Forsythe leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head. "You might say I've been a huckster all my life, Mr. Manning."
Life-long pitchman, Manning figured coldly. Helped the medicine man when he was a youngster and ran away with a carnival when he was in his teens. During the Depression he probably had a set-up on a street corner selling spot remover, dealt in nylons during the war, and saved enough to branch out in a big way after the war was over.
"Look, Forsythe, I don't know who put you on to this racket or whether you're fronting for somebody else or not, but it's no go. Somebody complains and then we have to crack down on you. We call it fraudulent use of the mails, con games, or what have you. And an incident under any one of them will get you ten to twenty at the local state penitentiary."
Forsythe didn't look at all worried.
"Have there been any complaints?"
Wheeler was standing by the door, carefully snipping the end off of a cigar. He said, "Not yet. But we like to stop trouble before it starts. And it costs good money to investigate, to run tests. We do the public a favor by warning you off the market, and we do you a favor by saving you a stretch in the little brick house by the river."
"There won't be any trouble," Forsythe said with an earnestness that seemed oddly out of place. "Actually the carburetor will give you closer to two hundred miles to the gallon."
"On pure H two O, eh?"
Forsythe nodded cheerfully. "That's right. It's actually H sixteen O eight, by the way."