“There is a fortune in those two lines,” he said. “I know it I'm
Perkins, known from Maine to California as Perkins of Portland, Perkins
the Originator. I have originated more ads. than any man living. See
that shoe? It's the 'Go-lightly' kind. I originated the term. See this
hat? It's Pratt's. 'Pratt's Hats Air the Hair.' I originated that ad.
Result, six million pair of the Go-lightly kind of shoes sold the first
year. Eight million Pratt's Hats sold on the strength of 'Air-the-Hair.'
See this suit? I originated the term 'Ready-tailored.' Result, a boom
for the concern. Everybody crazy for Ready-tailored clothes. It's all in
the ad. The ad.'s the thing. Say, who originated 'up-to-date in style,
down-to-date in price?' I did. Made half a million for a collar concern
on that. See that fringe on those pants? And to think that the man who's
wearing them has made millions! Yes, millions--for other guys. But he's
done. It's all off with Willie. Now Willie is going to make money for
himself. Mr. Perkins of Portland is going to get rich. Are you with
him?”
“How is the plaster?” I asked, for there was something taking about
Perkins. “Is it good for anything?”
“Plaster!” he said. “Bother the plaster! The ad.'s all right, and that's
the main thing. Give me a good ad., and I'll sell lead bullets for
liver pills. Display 'Perkins's Bullets Kill the Disease' in all the
magazines, and in a year every person with or without a liver would be
as full of lead as a printer's case. Paint it on ten thousand barns, and
the inhabitants of these glorious States would be plugged up like Mark
Twain's frog. Now I have here an ad. that is a winner. Give me fifty
thousand dollars, and we will have every man, woman, and child in
America dreaming, thinking, and wearing Perkins's Patent Porous Plaster.
We will have it in every magazine, on every barn, fence, and rock, in
the street-cars, on highways and byways, until the refrain will ring in
sixty million American heads--
“'Perkins's Patent Porous Plaster
Makes all pains and aches fly faster.”
“But, my dear sir,” I said, “is the plaster good?”
Mr. Perkins of Portland leaned over and whispered in my ear, “There is
no plaster.”
“What?” I cried.
“Not yet,” he said, “that will come later. We will get that later. Law
of supply and demand, you know. When there is a demand, there always
turns up a supply to fill it. See the point? You look bright. See this.
We advertise. Get, say, fifty thousand orders at ten dollars each;
total, five hundred thousand dollars. What next? We sell out. We go to
some big concern. 'Here,' we say--'Here is an article advertised up to
the handle. Here are orders for five hundred thousand dollars' worth.
Thing on the boom. Give us two hundred thousand cash, and get up your
old plaster, and fill the orders. Thanks. Good day.' See? They get a
well-established business. We get a clear profit of one hundred and
fifty thousand. What next? We get up another ad. Invest our whole
capital. Sell out for a million. Invest again, sell out again. In ten
years we can buy Manhattan Island for our town-seat and Chicago for our
country-seat. The richest firm in the world--Perkins and--”
“Brown,” I said, supplying the blank; “but I haven't fifty thousand
dollars, nor yet ten thousand.”
“What have you got?” he asked, eagerly. “Just five thousand.”
“Done!” Perkins cried.
And the next day we had the trade-mark registered, and had made
contracts with all the Cleveland papers.
“You see,” said Perkins, “we are shy of money. We can't bill the
universe with a measly little five thou. We've got to begin small. Our
territory is Ohio. Perkins's Patent Porous Plaster shall be known to
every Buckeye, and we will sell out for twenty thousand.”
So we soon had the words,
“Perkins's Patent Porous Plaster
Makes all pains and aches fly faster,”
on the fences and walls throughout Ohio. Every paper proclaimed the
same catchy couplet. One or two magazines informed the world of it. The
bill-boards heralded it. In fact, Perkins's Patent Porous Plaster was
in everybody's mouth, and bade fair to be on everybody's back as soon as
there was a Perkins's Patent Porous Plaster to put on those same backs.
For Perkins was right. The backs seemed fairly to ache for plasters of
our making. From all over the State druggists wrote for terms; and we
soon kept two typewriters busy informing the anxious pharmacists that,
owing to the unprecedented demand, our factory was two months behind on
orders, and that “your esteemed favor will have our earliest attention,
and all orders will be filled in rotation at the earliest possible
moment.” Each day brought a deluge of letters, and we received several
quite unsolicited testimonials to the merits of Perkins's Patent Porous
Plaster. Perkins was radiant.
Then he faded.
He set out to sell the trade-mark, and failed! No one wanted it. Money
was tight, and patent medicines were a drug.
Porous Plasters were dead. Perkins was worried. Day followed day; and
the orders began to decrease, while countermands began to arrive. We
had just two hundred dollars left, and bills for four thousand dollars'
worth of advertisements on our file. At last Perkins gave up. He
came in, and leaned despondently against my desk. Sorrow marked every
feature.
“No use,” he said, dolefully, “they won't bite. We have to do it.”
“What?” I asked; “make an assignment?”
“Nonsense!” cried Perkins. “Fill those orders ourselves!”
“But where can we get--”
“The plasters?” Perkins scratched his head. He repeated softly, “Makes
all pains and aches fly faster,” and swung one foot sadly. “That's it,”
he said; “where?”
The situation was becoming acute. We must have plasters quickly or fail.
A look of sadness settled on his face, and he dropped limply into a
chair. Instantly he sprang to his feet with a yell. He grasped the tail
of his coat and tugged and struggled. He had sat on a sheet of sticky
fly-paper, and he was mad, but even while he struggled with it, his
eyes brightened, and he suddenly darted out of the office door, with the
fly-paper rattling behind him.
In two hours he returned. He had a punch such as harness-makers use to
punch holes in straps, a pair of scissors, and a smile as broad as his
face was long.
“They will be here in ten minutes!” he cried. “Sit right down and write
to all of our ad. mediums to hold that ad. for a change. In one year we
will buy the soldiers' monument for a paper-weight, and purchase Euclid
Avenue for a bowling-alley! Get off your coat. I've ordered fifty
thousand paper boxes, one hundred thousand labels, and two hundred
thousand plasters. The first lot of boxes will be here to-morrow, and
the first batch of labels to-night. The plasters will be here in five
minutes. It's a wonder I didn't think of it when I wrote the ad. The new
ad. will sell two plasters to every one the old one sold.”
“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.”
[Illustration: 30]
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.