He held it aloft, eyes beaming.
“Just picture that in orange on a dark blue background! Smelly-Welly! A
child can say it. Ah, an idea! ‘A child can use it just as easily as a
child can say it.’ We’ll print that on every can. Why, it would be a sin
to retail Smelly-Welly at a dollar a can. I bet we could get a dollar
and a half easy for a product with a name like that. Smelly-Welly!
There’s magic in it, I tell you. Isn’t it a peach, Bowser?”
“I like Garfinko Nostinko better,” she answered doggedly.
He bit his lip.
“Oh, do you?” he said stiffly.
“Yes; Smelly-Welly lacks dignity.”
“Is that so? Well, I tried it on Mink, Pffeffer, Boley, Deyo, Hendricks
and Shinners, and they were all most enthusiastic about it.”
“They would be, the jellyfish,” said Mrs. Bowser dryly. “If you suggest
Cupid’s Caress as the name for a tire pump they’d applaud.”
Mr. Bowser was outraged by this suggestion.
“You’re just in a stubborn streak, Bowser,” he declared. “No use
reasoning with you. I shall use Smelly-Welly.”
“It lacks dignity,” she retorted.
“Smelly-Welly,” said Mr. Bowser with concentrated gravity, “is my
choice, and I intend that it shall be used.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Mrs. Bowser grimly.
A light and timorous tap sounded on the door; the frightened face of
Miss Mink peeped through the crack.
“Sorry, Mr. Bowser,” she said, “but your reducing class at the Billboard
A. C. starts at 5:30 and it’s now 5:25. You told me to be sure you
didn’t miss it again. Your car is waiting.”
“I’ll come directly, Mink,” said Mr. Bowser. He turned to his wife. “I
shall stay at the club tonight,” he informed her, then stalked out.
She said nothing; ominously she tapped her teeth. There was a buzzer in
the Quiet Room—a pale gray buzzer with a wan buzz; this she pressed.
Miss Gussing flitted into the room.
“Gussing, take a memo. To cook. _In re_ dinner tonight. Mr.
Bowser will not be present. Tomato soup, roast chicken, little
green beans, guava jelly, raspberry mousse, eight sharp.
“(Signed) P. I. Bowser, _Associate President_.”
Morn came to the office of J. Sanford Bowser. Up and down, up and down
paced Mr. Bowser, heedless of the fact that he might wear a path in the
genuine Cabistan rug. That he, most careful of men, should thus imperil
so costly a piece of his own property was a sure sign to his employees
that he was in no mood to be trifled with. His brow, generally bland,
was creased with care and perplexity. He lit Marlborough-Somerset after
Marlborough-Somerset, then tossed them, half-smoked, into the copper ash
tray. J. Sanford Bowser was in conference with himself.
Heads of departments tiptoed about with ashen faces and tight-shut lips;
now and then they paused in the corridors to exchange a few tense,
whispered words. Copy writers in their coops wrote furiously but
silently with soft black pencils; now and then they glanced
apprehensively over their shoulders as if they momentarily expected the
grim reaper himself to enter. Little girls down in the checking
department curbed their giggles and masticated their gum with nervous
molars; even the space salesmen on the benches in the reception room
sensed the fact that the atmosphere was electric with suspense; in muted
voices they muttered their selling talk over to themselves.
“J. S. B. is making some big decision,” whispered the head of the copy
department to the head of the media department.
“The Chief is making some big decision,” whispered Copy Writer Deyo to
Copy Writer Shinners as they held hands in the Quiet Room.
“Mr. Bowser is makin’ some big decision,” whispered Mickey the messenger
to Sallie the checker.
And Mrs. Bowser, where was she? Alone and aloof in her own private
concentrating room on the roof of the building, she did not know of the
spiritual wrestling match that went on in Mr. Bowser’s soul. She was
busy; her chin jutted out resolutely; with pieces of colored paper and
with paint she frantically designed car cards, posters, cartons, on
which she lettered vigorously “Garfinko Nostinko.”
“Hit them in the Eye with Something Tangible,” she explained to the
faithful Gussing who stood guard outside the door to prevent
interruption. “Once Bowser sees these, he’ll forget Smelly-Welly.
Smelly-Welly lacks dignity, don’t you think, Gussing?”
“Yes, Bowser.”
From the theater of war, where Mr. Bowser battled with himself, came a
news bulletin which leaped from mouth to mouth:
“J. S. B. is going into the Quiet Room.”
“The Chief is going into the Quiet Room.”
“Mr. Bowser is going into the Quiet Room.”
They saw him, hands clasped behind him, chin resting on necktie, eyes
oblivious to things mundane, stride down the corridor and into the Quiet
Room. As noiselessly as if it were the cobweb door to ghostland the gray
door purred shut behind him. From basement to roof in the vast Bowser
Building breaths were held.
In the Quiet Room Mr. Bowser set up on racks four cards, in groups of
two. The first card bore the words: