Gin, tonic, tarragon, mace, saffron, OREGANO, CINNAMON. . . . That’s not only the recipe for a nifty aphrodisiac cocktail, it’s also a partial list of words made from the letters in kent micronite FILTER CIGARETTES (using those letters as often as desired). If you made a sufficient number of these words Lorillard Co. and Blue Ribbon Promotions would, they said, award you (and 49 others) a “Royal Holiday in England” plus $500 spending money.
That’s what banner headlines in Look Magazine suggested. Below the headlines: a photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Average Scrabble Player in a castle courtyard flanked by walk-ons from the Old Vic—a troubador, a cook with roast pig on platter, Mistress Quickly bearing two flagons of sack. That could be me, I thought. It seemed simple. The standard reference, Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, is at best a volume of modest size. I had more than two months. If one were sedulous enough, using half hours before the cocktail flag was hoisted, half hours waiting for the wife to dress and redress, one would have to win.
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