MISTER PROSSER:
There aren’t any alternatives! But you are quite entitled to make any suggestions or protests at the appropriate time!
ARTHUR DENT:
Appropriate time?
MISTER PROSSER:
Yes.
ARTHUR DENT:
The first I knew about it was when a workmen arrived at the door yesterday.
MISTER PROSSER:
T- oh!
ARTHUR DENT:
I asked him if he’d come to clean the windows and he said he’d come to demolish the house! He didn’t tell me straight away of course. Oh no. First he wiped a couple of windows and charged me a fiver. Then he told me.
MISTER PROSSER:
But Mister Dent the plans have been available in the planning office for the last nine months!
ARTHUR DENT:
Yes! I went round to find them yesterday afternoon. You’d hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to pull much attention to them have you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.
MISTER PROSSER:
The plans were on display.
ARTHUR DENT:
Ah! And how many members of the public are in the habit of casually dropping around the local planning office of an evening?
MISTER PROSSER:
Er - ah!
ARTHUR DENT:
It’s not exactly a noted social venue is it? And even if you had popped in on the off chance that some raving bureaucrat wanted to knock your house down, the plans weren’t immediately obvious to the eye were they?
MISTER PROSSER:
That depends where you were looking.
ARTHUR DENT:
I eventually had to go down to the cellar!
MISTER PROSSER:
That’s the display department.
ARTHUR DENT:
With a torch!
MISTER PROSSER:
The lights, had… probably gone.
ARTHUR DENT:
So had the stairs!
MISTER PROSSER:
Well you found the notice didn’t you?
ARTHUR DENT:
Yes. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard”. Ever thought of going into advertising?
The Vogons weren’t as reasonable when it came to the whole earth.