all
imagination.

He stopped at the cigar stand in the lobby of his office building, but
Ralph wasn't behind the counter. The man who sold him his pack of
cigarettes was a stranger.

"Where's Mr. Stebbins?" Burckhardt asked.

The man said politely, "Sick, sir. He'll be in tomorrow. A pack of
Marlins today?"

"Chesterfields," Burckhardt corrected.

"Certainly, sir," the man said. But what he took from the rack and
slid across the counter was an unfamiliar green-and-yellow pack.

"Do try these, sir," he suggested. "They contain an anti-cough factor.
Ever notice how ordinary cigarettes make you choke every once in a
while?"

* * * * *

Burckhardt said suspiciously, "I never heard of this brand."

"Of course not. They're something new." Burckhardt hesitated, and the
man said persuasively, "Look, try them out at my risk. If you don't
like them, bring back the empty pack and I'll refund your money. Fair
enough?"

Burckhardt shrugged. "How can I lose? But give me a pack of
Chesterfields, too, will you?"

He opened the pack and lit one while he waited for the elevator. They
weren't bad, he decided, though he was suspicious of cigarettes that
had the tobacco chemically treated in any way. But he didn't think
much of Ralph's stand-in; it would raise hell with the trade at the
cigar stand if the man tried to give every customer the same
high-pressure sales talk.

The elevator door opened with a low-pitched sound of music. Burckhardt
and two or three others got in and he nodded to them as the door
closed. The thread of music switched off and the speaker in the
ceiling of the cab began its usual commercials.

No, not the _usual_ commercials, Burckhardt realized. He had been
exposed to the captive-audience commercials so long that they hardly
registered on the outer ear any more, but what was coming from the
recorded program in the basement of the building caught his
attention. It wasn't merely that the brands were mostly unfamiliar; it
was a difference in pattern.

There were jingles with an insistent, bouncy rhythm, about soft drinks
he had never tasted. There was a rapid patter dialogue between what
sounded like two ten-year-old boys about a candy bar, followed by an
authoritative bass rumble: "Go right out and get a DELICIOUS
Choco-Bite and eat your TANGY Choco-Bite _all up_. That's
_Choco-Bite_!" There was a sobbing female whine: "I _wish_ I had a
Feckle Freezer! I'd do _anythi