Since right and wrong had not yet been reformulated and codified, I gave him the comfort he hardly needed. “I see what you mean. I suppose you’re right. Perhaps the motive is the same in every case, mine as well as yours: yet we’ve all experienced Cave and that should be enough.” “No, we should all get behind it and push, bring it to the world.” “That, of course, is where we’re different: not that I don’t intend to 'propagate the truth,’ rather I shall do it for something to do, knowing that nothing matters, not even _this_ knowledge matters.” In my unction, I had stumbled upon the first of a series of paradoxes which were to amuse and obsess our philosophers for a generation. Paul gave me no opportunity to elaborate, however; his was the practical way and I followed. We spoke of means and ends. “Cave likes the idea of the half-hour show and as soon as we get all the wrinkles ironed out, buying good time, not just dead air, we’ll make the first big announcement, along around January, I think. Until then we’re trying to keep this out of the papers. Slow but sure; then fast and hard.” “What sort of man is Cave?” I wanted very much to hear Paul’s reaction to him: this was the practical man, the unobsessed. He was candid; he did not know. “How can you figure a guy like that out? At times he seems a little feeble-minded, this is between us by the way, and other times when he’s talking to people, giving with the message, there’s nothing like him.” “What about his early life?” “Nobody knows very much. I’ve had a detective agency prepare a dossier on him. Does that surprise you? Well, I’m going far out on a limb for him and so are our rich friends. We had to be sure we weren’t buying an ax-murderer or a bigamist or something.” “Would that have made any difference to the message?” “No, _I_ don’t think so but it sure would have made it impossible for us to sell him on a big scale.” “And what did they find?” “Not much. I’ll let you read it. Take it home with you. Confidential of course and, as an officer of the company, I must ask you not to use any of it without clearing first with me.” I agreed and his secretary was sent for. The dossier was a thin bound manuscript. “It’s a carbon but I want it back. You won’t find anything very striking but you ought to read it for the background. Never been married, no girl friends that anybody remembers ... no boy friends either (what a headache _that_ problem is in Hollywood, for a firm like ours). No police record. No tickets for double parking, even. A beautiful, beautiful record on which to build.” “Perhaps a little negative.” “That’s what we like. As for the guy’s character, his I.Q., your guess is as good as mine, probably better. When I’m with him alone, we talk about the campaign and he’s very relaxed, very sensible, businesslike: doesn’t preach or carry on. He seems to understand all the problems of our end. He’s cooperative.” “Can you look him straight in the eye?”