opportunism, and it's partlybecause, since a single policy has been adopted, I feel obliged to goalong with it. I'll have to get the store back in operation, as soonas possible. Pelton's going to need money, badly, if he's going to tryfor the presidency in '44." He looked around him. "You know, I'vealways wanted to run a fire sale; this'll be even better--a battlesale!"
* * * * *
Cardon watched Chester Pelton apprehensively as the bald-headedmerchant and senatorial candidate sipped from the tall glass in hishand and then set it on the table beside him. His face was pale, andhe had the look of a man who has just been hit with a blackjack.
"That's an awful load of bricks to dump on a man, all at once,Frank," he said reproachfully.
"You'd rather I told you, now, than turn on the TV and hear somecommentator talking about it, wouldn't you?" Cardon asked.
Pelton swore vilely, in a lifeless monotone, cursing Literacy, andall Literates back to the invention of the alphabet. Then he stoppedshort.
"No, Frank, I don't mean that, either. My own son and daughter areLiterates; I can't say that about them. But how long--?"
"Oh, for about a year, I'd say. I understand, now, that they wereadmitted to the Fraternities six months ago," he invented.
"And they were working against me, all that time?" Pelton demanded.
Cardon shook his head. "No, Chet; they were for you, all the way. Yourdaughter exposed her Literacy to save your life. Your son and histeacher came to your store and fought for you. But there are Literateswho want to see you defeated, and they're the ones who made thataudio-visual, secretly, of the ceremony in which your son and daughtertook the Literates' Oath and received the white smock, and they'regoing to telecast it this evening at twenty-one hundred. Coming on topof the stories that have been going around all afternoon, and SladeGardner's speech, this morning, they think that'll be enough to defeatyou."
"Well, don't you?" Pelton gloomed. "My own kids, Literates!" He seemedto have reached a point at which he was actually getting a masochisticpleasure out of turning the dagger in his wounds. "Who'd trust me,after this?"
"No, Chet; it isn't enough to beat you--if you just throw away thatcrying towel and start fighting. They made one mistake that's goingto wreck them."
"What's that, Frank?" Pelton brightened, by about one angstrom unit.
"The timing, of course!" Cardon told him, impatiently. "I thoughtyou'd see that, at once. This telecast comes on at twenty-one hundred.Your final speech comes on at twenty-one thirty. As soon as they'veshown this business of Claire and Ray taking the Literate Oath, you'llbe on the air, yourself, and if you put on any kind of a show worththe name, it won't be safe for anybody in this state to be caughtwearing a white smock. Now, if they'd only had the wit to wait tillafter you'd delivered that speech you've been practicing on for thelast two weeks, and then spring this on you, that would have beendifferent. They'd have had you over a barrel. But this way, you havethem!"
Pelton took another gulp from the tall glass at his elbow, emptyingit. "Fix me up another of these, Frank," he said. "I feel like a newman, already." Then his face clouded again. "But we have no time toprepare a speech, now, and I just can't ad lib one."
Cardon drew a little half-inch record-disk from his pocket case.
"Play this off," he said. "I had it fixed up, as soon as I got wise towhat was going to happen. The voice is one of the girls in my office,over at the brewery. Pronunciation, grammar, elocution and everythingcorrect."
Pelton snapped the disk onto his recorder and put in the ear plug.Then, before he pressed the stud, he looked at Cardon curiously.
"How'd you get onto this, anyhow, Frank?" he wanted to know.
"Well ... I hope you don't ask me for an accounting of all the moneyI've been spending in this campaign, because some of the items wouldlook funny as hell, but--"
"No accounting, Frank. After all, you spent as much of your own moneyas you did of mine," Pelton interrupted.
"... But I bought myself a pipe line into Literates' Hall big enoughto chase an elephant through," Cardon went on, ignoring theinterruption. "This fellow Mongery, for instance." Elliot Mongery wasone of Literate Frank Cardon's best friends; he comforted hisconscience with the knowledge that Mongery would slander him just asunscrupulously, if the interests of the Lancedale Plan were at stake."I have Mongery just like this." He made a clutching and liftinggesture, as though he were picking up some small animal by the scruffof the neck. "So, as soon as I got word of it, I started getting thisthing together. It isn't the kind of a job a Literate semanticistwould do, but it's all honest Illiterate thinking, in Illiteratelanguage. Turn it on, and tell me what you think of it."
While Pelton listened to the record, Cardon mixed him another of thehighballs, adding a little of the heart-stimulant the medic had givenhim. Pelton was grinning savagely when he turned off the littlemachine and took out the ear plug.
"Great stuff, Frank! And I won't have to ham it much; it's just aboutthe way I feel." He thought for a moment. "You have me talking aboutmy ruined store, there. Just how bad is it, anyhow?"
"Pretty bad, Chet. Latterman says it's going to take some time to getit fixed up, but he expects to be open for business by Thursday orFriday. He's going to put on a big Battle Sale; he says it's going tomake retail-merchandising history. And the insurance covers most ofthe damage."
"Well, tell me about it. How did you get the riot stopped, after yougot me out? And how did you--?"
Cardon shook his head. "You play that record over again; get yourselfin the mood. When you go on, we'll have you in a chair, wrapped in ablanket ... you're supposed to have crawled back out of the Valley ofthe Shadow of Death to make this speech ... and we'll have the wirerun down inside the blanket, so that you can listen to the speechwhile you're giving it. Chet, this is going to be one of the greatpolitical speeches of all time--"
* * * * *
Literate William R. Lancedale looked up from his desk and greeted hisvisitor with a smile.
"Well, Frank! Sit down and accept congratulations! I suppose you gotthe returns?"
Cardon nodded, dropping into a chair beside the desk. "Just came fromcampaign headquarters. This automatic tally system they use on thevoting machines is really something. Complete returns tabulated andreported for the whole state within forty minutes after the pollsclosed. I won't be silly enough to ask you if you got the returns."
"I deserved that, of course," Lancedale chuckled. "Can I offer yourefreshment? A nice big stein of Cardon's Black Bottle, for instance?"
Cardon shuddered and grimaced horribly. "I've been drinking that slopby the bucketful, all day. And Pelton's throwing a victory party,tonight, and I'll have to choke down another half gallon of it. Giveme a cup of coffee, and one of those good cigars of yours."
Lancedale grinned at him. "Ah, yes, the jolly brewer. His own bestadvertisement. How's Pelton reacting to his triumph? And what's hisattitude toward his children? I've been worrying about that; vestigialtraces of a conscience, I suppose."
"Well, I had to keep him steamed up, till after he went off the air,"Cardon said. "Chet isn't a very good actor. But after that, I talkedto him like a Dutch uncle. Told him what a swell pair of kids and afine son-in-law he had. He got sore at me. Tried to throw me out ofthe house, a couple of times. I was afraid he was going to haveanother of those attacks. But by the time Ralph and Claire get backfrom their honeymoon and Ray finishes that cram-course for Literateprep school, he'll be ready to confer the paternal blessing allaround. I'm going to stay in town and make sure of it, and then I'mtaking about a month's vacation."
"You've earned it, all right." Lancedale poured Cardon's coffee andpassed him the cigar humidor. "How's Pelton's attitude toward theConsolidated Illiterates' Organization, now?"
Cardon, having picked up the Italian stiletto to puncture his cigar,looked at it carefully to make sure that it really had no edge, andthen drew it quickly across his throat.
"Just like
that. You know what really happened, yesterday afternoon,at the store, don't you?"
"Well, in general, yes. I wish you'd fill me in on some of thedetails, though, Frank."
"Details he wants. Well." Cardon blew on his coffee and sipped it."The way we played it for propaganda purposes, of course, there wasonly one big riot, and it was all the work of the wicked Literates andtheir Independent-Conservative