Another phone was ringing. "General Cox for Mr. House," somebody yelled. "Calling from Hawaii."
Archy wished these jackasses would all drop dead. He shook Otto.
"I tried the auxiliary," said Otto. "It's out."
"Holy volts," said Archy.
For the first time in his life he felt desperate. A cool head and a habit of never being wrong had got him where he was—founder and top banana of Full-Projection, sole owner of three TV networks using the revolutionary 3-D devices perfected by Otto Kahler and patented by Archy. In the present emergency, he tried to keep his head still cool and continue to never be wrong.
A stagehand was running a phone out onto the set. Waiting, Archy snapped instructions at Otto—put half the staff to trying to get the scramblers operating, set the other half to slapping together an emergency machine. Otto dashed off and the phone was slapped into Archy's hand.
"Yes, Ben," he said assuringly to the President of the United States. "What can I do for you?"
"You can get those projections out of my living room," snapped the president. "They're still doing their acts from the circus show—jugglers, acrobats, an animated cartoon. What happened?"
"Don't worry, Pops. An experimental commercial goofed. Stay tuned; we'll have the scramblers on in ten minutes."
"You'd better," crackled President Conklin. "I have guests—this could be an international incident. And don't call me Pops."