Hebster rose. “In that case, I believe I should thank you for—”
“Sit down! You were asked here for a reason. I don’t see any point to it, but we’ll go through the motions. Sit down.”
Hebster sat. He wondered idly if Braganza received half the salary he paid Greta Seidenheim. Of course, Greta was talented in many different ways and performed several distinct and separately useful services. No, after tax and pension deductions, Braganza was probably fortunate to receive one-third of Greta’s salary.
He noticed that a newspaper was being proffered him. He took it. Braganza grunted, clumped back behind his desk and swung his swivel chair around to face the window.
It was a week-old copy of The Evening Humanitarian. The paper had lost the voice-of-a-small-but-highly-articulate-minority look, Hebster remembered from his last reading of it, and acquired the feel of publishing big business. Even if you cut in half the circulation claimed by the box in the upper left-hand corner, that still gave them three million paying readers.
In the upper right-hand corner, a red-bordered box exhorted the faithful to “ Read Humanitarian!” A green streamer across the top of the first page announced that “ To make sense is human — to gibber, Prime!”
But the important item was in the middle of the page. A cartoon.
Half-a-dozen Primeys wearing long, curved beards and insane, tongue-lolling grins sat in a rickety wagon. They held reins attached to a group of straining and portly gentlemen dressed—somewhat simply—in high silk hats. The fattest and ugliest of these, the one in the lead, had a bit between his teeth. The bit was labeled “ crazy-money” and the man, “Algernon Hebster.”
Crushed and splintering under the wheels of the wagon were such varied items as a “Home Sweet Home” framed motto with a piece of wall attached, a clean-cut youngster in a Boy Scout uniform, a streamlined locomotive and a gorgeous young woman with a squalling infant under each arm.
The caption inquired starkly: “Lords of Creation—Or Serfs?”