"I met Dr. Pearly last night at the Vegetarian Club dinner," says one of the members, "and he said that he might be a little late today but that he would surely come."
"His wife has just had a very delicate throat operation, I understand," offers a committeeman [pg 102]who is drawing concentric circles on his pad of paper.
"Bad weather for throat operations," says the Secretary.
"That's right," says the Chairman, looking through a pile of papers for one which he has left at home. "But let's get down to business. At the last meeting the question arose as to whether or not it was advisable to continue having conductors punch the little hole at the bottom of rebate slips. As you know, the slip says, 'Not redeemable if punched here.' Now, someone brought up the point that it seems silly to give out a rebate slip at all if there isn't going to be any rebate on it. A sub-committee was appointed to go into the matter, and I would like to ask Mr. Twing, the chairman, what he has to report."
Mr. Twing will clear his throat and start to speak, but will make only an abortive sound. He will then clear his throat again.
"Mr. Chairman, the other members of the sub-committee and myself were unable to get exactly the data on this that we wanted and I delegated Mr. Entwhistle to dig up something which he said he had read recently in the files of the Scientific American. But Mr. Entwhistle doesn't seem to be here today, and so I am unable to report his findings. [pg 103]It was, however, the sense of the meeting that the conductors should not."
"That's right," says the chairman.
"Should not what?" inquires Dr. Pearly, who has just sneaked in, knocking three hats to the floor while hanging up his coat.