The Governor shook out the papers, and my heart played tag with my shoestrings. The CC's publicity department had done a magnificent job. Those natural color photographs were luscious enough to make the mouth of the rankest amateur gardener water. Gay yellows and soft blues ... brilliant splotches of crimson ... dainty, sunny marigolds ... shy nodding violets ... that pamphlet was a tempting hunk of stuff.
But I had been wrong in thinking the Governor of Iapetus could be bribed. He was an honest man. He turned to Cap Hanson.
"And you, Captain? Have you a similar brochure?"
The Old Man scrubbed his jaw feebly. "Why ... er ... the truth is, Your Honor—" he began.
It was then Lancelot Biggs stepped forward, interrupting the skipper.
"The truth is, Governor," he said blandly, "our Company does not depend on printed booklets to sell its products. There is, you surely realize, a certain amount of artistic falsification—or should I simply call it 'artistic license'?—employed in reproducing facsimiles of living objects. Therefore, in order to sell our goods we always attempt to offer a living example of our product.
"I have here—" He dug into his jacket pocket and brought forth a bulging waxine envelope—"the bud of one of our most gorgeous blooms, the famous Rosa rugosa. You can see for yourself—"
With the look of a proud papa he opened the flap of the envelope, started to withdraw his single rosebud, and—stopped suddenly. A look of startled alarm drained his face of all color. He whispered, "But—but this—"
"Go on, lad," prodded the Old Man. "Show 'em. You got a bud there, ain't you? Well, show 'em."