ou a writer. It's a literary reference, Gussy.
Pooh-Bah (cut!) was Lord High Everything Else in _The Mikado_. He had
a little list and nothing on it would ever be missed."

* * * * *

"Oh, yeah," Gusterson remembered, glowering. "As I recall it, all that
went on that list was the names of people who were slated to have
their heads chopped off by Ko-Ko. Better watch your step, Shorty. It
may be a back-handed omen. Maybe all those workers you're puttin'
ticklers on to pump them full of adrenaline so they'll overwork
without noticin' it will revolt and come out some day choppin' for
your head."

"Spare me the Marxist mythology," Fay protested. "Gussy, you've got a
completely wrong slant on Tickler. It's true that most of our mass
sales so far, bar government and army, have been to large companies
purchasing for their employees--"

"Ah-ha!"

"--but that's because there's nothing like a tickler for teaching a
new man his job. It tells him from instant to instant what he must
do--while he's already on the job and without disturbing other
workers. Magnetizing a wire with a job pattern is the easiest thing
going. And you'd be astonished what the subliminals do for employee
morale. It's this way, Gussy: most people are too improvident and
unimaginative to see in advance the advantages of ticklers. They buy
one because the company strongly suggests it and payment is on easy
installments withheld from salary. They find a tickler makes the work
day go easier. The little fellow perched on your shoulder is a friend
exuding comfort and good advice. The first thing he's set to say is
'Take it easy, pal.'

"Within a week they're wearing their tickler 24 hours a day--and
buying a tickler for the wife, so she'll remember to comb her hair and
smile real pretty and cook favorite dishes."

"I get it, Fay," Gusterson cut in. "The tickler is the newest fad for
increasing worker efficiency. Once, I read somewheres, it was salt
tablets. They had salt-tablet dispensers everywhere, even in
air-conditioned offices where there wasn't a moist armpit twice a year
and the gals sweat only champagne. A decade later people wondered what
all those dusty white pills were for. Sometimes they were mistook for
tranquilizers. It'll be the same way with ticklers. Somebody'll open a
musty closet and see jumbled heaps of these gripping-hand silvery
gadgets gathering dust curls and--"

"They will not!" Fay protested vehemen