One huge sombre poster depicted the Damned
in Hell suffering a new torment from their inability to get
at the Filboid Studge which elegant young fiends held in
transparent bowls just beyond their reach. The scene was
rendered even more gruesome by a subtle suggestion of the
features of leading men and women of the day in the
portrayal of the Lost Souls; prominent individuals of both
political parties, Society hostesses, well-known dramatic
authors and novelists, and distinguished aeroplanists were
dimly recognizable in that doomed throng; noted lights of
the musical-comedy stage flickered wanly in the shades of
the Inferno, smiling still from force of habit, but with the
fearsome smiling rage of baffled effort. The poster bore no
fulsome allusions to the merits of the new breakfast food,
but a single grim statement ran in bold letters along its
base: ``They cannot buy it now.''
Spayley had grasped the fact that people will do things
from a sense of duty which they would never attempt as a
pleasure. There are thousands of respectable middle-class
men who, if you found them unexpectedly in a Turkish bath,
would explain in all sincerity that a doctor had ordered
them to take Turkish baths; if you told them in return that
you went there because you liked it, they would stare in
pained wonder at the frivolity of your motive.
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