“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, “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 t
hink. 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.”
Mr. Bredon bowed his head, as one who hears the Law and the Prophets. The copy-chief ran a thoughtful pencil over the scribbled list of headlines, and ticked one of them.
“I like that.
BIGGER AND BUTTER
VALUE FOR MONEY
That has the right feel about it. You might write copy for that, and perhaps for this one,
YOU'D BE READY TO BET
IT WAS BUTTER–
though I'm not quite sure about it. These Dairyfields people are rather strait-laced about betting.”
“Oh, are they? What a pity! I'd done several about that. 'HAVE A BIT ON–' Don't you like that one?”
Mr. Hankin shook his head regretfully.
“I'm afraid that's too direct. Encouraging the working classes to waste their money.”
“But they all do it–why, all these women like a little flutter.”
“I know, I know. But I'm sure the client wouldn't stand for it. You'll soon find that the biggest obstacle to good advertising is the client. They all have their fads. That headline would do for Darling's, but it won't do for Dairyfields. We did very well with a sporting headline in '26–'PUT YOUR SHIRT ON Darling's Non-collapsible Towel-Horse'–sold 80,000 in Ascot week. Though that was partly accident, because we mentioned a real horse in the copy and it came in at 50 to 1, and all the women who'd won money on it rushed out and bought Non-collapsible Towel-Horses out of sheer gratitude. The public's very odd.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Bredon. “They must be. There seems to be more in advertising than, so to speak, meets the eye.”
“There is,” said Mr. Hankin, a little grimly. “Well, get some copy written and bring it along to me. You know where to find my room?”
“Oh, yes–at the end of the corridor, near the iron staircase.”
“No, no, that's Mr. Armstrong. At the other end of the corridor, near the other staircase–not the iron staircase. By the way–”
“Yes?”
“Oh, nothing,” said Mr. Hankin, vaguely. “That is to say–no, nothing.”
Mr. Bredon gazed after his retreating figure, and shook his fair head in a meditative manner. Then, applying himself to his task, he wrote out, rather quickly, a couple of paragraphs in praise of margarine and wandered out with them. Turning to the right, he paused opposite the door of Ingleby's room and stared irresolutely at the iron staircase. As he stood there, the glass door of a room on the opposite side of the corridor opened and a middle-aged man shot out. Seeing Bredon, he paused in his rush for the stairhead and inquired:
“Do you want to know how to get anywhere or anything?”
“Oh! thanks awfully. No–I mean, yes. I'm the new copy-writer. I'm looking for the typists' room.”
“Other end of the passage.”
“Oh, I see, thanks frightfully. This place is rather confusing. Where does this staircase go to?”
“Down to a whole lot of departments–mostly group-managers' rooms and board-rooms and Mr. Pym's room and several of the Directors' rooms and the Printing.”
“Oh, I see. Thanks ever so. Where does one wash?”
“That's downstairs too. I'll show you if you like.”
“Oh, thanks–thanks most awfully.”
The other man plunged down the steep and rattling spiral as though released by a spring. Bredon followed more gingerly.
“A bit precipitous, isn't it?”
“Yes, it is. You'd better be careful. One fellow out of your department smashed himself up here the other day.”
“No, really?”
“Broke his neck. Dead when we picked him up.”
“No, did he? was he? How on earth did he come to do that? Couldn't he see where he was going?”
“Slipped, I expect. Must have been going too fast. There's nothing really wrong with the staircase. I've never had an accident. It's very well-lit.”
“Well-lit?” Mr. Bredon gaped vaguely at the skylight and up and down the passage, surrounded, like the one on the floor above, with glass partitions. “Oh, yes, to be sure. It's very well-lit. Of course he must have slipped. Dashed easy thing to slip on a staircase. Did he have nails in his shoes?”
“I don't know. I wasn't noticing his shoes. I was thinking about picking up the pieces.”
“Did you pick him up?”
“Well, I heard the racket when he went down, and rushed out and got there one of the first. My name's Daniels, by the way.”
“Oh, is it? Daniels, oh, yes. But didn't it come out at the inquest about his shoes?”
“I don't remember anything about it.”
“Oh! then I suppose he didn't have nails. I mean, if he had, somebody would have mentioned it. I mean, it would be a sort of excuse, wouldn't it?”
“Excuse for whom?” demanded Daniels.
“For the firm; I mean, when people put up staircases and other people come tumbling down them, the insurance people generally want to know why. At least, I'm told so. I've never fallen down any staircases myself–touch wood.”
“You'd better not try,” retorted Daniels, evading the question of insurance. “You'll find the wash-place through that door and down the passage on the left.”
“Oh, thanks frightfully.”
“Not at all.”
Mr. Daniels darted away into a room full of desks, leaving Mr. Bredon to entangle himself in a heavy swing door.
In the lavatory, Bredon encountered Ingleby.
“Oh!” said the latter. “You've found your way. I was told off to show you, but I forgot.”
“Mr. Daniels showed me. Who's he?”
“Daniels? He's a group-manager. Looks after a bunch of clients–Sliders and Harrogate Bros, and a few more. Sees to the lay-outs and sends the stereos down to the papers and all that. Not a bad chap.”
“He seems a bit touchy about the iron staircase. I mean, he was quite matey till I suggested that the insurance people would want to look into that fellow's accident–and then he kind of froze on me.”
“He's been a long time in the firm and doesn't like any nasturtiums cast at it. Certainly not by a new bloke. As a matter of fact, it's better not to throw one's weight about here till one's been ten years or so in the place. It's not encouraged.”
“Oh? Oh, thanks awfully for telling me.”
“This place is run like a Government office,” went on Ingleby. “Hustle's not wanted and initiative and curiosity are politely shown the door.”
“That's right,” put in a pugnacious-looking red-headed man, who was scrubbing his fingers with pumice-stone as though he meant to take the skin off. “I asked them for £50 for a new lens–and what was the answer? Economy, please, in all departments–the Whitehall touch, eh?–and yet they pay you fellows to write more-you-spend-more-you-save copy! However, I shan't be here long, that's one comfort.”
“This is Mr. Prout, our photographer,” said Ingleby. “He has been on the point of leaving us for the last five years, but when it comes to the point he realizes that we couldn't do without him and yields to our tears and entreaties.”
“Tcha!” said Mr. Prout.
“The management think Mr. Prout so precious,” went on Ingleby, “that they have set his feet in a large room–”
“That you couldn't swing a kitten in,” said Mr. Prout, “and no ventilation. Murder, that's what they do here. Black holes of Calcutta and staircases that break people's heads open. What we want in this country is a Mussolini to organize trade conditions. But what's the good of talking? All the same, one of these days, you'll see.”
“Mr. Prout is our tame firebrand,” observed Ingleby, indulgently. “You coming up, Bredon?”
“Yes. I've got to take this stuff to be typed.”
“Right-ho! Here you are. Round this
way and up this staircase by the lift, through the Dispatching and here you are–right opposite the home of British Beauty. Children, here's Mr. Bredon with a nice bit of copy for you.”
“Hand it here,” said Miss Rossiter, “and oh! Mr. Bredon, do you mind putting down your full name and address on this card–they want it downstairs for the file.”
Bredon took the card obediently.
“Block letters please,” added Miss Rossiter, glancing with some dismay at the sheets of copy she had just received.
“Oh, do you think my handwriting's awful? I always think it's rather neat, myself. Neat, but not gaudy. However, if you say so–”
“Block letters,” repeated Miss Rossiter, firmly. “Hullo! here's Mr. Tallboy. I expect he wants you, Mr. Ingleby.”
“What, again?”
“Nutrax have cancelled that half-double,” announced Mr. Tallboy with gloomy triumph. “They've just sent up from the conference to say that they want something special to put up against the new Slumbermalt campaign, and Mr. Hankin says will you get something out and let him have it in half an hour.”
Ingleby uttered a loud yell, and Bredon, laying down the index-card, gazed at him open-mouthed.
“Damn and blast Nutrax,” said Ingleby. “May all its directors get elephantiasis, locomotor ataxy and ingrowing toe-nails!”
“Oh, quite,” said Tallboy. “You'll let us have something, won't you? If I can get it passed before 3 o'clock the printer–Hullo!”
Mr. Tallboy's eye, roving negligently round, had fallen on Bredon's index-card. Miss Rossiter's glance followed his. Neatly printed on the card stood the one word
DEATH
“Look at that!” said Miss Rossiter.
“Oh!” said Ingleby, looking over her shoulder. “That's who you are, is it, Bredon? Well, all I can say is, your stuff ought to come home to everybody. Universal appeal, and so forth.”
Mr. Bredon smiled apologetically.
“You startled me so,” he said. “Pooping off that howl in my ear.” He took up the card and finished his inscription:
DEATH BREDON,
12A, Great Ormond Street,
W.C.1