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be rude too. Blurt out what I was thinking. Still, I don’t
know. She used to say Ben Dollard had a base barreltone
voice. He has legs like barrels and you’d think he was sing-
ing into a barrel. Now, isn’t that wit. They used to call him
big Ben. Not half as witty as calling him base barreltone.
Appetite like an albatross. Get outside of a baron of beef.
Powerful man he was at stowing away number one Bass.
Barrel of Bass. See? It all works out.
A procession of whitesmocked sandwichmen marched
slowly towards him along the gutter, scarlet sashes across
their boards. Bargains. Like that priest they are this morn-
ing: we have sinned: we have suffered. He read the scarlet
letters on their five tall white hats: H. E. L. Y. S. Wisdom
Hely’s. Y lagging behind drew a chunk of bread from under
his foreboard, crammed it into his mouth and munched as
he walked. Our staple food. Three bob a day, walking along
the gutters, street after street. Just keep skin and bone to-
gether, bread and skilly. They are not Boyl: no, M Glade’s
men. Doesn’t bring in any business either. I suggested to
him about a transparent showcart with two smart girls
sitting inside writing letters, copybooks, envelopes, blot-
tingpaper. I bet that would have caught on. Smart girls
writing something catch the eye at once. Everyone dying to
know what she’s writing. Get twenty of them round you if
you stare at nothing. Have a finger in the pie. Women too.
Curiosity. Pillar of salt. Wouldn’t have it of course because
he didn’t think of it himself first. Or the inkbottle I sug-
gested with a false stain of black celluloid. His ideas for ads
like Plumtree’s potted under the obituaries, cold meat de-