‘Yes, yes, I’m ready.’
Knipe pulled the switch. The great engine hummed. There was a deep whirring sound from the oiled movement of fifty thousand cogs and rods and levers; then came the drumming of the rapid electrical typewriter, setting up a shrill, almost intolerable clatter. Out into the basket flew the typewritten pages – one every two seconds. But what with the noise and the excitement, and having to play upon the stops, and watch the chapter-counter and the pace-indicator and the passion-gauge, Mr Bohlen began to panic. He reacted in precisely the way a learner driver does in a car – by pressing both feet hard down on the pedals and keeping them there until the thing stopped.
‘Congratulations on your first novel,’ Knipe said, picking up the great bundle of typed pages from the basket.
Little pearls of sweat were oozing out all over Mr Bohlen’s face. ‘It sure was hard work, my boy.’
‘But you got it done, sir. You got it done.’
‘Let me see it, Knipe. How does it read?’
He started to go through the first chapter, passing each finished page to the younger man.
‘Good heavens, Knipe! What’s this!’ Mr Bohlen’s thin purple fish-lip was moving slightly as it mouthed the words, his cheeks were beginning slowly to inflate.
‘But look here, Knipe! This is outrageous!’
‘I must say it’s a bit fruity, sir.’
‘Fruity! It’s perfectly revolting! I can’t possibly put my name to this!’
‘Quite right, sir. Quite right.’
‘Knipe! Is this some nasty trick you’ve been playing on me?’
‘Oh no, sir! No!’
‘It certainly looks like it.’
‘You don’t think, Mr Bohlen, that you mightn’t have been pressing a little hard on the passion-control pedals, do you?’
‘My dear boy, how should I know.’
‘Why don’t you try another?’
So Mr Bohlen ran off a second novel, and this time it went according to plan.
Within a week, the manuscript had been read and accepted by an enthusiastic publisher. Knipe followed with one in his own name, then made a dozen more for good measure. In no time at all, Adolph Knipe’s Literary Agency had become famous for its large stable of promising young novelists. And once again the money started rolling in.
It was at this stage that young Knipe began to display a real talent for big business.
‘See here, Mr Bohlen,’ he said. ‘We still got too much competition. Why don’t we just absorb all the other writers in the country?’
Mr Bohlen, who now sported a bottle-green velvet jacket and allowed his hair to cover two-thirds of his ears, was quite content with things the way they were. ‘Don’t know what you mean, my boy. You can’t just absorb writers.’
‘Of course you can, sir. Exactly like Rockefeller did with his oil companies. Simply buy ’em out, and if they won’t sell, squeeze ’em out. It’s easy!’
‘Careful now, Knipe. Be careful.’
‘I’ve got a list here, sir, of fifty of the most successful writers in the country, and what I intend to do is offer each one of them a lifetime contract with pay. All they have to do is undertake never to write another word; and, of course, to let us use their names on our own stuff. How about that.’
‘They’ll never agree.’
‘You don’t know writers, Mr Bohlen. You watch and see.’
‘What about the creative urge, Knipe?’
‘It’s bunk! All they’re really interested in is the money – just like everybody else.’