"Can't resist a fast megabuck, eh, Cam?"
"As you know, hippo, I agreed to meet you here in the naive hope that you had something to contribute to the science of marketing," said Cam.
"Science! Hah!" Everett sucked on his goblet. "I do have something to sell, but it's probably over your head."
"Very possibly. In which event, I'll whirl on to something more productive, and you can pick up your own tab for those half-gallons of equatirial garbage you've been gulping."
Sobered by this threat, Everett looked about with a conspiratorial air and leaned across the table.
"You and that giggle gang you call the Market Research Group have been groping around like so many blind mice. How would you like to know in advance, beyond any cavil, the exact future reaction to any product, new, old or sea-changed—or to any campaign to be inflicted on the peasantry?"
"How would you like to be Duke of the Western World, with your castle in Acapulco?"
"That's what keeps alive my faith in you," said Everett. "You do understand, a little bit. That's what we call Empathy."