The new product

William looked around as he observed all that was happening for a while before he turned towards Edmund.

"You should give me a rundown of what you had done so far, even though I already see much of it right now."

"Sure, let's go to a more private area first so we can talk more comfortably." Edmund proposed.

Hearing this William nodded and followed behind his business partner until they reached a small "office" that was shielded from the hubbub of activity by a few wooden walls. This small but private area contained a small desk on top of which were some parchment papers, some ink as well as a few miscellaneous things.

Once they had entered the "room" and were away from prying eyes, Edmund bowed to William as he exclaimed.

"My lord."

Seeing this William was surprised but after a few moments just sighed as he said.

"When did you piece things together?"

Edmund stood up again as he explained.

"It was yesterday during the parade, I was able to recognize you then and there, my lord."

"Ok, first of all, drop the "my lord" part it's just annoying!!! Just call me William" William exclaimed, then he sighed and continued.

"I guess it makes sense, though I was not trying super hard to hide, I still hoped I could go around doing my business without drawing too much attention."

"Don't my lord... I mean William, you must have your reasons for doing this so I shall keep your identity a secret." Edmund reassured.

"Anyways, enough about my identity, tell me what have you done exactly during my absence, from what I saw when I got in you have done much," William exclaimed, changing the subject to the soap manufacturing.

Hearing this, Edmund let go of the subject of William's identity and went to the desk, he took a few parchment papers the were full and handed them to the young lord.

After he did so and gave what William realized were detailed reports of all that had been done so far; Edmund gave a brief summary of their achievements.

" As soon as you had left I started work on seeking a few reliable men to help with the research, it took us a few days but eventually figured out the exact proportions that are required to be mixed to make the best soap we can. "

Edmund paused to give William some time to process the information before he continued.

"This is still an ongoing task of course, but at least now I think that our product can be sold to people without fear of it being low quality, and don't worry I made sure that the few men brought were never made aware of the complete process and all the ingredients necessary for making soap, I always took care of the final mixing myself."

William nodded at all of this in satisfaction as he asked.

"Do you have a sample of the improved soap? I want to see how far it had come since our first attempts."

Edmund nodded and went out to fetch some soap, a few minutes later he came back with a soap bar and a bucket of water.

William took the soap and started examining it, whether it was the shape, the color, the texture as well as the foam it made when used, he tried to test everything as he compared what he had in his hands to what they had first made a week ago.

"Good, this is very good, this is certainly better than our first prototypes"

"Prototypes?" Edmund exclaimed, confused by the term.

Seeing this William sighed, not bothering to explain much he simply diverted the conversation to something else.

"It's nothing, I was just talking about our first products. Anyways, I still need to give these reports a good reading later on, but from what I saw so far things are going better than I thought, good job Edmund."

"Thank you for the compliments, I just followed what we agreed upon" Edmund answered

"Don't sell yourself short partner, there is much that we still have to do. Now that we secured ourselves some manpower, as well as made them sign a document preventing them from divulging anything about their work to outsiders, we need to move to the mass production and advertisement phases." William explained.

"I will follow your lead in this matter." Edmund expressed.

"So here is what we need to do, first I need to know how much stock do we have as of right now as well as agree on a logo for our company....." William went on as he explain the next steps in their plan that they would have to implement in the next few days.

-----------------------------------------------------

The very next day, dozens of people all around the major intersections of the city of Landow started advertising a new revolutionary product.

In the business district, a young man was shouting around a busy street to all the passersby's.

"Come, come, ladies and gentlemen, I have here a product that would make your lives a hundred times easier free of charge!!!!! "

Upon hearing the word free many people came to inspect the young man's products and see what the fuss is all about.

Upon coming close all they saw were brown and long rectangular-shaped objects each marked with the letter L on two opposite sides that were about the size of an average adult's finger displayed on a small stall.

Because of the product's uninteresting colors and shapes people quickly lost some of their enthusiasm, but encouraged by the fact that it was free some nonetheless asked.

"Young man, what are these things here, and are you really giving them up for free?" asked a man from amongst the crowd.

"They are new inventions that have been made right here in Landow, they can clean anything on your skin or hair with such ease sometimes even your clothes; here, you can try them out right now!!!"

The young man quickly fetched a bucked that was filled with water as well as some mud and gave it to the curious man.

"Here you go sire, dirty your hands well with the mud, then use the soap and water to easily clean it away."

The man hesitated at first, not really willing to dirty his hands, yet his curiosity clashed with his caution, and after a few moments it had won out.

The man did as he was told, he made sure to dirty his hands very thoroughly getting as much of it into every nook and cranny, then he took the soap and followed the instructions of the young "vendor" as he wet his hands slightly and started scrubbing them with the soap finger.

Soon foam started appearing, growing larger and larger in volume until it reached its peak. This made the onlookers marvel at this new novel creation as they waited for the final result.

"This thing has a strange texture, my hands have become very slippery all of a sudden." the man exclaimed.

After having thoroughly rubbed his hands with the soap the "curious test subject" immersed his hands in the water bucket as he washed them.

What came out of the bucket were not the mud-filled hands but rather spotless and clean ones, free from even the slightest residue of filth.