A further advertisement was
obtained when an infantry regiment mutinied and shot its officers
rather than eat the nauseous mess; fortunately, Lord Birrell of
Blatherstone, who was War Minister at the moment, saved the
situation by his happy epigram, that "Discipline to be effective
must be optional."
Filboid Studge had become a household word, but Dullamy wisely
realized that it was not necessarily the last word in breakfast
dietary; its supremacy would be challenged as soon as some yet
more unpalatable food should be put on the market. There might
even be a reaction in favour of something tasty and appetizing,
and the Puritan austerity of the moment might be banished from
domestic cookery. At an opportune moment, therefore, he sold out
his interests in the article which had brought him in colossal
wealth at a critical juncture, and placed his financial reputation
beyond the reach of cavil. As for Leonore, who was now an heiress
on a far greater scale than ever before, he naturally found her
something a vast deal higher in the husband market than a two-
hundred-a-year poster designer. Mark Spayley, the brainmouse who
had helped the financial lion with such untoward effect, was left
to curse the day he produced the wonder-working poster.
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