Thomas Mauser-Moppingdale,
Senior Vice
President
at Moppingdale, Moppingdale & Lundt,
slid two photographs
across
the desk towards
Sir Wallace Fribble-Barnsley,
Executive Vice President
of
the Consolidated Brewers Alliance.
"We've
narrowed the search for
The New Face of Bass down to
two contenders,"
Mauser-Moppingdale purred.
"The New Face of Bass?" Sir Wallace
repeated.
"Yes, sir. The Bass Beer Drinker par
excellence.
The Bass Drinker ne plus ultra."
Sir
Wallace's eyebrows rose,
a disconcerting sight
that more than one
observer had likened
to two wriggling gray weevils
scurrying upwards
to take cover
beneath his hairpiece.
"Do
I look French to you?" Sir Wallace asked.
"No, sir."
"Latin?"
"No."
"Then
don't give me that
ne
plus excellence bollocks,"
Sir Wallace growled, pulling
the
two pictures towards him.
"Remarkable," he muttered.
"We
think so, too," Mauser-Moppingdale cooed.
"Remarkable," Sir Wallace
continued,
"that I can't decide which of the two I hate more."
"Ha
ha ha," Masuer-Moppingdale laughed, just in case
Sir Wallace was joking.
But
Sir Wallace was not joking.
"This first one," he said,
stubbing
a pudgy finger in
the first contender's face,
"looks like
a pansy."
Mauser-Moppingdale nodded
his understanding.
"The second one, then?"
"The second
one," Sir Wallace barked,
"looks like even more of
a pansy.
The second one," he said,
warming to his his theme
and
expanding on it,
"looks like the only person
in the the whole
entire world
that the first one
could
possibly beat up."
Mr. Mauser-Moppingdale
sat
silently for a moment,
considering his best course of action.
The
search had taken eight months.
It had cost a quarter of a million dollars.
Press
releases had been issued,
interviews scheduled.
The New Face of Bass
had already been booked
on three morning shows
and
two late-night programs
for the following day.
"The
first one, then," Mauser-Moppingtdale said at last.
"Fine," Sir
Wallace said. His gaze had shifted to the window,
where his attention was now fixed on a jet trail
in the sky
in the distance that looked, it had just occured to him,
like
a ghostly python made of cotton balls.
"Lunch?" Mr. Mauser-Moppingdale
said with the slightest of smlies.
"Quite," Sir Wallace said with no
smile at all.
