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"Then consider this: Remove the chocolate from the cotton. Weave the cotton into fine fabric for shirts and bedsheets. We build today by breaking up. You've been putting together. We get bigger today by getting smaller. You can sell the chocolate to me for my business at a wonderful price for the money I receive from you for my shoe."

"How many shoes do you have now?"

"At the moment, just the pair I'm wearing, and another one at home in my closet. I can gear up for millions as soon as we have a contract and I receive in front all the money I'll need to cover my costs of production. I like money in front, Mr. Minderbinder. That's the only way I do business."

"That sounds fair," said Milo Minderbinder. "I work that way too. Unfortunately, we have a Department of Ethics now in Washington. But our lawyer will be in charge there once he gets out of prison. Meanwhile, we have our private procurers. You will have your contract, Mr. Winkler, for a deal is a deal."

"Thank you, Mr. Minderbinder. Can I send you a bunny for Easter? I can put you on our complimentary list."

"Yes, please do that. Send me a thousand dozen."

"And whom shall I bill?"

"Someone will pay. We both understand that there is no such thing as a free lunch."

"Thank you for the lunch, Mr. Minderbinder. I go away with good news."

"I come with good news," called Angela buoyantly, and swept into the hospital room in an ecstasy of jubilation. "But Melissa thinks you might be angry."

"She's found a new fellow."

"No, not yet."

"She's gone back to the old one."

"There's no chance of that. She's late."

"For what?"

"With her period. She thinks she's pregnant."

Defiantly, Melissa said she wanted the child, and the time left to have a child was not unlimited for either one of them.

"But how can it be?" complained Yossarian, at this end to his Rhine Journey. "You said you had your tubes tied."

"You said you had a vasectomy."

"I was kidding when I said that."

"I didn't know. So I was kidding too."

"Ahem, ahem, excuse me," said Winkler, when he could endure no more. "We have business to finish. Yossarian, I owe everything to you. How much money will you want?"

"For what?"

"For setting up that meeting. I am in your debt. Name what you want."

"I don't want any of it."

"That sounds fair."

29

Mr. Tilyou

Securely ensconced in his afterlife in a world of his own, Mr. George C. Tilyou, dead now just about eighty years, took pleasure in contemplating his possessions and watching the time

go by, because time didn't. Purely for adornment, he wore in his waistcoat a gold watch on a gold chain with a snaggletooth pendant of green bloodstone, but it remained unwound.


Tags: Joseph Heller Catch-22 Classics