The Two Men Were Eating A Late
Breakfast; Sitting Opposite Each Other; Nobody Else Around.
They closed
up the inundation with a few words - having used it, evidently, as a mere
ice-breaker and acquaintanceship-breeder - then they dropped into
business.
It soon transpired that they were drummers - one belonging in
Cincinnati, the other in New Orleans. Brisk men, energetic of movement
and speech; the dollar their god, how to get it their religion.
'Now as to this article,' said Cincinnati, slashing into the ostensible
butter and holding forward a slab of it on his knife-blade, 'it's from
our house; look at it - smell of it - taste it. Put any test on it you
want to. Take your own time - no hurry - make it thorough. There now -
what do you say? butter, ain't it. Not by a thundering sight - it's
oleomargarine! Yes, sir, that's what it is - oleomargarine. You can't
tell it from butter; by George, an EXPERT can't. It's from our house.
We supply most of the boats in the West; there's hardly a pound of
butter on one of them. We are crawling right along - JUMPING right along
is the word. We are going to have that entire trade. Yes, and the hotel
trade, too. You are going to see the day, pretty soon, when you can't
find an ounce of butter to bless yourself with, in any hotel in the
Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, outside of the biggest cities. Why, we are
turning out oleomargarine NOW by the thousands of tons.
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