Moving Pictures

incomprehension.
    “Just run that past me one more time, will you?” he said.
    “They’ll want to do exactly the same thing!” said Dibbler.
    “I know,” said Victor. “They’ll want us to hold up cards with things on like ‘Harga’s Isn’t the Best Place in Town, Actually, Ours Is.’”
    “Something like that, something like that,” snapped Dibbler, glaring at him. “Maybe we can work on the words, but something like that.”
    “But, but,” Silverfish fought to keep ahead of the conversation, “Harga won’t like it, will he? If he pays us money to say his place is best, and then we take money from other people to say that their place is best, then he’s bound to—”
    “Pay us more money,” said Dibbler, “to say it again, only in larger letters.”
    They stared at him.
    “You really think that will work?” said Silverfish.
    “Yes,” said Dibbler flatly. “You listen to the street traders any morning. They don’t shout, ‘Nearly-fresh oranges, only slightly squashy, reasonable value,’ do they? No, they shout, ‘Git chore orinjes, they’re luvverly.’ Good business sense.”
    He leaned across the desk again.
    “Seems to me,” he said, “that you could do with some of that around here.”
    “So it appears,” said Silverfish weakly.
    “And with the money,” said Dibbler, his voice a crowbar inserted in the cracks in reality, “you could really get on with perfecting your art.”
    Silverfish brightened a bit. “That’s true,” he said. “For example, some way of getting sound on—”
    Dibbler wasn’t listening. He pointed to a stack of boards leaning against the wall.
    “What are those?” he said.
    “Ah,” said Silverfish. “That was my idea. We thought it would be, er, good business sense,” he savored the words as if they were some rare new sweet, “to tell people about the other moving pictures we were making.”
    Dibbler picked up one of the boards and held it critically at arm’s length.
    It said:

    Nexte weke wee will be Shewing
Pelias and Melisande ,
A Romantick Tragedie in Two Reels.
Thank you.

    “Oh,” he said, flatly.
    “Isn’t that all right?” said Silverfish, now thoroughly beaten. “I mean, it tells them everything they should know, doesn’t it?”
    “May I?” said Dibbler, taking a piece of chalk from Silverfish’s desk. He scribbled intently on the back of the card for a while, and then turned it around.
    Now it read:

    Goddes and Men Saide It Was Notte To Bee,
But They Would Notte Listen!
Pelias and Melisande , A Storie of Forbiden Love!
A searing Sarger of Passion that Bridged Spaes and Tyme!
Thys wille shok you!
With a 1,000 elephants!

    Victor and Silverfish read it carefully, as one reads a dinner menu in an alien language. This was an alien language, and to make it worse it was also their own.
    “Well, well,” said Silverfish. “My word…I don’t know if there was anything actually forbidden . Er. It was just very historical. I thought it would help, you know, children and so on. Learn about history. They never actually met, you know, which was what was so tragic. It was all very, er, sad.” He stared at the card. “Though I must say, you’ve certainly got something there. Er.” He looked uncomfortable about something. “I don’t actually remember any elephants,” he said, as if it was his own fault. “I was there the whole afternoon we made it, and I don’t recall a thousand elephants at any point. I’m sure I would have noticed.”
    Dibbler stared. He didn’t know where they were coming from, but now he was putting his mind to it he was getting some very clear ideas about what you needed to put in movies. A thousand elephants was a good start.
    “No elephants?” he said.
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Well, are there any dancing girls?”
    “Um, no.”
    “Well, are there any wild chases and people hanging by their fingertips from the edge of a cliff?”
    Silverfish brightened up slightly. “I think there’s a balcony at one point,” he said.
    “Yes? Does anyone hang on it by their fingertips?”
    “I don’t think so,” said Silverfish. “I believe Melisande leans over it.”
    “Yes, but will the audience hold their breath in case she falls off?”
    “I hope they’d be watching Pelias’ speech,” said Silverfish testily. “We had to put it on five cards. In small writing.”
    Dibbler sighed.
    “I think I know what people want,” he said, “and they don’t want to read lots of small writing.