Bill set down an empty glass. I grew tenser. Jerry inquired, “Another?” and when Bill shook his head, asked the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. “So--you’ve decided to quit lushing around, and get some work done for a change?” That was one of the trick questions we’d settled on--a variation of the old “Have you stopped beating your wife?” formula. If Bill had been quite normal, he’d have answered, “Hell no,” or, “Yeah, guess I better,” or some answer as jocular and meaningless as the question. But if our elixir of lie soap worked, he’d answer--with a peculiar, embarrassed gulp of hesitation: “But I don’t lush around, and I get a good deal of work done.” Which was what he _did_ say. Because it was the truth, silly and pompous as it sounded there and then. I could see Jerry rallying himself to ask some more telling questions, and I knew he was feeling an emotion exactly like mine--exultation curiously mixed with shame. Both of us realized at that moment, I guess, that it was going to mean no more friendly kidding over a couple of beers, no more harmless insults and bragging, no more fish stories.... But of course there’s always a price. I went to O’Brien. He heard me out without changing expression. When I’d laid all the cards on the table, he said slowly, “If this stuff will really do what you say--” “It will,” I assured him. “It has.” “In that case, my young scientific friend, do you realize what you’re asking me to do? I’ve spent twenty years in the advertising game. You might say I’ve devoted my life to it. Now you want me to help you with a scheme that’ll wipe out advertising as we know it--lock, stock, and barrel.” “I--I hadn’t thought of it like that.” “In other words,” O’Brien went on, “you’re offering me the fulfillment of my fondest dreams. Shake on it, kid!” Then he settled back and grew thoughtful. “But it isn’t going to be easy. I guess you still have trouble believing it, but I can’t just walk into a sales conference and say, ‘See here, I’ve got wind of a prоduct that’s the greatest boon to humanity since fire and the wheel,’ and expect them to fall all over me. We need a good promotion angle.” “There’s got to be some way.” “Keep your shirt on. I’ll find one, I haven’t been in the business for twenty years for nothing. But one thing anyway. Until this deal is swung, keep your witch’s brew away from me!” The convincer came, after all, from an idea I had. But it was O’Brien who saw the possibilities and, by dint of massive doses of double-talk and cajolery, arranged for a test survey of a hundred volunteer subjects. These human guinea pigs were furnished gratis with a thirty days’ supply of a new toothpaste--a standard base, plus Grandma’s lie soap--and, when the time was up, were quizzed as to their reactions to the experiment. Almost without exception, they professed themselves well pleased. Of course, that was what the sales department wanted to hear about satisfied customers.