Not that any of us guessed then how important that remark was. We had other things to worry about. The fiasco of that demonstration had just about cooked our goose. Sure, we explained it must've been sabotage, and the Head backed us up; but the wiseacres shook their heads and muttered "Not bad for an alibi, but—"
Two of three telecommentators who had been backing us switched over to Grew. The solly producer abandoned his plans for a documentary. I don't know if this was honest conviction or the power of Robinc; it hit us the same either way. People were scared of usuforms now; they might go boom! And the biggest and smartest publicity and advertising campaign of the past century was fizzling out ffft before our helpless eyes.
It was the invaluable Guzub who gave us our first upward push. We were drinking at the Sunspot when he said, "Ah, boys—Zo things are going wrong with you, bud you zdill gome 'ere. No madder wad abbens, beoble zdill wand three things: eading and dringing and—"
Quinby looked up with the sharp pleasure of a new idea. "There's nothing we can do with the third," he said. "But eating and drinking—Guzub, you want to see usuforms go over, don't you?"
"And remember," I added practically, "you've got a royalty interest in our robot barkeep."
Guzub rolled all his eyes up once and down once—the Martian trick of nodding assent.
"All right," said Quinby. "Practically all bartenders are Martians, the tentacles are so useful professionally. Lots of them must be good friends of yours?"
"Lodz," Guzub agreed.
"Then listen—"
That was how we launched the really appealing campaign. Words? Sure, people have read and heard millions upon billions of words, and one set of them is a lot like another. But when you get down to Guzub's three essentials—