Page:Zangwill-King of schnorrers.djvu/211

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THE MEMORY CLEARING HOUSE.
197

"How so?" he asked scornfully.

"Why, just see—suppose you supply two candidates for a science degree with the same chemical reminiscences, you lay them under a suspicion of copying; two after-dinner speakers may find themselves recollecting the same joke; several autobiographers may remember their making the same remark to Gladstone. Unless your customers can

"when" their owners were at their last gasp."

be certain they have the exclusive right in other people's memories, they will fall away."

"Perhaps you are right," he said. "I must 'Eureka' something else." His Greek was as defective as if he had had a classical education.

What he found was "The Hire System." Some people who might otherwise have been good customers objected to losing their memories entirely. They were willing to part with them for a period. For instance, when a man