“Where in thunder – ” I began.
“At the grocery, of course,” he cried, as if it were the most natural place to find porous plasters. “I bought every wholesale grocer in town out of ‘em. Cleaned them plump up. I’ve got enough to fill all orders, and some over. The finest in the land. Stick closer than a brother, ‘feel good, are good,’ as I wrote for a stocking concern. Stay on until they wear off.”
He was right. The trucks soon began to arrive with the cases. They were piled on the walk twenty high, they were piled in the street, we piled our office full, and put some in the vacant room across the hall. There were over a thousand cases of sticky fly-paper.
We cut the sheets into thirds, and sprinkled a little cayenne pepper on the sticky side with a pepper-shaker, and then punched holes in them. Later we got a rubber stamp, and printed the directions for use on each; but we had no time for that then. When the boxes began to arrive, Perkins ran down and gathered in three newsboys, and constituted them our packing force. By the end of the week we had our orders all filled.
And our plasters stuck! None ever stuck better. They stuck forever. They wouldn’t peel off, they wouldn’t wash off, they wouldn’t scrape off. When one wore off, it left the stickiness there; and the victim had to buy another to paste on top of the old one before he could put on a shirt. It was a huge success.
We changed our ad. to read:
“Perkins’s Paper Porous Plaster
Makes all pains and aches fly faster,”
and branched out into the magazines. We sent a to Europe, and now some of the crowned heads are wearing our plasters. You all remember Stoneley’s account of meeting a tribe of natives in the wilds of Africa wearing nothing but Perkins’s Paper Porous Plasters, and recall the celebrated words of Rodriguez Velos, second understudy to the Premier of Spain, “America is like Perkins’s Paper Porous Plasters – a thing not to be sat on.”
Five months ago we completed our ten-story factory, and increased our capital stock to two millions; and those to whom we offered the trade-mark in our early days are green with regret. Perkins is abroad now in his private yacht. Queer old fellow, too, for he still insists on wearing the Go-lightly shoes and the Air-the-Hair hat, in spite of the fact that he hasn’t enough hair left to make a miniature paint-brush.
I asked him before he left for his cruise when he was from, – Portland, Me., or Portland, Oreg., – and he laughed.
“My dear boy,” he said, “it’s all in the ad. ‘Mr. Perkins of Portland’ is a phrase to draw dollars. I’m from Chicago. Get a phrase built like a watch, press the button, and the babies cry for it.”
That’s all. But in closing I might remark that if you ever have any trouble with a weak back, pain in the side, varicose veins, heavy sensation in the chest, or, in fact, any ailment whatever, just remember that
Perkins’s Paper Porous Plaster
Make all pains and aches fly faster.
II. THE ADVENTURE OF MR. SILAS BOGGS
BEFORE my friend Perkins became famous throughout the advertising world, – and what part of the world does not advertise, – he was at one time a soliciting agent for a company that controlled the “patent insides” of a thousand or more small Western newspapers. Later, my friend Perkins startled America by his renowned advertising campaign for Pratt’s hats; and, instead of being plain Mr. Perkins of Chicago, he blossomed into Perkins of Portland. Still later, when he put Perkins’s Patent Porous Plaster on the market, he became great; became Perkins the Great, in fact; and now advertisers, agents, publishers, and the world in general, bow down and worship him. But I love to turn at times from the blaze of his present glory to those far-off days when he was still a struggling amateur, just as we like to read of Napoleon’s early history, tracing in the small beginnings of their lives the little rivulets of genius that later overwhelmed the world, and caused the universe to pause in stupefaction.
Who would have thought that the gentle Perkins, who induced Silas Boggs to place a five-line ad. in a bunch of back-county weeklies, would ever thrill the nation with the news that
Perkins’s Patent Porous Plaster Make all pains and aches fly faster, and keep up the thrill until the Perkins Plaster was so to speak, in every mouth!
And yet these two men were the same. Plain Perkins, who urged and begged and prayed Silas Boggs to let go of a few dollars, and Perkins the Great, the Originator, – Perkins of Portland, who originated the Soap Dust Triplets, the Smile that Lasts for Aye, Ought-to-hawa Biscuit, – who, in short, is the father, mother, and grandparent of modern advertising, are the selfsame Perkinses. From such small beginnings can the world’s great men spring.
In the days before the kodak had a button to press while they do the rest; even before Royal Baking Powder was quite so pure as “absolutely,” – it was then about 99 99/100 % pure, like Ivory Soap, – in those days, I say, long before Soapine “did it” to the whale, Mr. Silas Boggs awoke one morning, and walked out to his wood-shed in a pair of carpet slippers. His face bore an expression of mingled hope and doubt; for he was expecting what the novelists call an interesting event, – in fact, a birth, – and, quite as much in fact, a number of births – anywhere from five to a dozen. Nor was Silas Boggs a Mormon. He was merely the owner of a few ravenous guinea-pigs. It is well known that in the matter of progeny the guinea-pig surpasses the famous Soap Dust, although that has, as we all know, triplets on every bill-board.
Mr. Silas Boggs was not disappointed. Several of his spotted pets had done their best to discountenance race suicide; and Silas, having put clean water and straw and crisp lettuce leaves in the pens, began to examine the markings of the newcomers, for he was an enthusiast on the subject of guinea-pigs. He loved guinea-pigs as some connoisseurs love oil paintings. He was fonder of a nicely marked guinea-pig than a dilettante is of a fine Corot. And his fad had this advantage. You can place a pair of oil paintings in a room, and leave them there for ages, and you will never have another oil painting unless you buy one; but if you place a pair of guinea-pigs in a room – then, as Rudyard says so often, that is another story.
Suddenly Mr. Silas Boggs stood upright and shouted aloud in joy. He hopped around the wood-shed on one leg, clapping his hands and singing. Then he knelt down again, and examined more closely the little spotted creature that caused his joy. It was true, beyond doubt! One of his pigs had presented him with something the world had never known before – a lop-eared guinea-pig! His fame was sure from that moment. He would be known to all the breeders of guinea-pigs the world over as the owner of the famous lop-eared spotted beauty. He christened her Duchess on the spot, not especially because duchesses have lop-ears, but because he liked the name. That was in the days before people began calling things Nearwool and Ka-bosh-ko and Ogeta Jaggon, and similar made-to-order names.
To Mr. Boggs, in the midst of his joy, came a thought; and he feverishly raked out with his hands the remaining newly born guinea-piglets, examining one after another. Oh, joy! He almost fainted! There was another lop-eared pig in the litter; and, what filled his cup to overflowing, he was able to christen the second one Duke!
At that moment Perkins walked into the wood-shed. Perkins at that time had a room in the Silas Boggs mansion, and he entered the wood-shed merely to get an armful of wood with which to replenish his fire.
“Well, Boggs,” he remarked in his cheerful way – and I may remark that, since Perkins has become famous, every advertising agent has copied his cheerful manner of speech, so that the ad. man who does not greet you with a smile no longer exists —
“Well, Boggs,” he remarked,