, and it isn’t much of a one.”
“What’s that, George?” said Turner.
“As you can see, I’m going into this with great enthusiasm. I always do, and my enthusiasm will continue. But it’s nobody’s damn business what I go into and what I stay out of. So—publicly, my name stays out.”
“That’s easy,” said Charley Bohm.
“The carburetor deal, that was Lockwood & Company, but my personal investments are another matter. I have no desire to broadcast my failures or my successes. Keep me out of print. With that understood, let’s get down to business.”
He remained with Turner and Bohm until past five o’clock, and the three men worked well together. George Lockwood asked the leading questions, Ray Turner would give the straightforward answers, Charley Bohm would embellish Turner’s answers; but in Bohm’s supplementary and lengthy remarks there was always some point of information that had not been included in Turner’s terser replies. Turner had the bookkeeping mind and saw the enterprise as a structure of arithmetical figures. Bohm, it developed, had not at first seen the enterprise as a promising proposition, and had not tried to persuade Turner to invest in it. With him it was going to be a modest, sentimental speculation, in which he was thinking in terms of $25,000. But as he talked, Turner had caught some of his enthusiasm, and before long Turner was envisioning a business enterprise that could match the recent startling success of Eskimo Pie, the chocolate-coated ice cream that had become a legend.
“I thought of Eskimo Pie, too,” said George Lockwood.
“Ah, you’ve had me wondering why you jumped right in with both feet,” said Ray Turner.
“Oh, that occurred to me right away,” said Lockwood. “This candy won’t have the novelty that Eskimo Pie had, but it has something in its favor to make up for that.”
“What are you thinking of?” said Turner.
“Ice cream melts,” said George Lockwood. “This candy doesn’t need refrigeration. You can put a stack of these candies on a cigar-store counter, and you can’t do that with Eskimo Pie. The retailer won’t have to buy a nickel’s worth of extra equipment.”
Turner smiled at Bohm.
“You’re echoing what Ray said to me three months ago,” said Bohm.
“Well, I’m a practical man, just as Ray is. I see the dollars-and-cents aspect. At the same time, though, my enthusiasm for this is partly based on a conversation Pen and I had this morning. After our conversation I was ripe for an investment of this kind. It’s highly speculative, but it’s an investment nevertheless. I’m damned tired of the stock market.”
“I can’t say I’m tired of it,” said Charley Bohm. “But I’m inclined to be bearish.”
George Lockwood looked at him before speaking. “Is that because you like being on the short side?”
“I go from short to long, whichever way I think is going to make me some money,” said Bohm.
“Admit it, everybody knows you’re generally bearish,” said Turner. “Personally, I think we’re in for a five-year boom.”
“Beginning when?” said Lockwood.
“Beginning about now.”
“You mean of course a stock-market boom,” said Lockwood.
“Of course, although based on what I see going on all over the country. Expansion. New industry. Employment figures.”
“But wouldn’t you agree with me that stocks generally are too high?”
“Charley says that, but I don’t think so, and even if they are a little high, the economy is going to catch up. We’ll keep old Cal in Washington for another six years, and business will have a free hand.”
“Well, Ray, I see that you and I are going to have to avoid one topic. The stock market.”
“What are you complaining about, George? You’ve made plenty of money in it.”
“Yes, and I’d like to hold on to it. That’s why I’m investing in this candy, a business that I know absolutely nothing about, but that’s at least a business. I think it made more sense to put money in Florida real estate. At least those people have a place to lie down.”