"Norman Spinrad - Age Of Invention" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spinrad Norman)

How do you like my fine new leopard skin? Would you like one of my Havana cigars? Have you met
this new woman yet? Have you seen my new cave?

I can buy and sell Roach now. I am the first tycoon. How did I do it? Well . . .Hog was the
mountain bum. He never trimmed his beard. He didn't have a woman, not even an ugly one. He laid


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around his filthy cave all day, doing nothing but belching occasionally. A real slob.
But even a jerk like Hog can throw bearfat and bison chips against a cave wall. I made an Artist
out of Hog. I did this by telling him he could make fifty bears a day just by throwing bearfat and
bison chips against the walls of other people's caves.
This appealed to Hog.

This time I did not neglect to invent the renewable exclusive agency contract. It was another ten
percent deal.

Hog gets ten percent.

Then I went to Peacock's cave. I stared in dismay at Roach's painting. "What is that?" I sneered.

"That, sweets, is an Original Roach," Peacock crooned complacently. "Isn't it divine? Such
sensitivity, such style, such grace, such-"

"Roach?" I snorted. "You can't be serious. Why that Neopseudoclassicalmodern stuff went out with
the Brontosaurs. You're miles behind the times, Peacock," I said, thereby inventing the Art
Critic. "The Artist today is of course the Great Hog."

"Hog?" whined Peacock. "Hog is beastly, beastly. A rude, stupid, smelly thing, a positive slob.
Why his whole cave is a wretched mass of slop!"

"Exactly," I answered. "That's the source of his greatness. Hog is the mountain's foremost Slop
Artist."

"Oooooh . . . . How much do the Great Hog's paintings cost?"

"One hundred bears apiece," I said smugly. "Cockatoo is already contracting to-"

"I told you never to mention that creature to me again!" Peacock shrieked. "He must not steal an
Original Hog from me, do you hear? I simply couldn't bear it! But all this is getting so expensive
...'

I gave Peacock my best understanding smile. "Peacock, old man," I said, "I have a little business
proposition for you . . . .

Well, that's all there was to it. You guessed it, now when Peacock makes one of his messes in some
henpecked caveman's cave, it always includes at least one Original Hog, or maybe a couple Original