"Mmmmm . . . '
"Mmmmm . . . '
"I know!" I cried. "You could trade your paintings!"
"Cool, baby!" exclaimed Roach. "Er . . . only why would any-one want to trade food for a painting?"
"Why because . . . er . . . ah . . ."
"I guess I'll just have to starve."
"Wait a minute," I said. "Er . . . if I can get someone to trade food for your paintings, will you give me some of the food, say . . . oh, one bear out of every ten?"
"Sure," said Roach. "What've I got to lose?"
"It's a deal then?"
"Deal, baby!"
I had just invented the Ten-Percenter.
So I went to see Peacock. Peacock lived in the weirdest cave on the mountain-all filled up with stuff like mooseskins dyed pink, stuffed armadillos and walls covered with withered morning glories. For some 'reason which I have not yet been able to fathom, the women of the more henpecked men on the mountain give Peacock bears to make the same kind of messes in their caves.
Peacock is pretty weird himself. He was dressed in a skintight sabertooth skin dyed bright violet.
"Hello, sweets," Peacock said, as I entered his perfumed cave.
"Hello, Peacock," I said uneasily. "Heard about Roach?"
"Roach?" shrilled Peacock. "That dirty, dirty man? That beatnik with the positively unspeakable cave?"
"That's him," I said. "Roach the Artist. Very good Artist, you know. After all, he invented it."
"Well, what about that dreadful, dreadful creature?"
"Well, you know your friend Cockatoo-?"Please, sweets!" shrieked Peacock. "Do not mention that thing Cockatoo in my presence again! Cockatoo and I are on the outs. I don't know what I ever saw in him. He's gotten so unspeakably butch."
Cockatoo was this . . . uh . . . friend of Peacock's . . . or was. They . . . uh . . . invented something together. Nobody is quite sure what it was, but we've organized a Vice Squad, just in case.
"Yeah," I muttered. "Well anyway, Cockatoo is paying Roach twenty bears to do a painting in his cave. He says that having an Orig-inal Roach in his cave will make your cave look like . . . er . . . `A positive sloth's den, hubby,' I think his words were."
"Oooooh!" shrieked Peacock. "Oooooh!" He began to jump around the cave, pounding his little fists against the walls. "That mon-ster! That veritable beast! Oooh, it's horrid, that's what it is! What am I going to do, sweets, whatever am I going to do?"
"Well," I suggested, "Roach is my cousin, you know, and I do have some pull with him. I suppose I could convince him to do a painting in your cave instead of Cockatoo's. Especially if you paid thirty bears instead of twenty . . . ."
"Oh, would you, sweets? Would you really?"
"Well, I don't know. I do kind of like you, Peacock, but on the other hand . . . "
"Pretty, pretty, pretty please?"
I sighed heavily. "Okay, Peacock," I said. "You've talked me into it. "
So Peacock got his Original Roach for thirty bears. Next week, I went to see Cockatoo, and I told him the story.
I got him to pay forty bears. Forty and thirty is seventy. Which gave me seven. Not bad for a couple hours' work. I better watch out, or someone'll invent income tax.
I saw Roach last week, the ingrate. He has moved to a bigger cave on the West Side of the mountain. He has a fine new leopard skin and three new women. He has even invented the Havana cigar, so he can have something expensive to smoke.
Unfortunately, he has discovered that he no longer needs me to make deals for him. His going price is eighty bears a painting. I, like a dope, neglected to invent the renewable exclusive agency contract. Can't invent 'em all, I suppose. Roach has become truly insufferable, though. He now talks of "art" with a small "a" and "Bears" with a capital "B." He is the first Philistine.
He is going to get his.
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 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 paint-ing. "What is that?" I sneered.
"That, sweets, is an Original Roach," Peacock crooned compla-cently. "Isn't it divine? Such sensitivity, such style, such grace, such-"
"Roach?" I snorted. "You can't be serious. Why that Neo-pseudoclassicalmodern 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?"
