ciples of that most
reviving tonic, Tono-Bungay, together with an emollient and nutritious
oil derived from crude Neat's Foot Oil by a process of refinement,
separation and deodorization.... It will be manifest to any one of
scientific attainments that in Neat's Foot Oil derived from the hoofs
and horns of beasts, we must necessarily have a natural skin and hair
lubricant."

And we also did admirable things with our next subsidiaries,
"Tono-Bungay Lozenges," and "Tono-Bungay Chocolate." These we urged upon
the public for their extraordinary nutritive and recuperative value
in cases of fatigue and strain. We gave them posters and illustrated
advertisements showing climbers hanging from marvelously vertical
cliffs, cyclist champions upon the track, mounted messengers engaged in
Aix-to-Ghent rides, soldiers lying out in action under a hot sun. "You
can GO for twenty-four hours," we declared, "on Tono-Bungay Chocolate."
We didn't say whether you could return on the same commodity. We also
showed a dreadfully barristerish barrister, wig, side-whiskers, teeth,
a horribly life-like portrait of all existing barristers, talking at a
table, and beneath, this legend: "A Four Hours' Speech on Tono-Bungay
Lozenges, and as fresh as when he began." Then brought in regiments
of school-teachers, revivalist ministers, politicians and the like. I
really do believe there was an element of "kick" in the strychnine
in these lozenges, especially in those made according to our earlier
formula. For we altered all our formulae--invariably weakening them
enormously as sales got ahead.

In a little while--so it seems to me now--we were employing travelers
and opening up Great Britain at the rate of a hundred square miles a
day. All the organisation throughout was sketched in a crude, entangled,
half-inspired fashion by my uncle, and all of it had to be worked out
into a practicable scheme of quantities and expenditure by me. We had a
lot of trouble finding our travelers; in the end at least half of them
were Irish-Americans, a wonderful breed for selling medicine. We had
still more trouble over our factory manager, because of the secrets of
the inner room, and in the end we got a very capable woman, Mrs. Hampton
Diggs, who had formerly managed a large millinery workroom, whom we
could trust to keep everything in good working order without finding out
anything that wasn't put exactly under her loyal and energetic nose.
She conceived a high opinio