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— Oh here Governor, here… Davidoff veered full throttle cutting across vagaries of wind and sail and the dictates of labored metaphor, threatening capsize on all hands — our new, some of our new shareowners sir they’ve, this is Governor Cates boys and girls, he’s a director of the company. They’ve just bought a share of company stock, sir.

— Which company? The Governor sought mooring.

— Diamond, a share of Diamond Cable, sir… Davidoff tipped side to side on the blue ripple of carpet as they scudded past. Governor Cates rocked gently. — Can’t go wrong with that can they sir, he looked back for Mrs Joubert, — here, here…! Governor Cates had begun to gather headway. — This way… Davidoff waved them on in a wide berth, getting the last of them by as the Governor made mid-channel dead in her course.

— Amy…?

— Good morning, Uncle John.

— Good, come along with me for a minute, Amy.

She took his arm, — oh Mister Davidoff…? over his shoulder as Davidoff got the last of them through a door ahead and swung back.

— Take your time, we’ve got a presentation all set up for them.

— And the lunches?

— And the lunches… He listed in a bow and hurried back up the corridor to enter the board room with — Well! You’ve just had an opportunity not many youngsters experience. When you go home tonight you can tell your families you met one of your country’s outstanding Americans.

— You mean you?

— Governor Cates is one of the men who opened the frontiers of America as we know it today, Davidoff leaned knuckled under on the expanse of walnut stretched before him, pad, pencils, ashtray, pad, pencils, ashtray, — he…

— Him? He was this frontiersman?

— Not like Daniel Boone if that’s what you’re thinking of, no. He opened America’s industrial frontiers, her natural resources that make us the wealthiest country in the world. He’s a man presidents come to for advice, and you can be proud…

— Is he rich?

— Well after all, a man who has contributed so greatly to his country’s wealth and power would deserve…

— What are all these here pads and pencils for?

— This is the board room, where your board of directors meets. They sit right in the very chairs you’re sitting in and, oh Carol just bring those in and pass them around. This is your company’s Annual Report boys and girls, we put it out because we believe that you, and all the other company owners, have a right to know all about your company and the activities it’s engaged in Carol tell him to get that projector going, the many varied ways your company serves our great country with cable of every kind you can imagine from the defense industry to communications of every sort, the…

——ubbb… vvvv… vvawwwwg…

— Carol…! Light splashed over the map and drapes behind him. — He’s got that on backwards, tell him to…

— He’s rewinding it, he…

— Oh and Carol where’s Mister Eigen, I said I wanted him in here to handle this presentation find him and send him right in here. Communications of every sort, from interpersonal messages to the vast and growing television audience, whether it be the family gathered at home for the finest in entertainment or the student in the remote classroom absorbing the lesson of the master, whose wisdom can be shared with more fertile young minds in a single hour today than Plato, Aristotle, and the renowned teachers of antiquity reached in their entire we about ready in there? Momentarily blinded, he turned to reach behind the tasteful gold-on-blue arrangement of denarii, ducats, shekels, and similar bright testaments to long submerged mercantile struggles that formed the pattern of the drapes.

— Boy hey, look!

— Hey that’s real neat. Look hey.

The map rose silently and disappeared, revealing a horizontal bar graph in gay shades of orange labeled Plant Investment and Accumulated Depreciation (in Millions), which followed the map to expose Sources of Capital (in Millions) in vertical yellows, Sales Projections by Continent (in Millions) in assorted aggressive hues, and two, three, four more with the haste of snapping window shades, to lay bare an empty screen.

— Reached, in their entire lives. Lifetimes. Now, in just a moment now, you’ll have a close look at the many and varied contributions your company’s products are making toward a growing America, and your share in helping our great country to turn the promise of tomorrow into the reality of today, as the tide of human ready in there? He braced back, doubled fists on his hips in a commanding stance of out-of-doors to look up the length of the table’s sheen broken by balled sweaters, a candy wrapper, elbows and whole arms and even a head or two, chairs swiveled and legs slung outboard twisting, tapping, — we may have time for a question or two somebody might have about the Annual Report. Your board of directors wants every shareowner to, yes?

— Are you one?

— A shareowner? Of course and I’m proud to…

— No I mean like a director, said the girl wadding her sweater.