hese, Frank," he said. "I feel like a new
man, already." Then his face clouded again. "But we have no time to
prepare 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 to
what was going to happen. The voice is one of the girls in my office,
over at the brewery. Pronunciation, grammar, elocution and everything
correct."

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 money
I've been spending in this campaign, because some of the items would
look funny as hell, but--"

"No accounting, Frank. After all, you spent as much of your own money
as you did of mine," Pelton interrupted.

"... But I bought myself a pipe line into Literates' Hall big enough
to chase an elephant through," Cardon went on, ignoring the
interruption. "This fellow Mongery, for instance." Elliot Mongery was
one of Literate Frank Cardon's best friends; he comforted his
conscience with the knowledge that Mongery would slander him just as
unscrupulously, if the interests of the Lancedale Plan were at stake.
"I have Mongery just like this." He made a clutching and lifting
gesture, as though he were picking up some small animal by the scruff
of the neck. "So, as soon as I got word of it, I started getting this
thing together. It isn't the kind of a job a Literate semanticist
would do, but it's all honest Illiterate thinking, in Illiterate
language. Turn it on, and tell me what you think of it."

While Pelton listened to the record, Cardon mixed him another of the
highballs, adding a little of the heart-stimulant the medic had given
him. Pelton was grinning savagely when he turned off the little
machine and took out the ear plug.

"Great stuff, Frank! And I won't have to ham it much; it's just about
the way I feel." He thought for a moment. "You have me talking about
my ruined store, there. Just how bad is it, anyhow?"

"Pretty bad, Chet. Latterman says it's going to take some time to get
it fixed up, but he expects to be open for business by Thursday or
Friday. He's going to put on a big Battle Sale; he says it's going to
make retail-merchandising history. And the insurance covers most of
the damage."

"Well, te