I HAD not seen Perkins for over two years, when one day he opened my
office door, and stuck his head in. I did not see his face at first, but
I recognized the hat. It was the same hat he had worn two years before,
when he put the celebrated Perkins's Patent Porous Plaster on the
market.
“Pratt's Hats Air the Hair.” You will remember the advertisement. It was
on all the bill-boards. It was Perkins, Perkins of Portland, Perkins
the Great, who conceived the rhyme that sold millions of the hats; and
Perkins was a believer in advertising and things advertised. So he
wore a Pratt hat. That was one of Perkins's foibles. He believed in the
things he advertised.
“Get next to a thing,” he would say. “Study it, learn to love it, use
it--then you will know how to boom it. Take Murdock's Soap. Perkins of
Portland boomed it. He bought a cake. Used it. Used it on his hands,
on his face, on his feet. Bought another cake--washed his cotton socks,
washed his silk tie, washed his woollen underwear. Bought another
cake--shaved with it, shampooed with it, ate it. Yes, sir, ate it!
Pure soap--no adulteration. No taste of rosin, cottonseed--no taste of
anything but soap, and lots of that. Spit out lather for a month! Every
time I sneezed I blew a big soap-bubble--perspired little soap-bubbles.
Tasted soap for a year! Result? Greatest ad. of the nineteenth century.
'Murdock's Soap is pure soap. If you don't believe it, bite it.' Picture
of a nigger biting a cake of soap on every billboard in U. S. A. Live
niggers in all the grocery windows biting cakes of Murdock's Soap.
Result? Five hundred thousand tons of Murdock's sold the first year. I
use no other.” And so, from his “Go-lightly” shoes to his Pratt's
hat, Perkins was a relic of bygone favorites in dress. The result was
comical, but it was Perkins; and I sprang from my chair and grasped his
hand.
“Perkins!” I cried.
He raised his free hand with a restraining motion, and I noticed his
fingers protruded from the tips of the glove.
“Say,” he said, still standing on my threshold, “have you a little
time?”
I glanced at my watch. I had twenty minutes before I must catch my
train.
“I'll give you ten minutes,” I said.
“Not enough,” said Perkins. “I want a year. But I'll take ten minutes on
account. Owe me the rest!”
He turned and beckoned into the hall, and a small boy appeared carrying
a very large glass demijohn. Perkins placed the demijohn on a chair, and
stood back gazing at it admiringly.
“Great, isn't it?” he asked. “Biggest demijohn made. Heavy as lead! Fine
shape, fine size! But, say--read that!”
I bent down and read. The label said: “Onotowatishika Water. Bottled at
the spring. Perkins & Co., Glaubus, Ia.”
I began spelling out the name by syllables, “O--no--to--wat--” when
Perkins clapped me on the back.
“Great, hey? Can't pronounce it? Nobody can. Great idea. Got old Hunyadi
Janos water knocked into a cocked hat. Hardest mineral water name on
earth. Who invented it? I did. Perkins of Portland. There's money in
that name. Dead loads of money. Everybody that can't pronounce it will
want it, and nobody can pronounce it--everybody'll want it. Must have
it. Will weep for it. But that isn't the best!”
“No?” I inquired.
“No!” shouted Perkins. “I should say 'no!' Look at that bottle. Look at
the size of it. Look at the weight of it Awful, isn't it? Staggers the
brain of man to think of carrying that across the continent! Nature
recoils, the muscles ache. It is vast, it is immovable, it is mighty.
Say!”
Perkins grasped me by the coat-sleeve, and drew me toward him. He
whispered excitedly.
“Great idea! O-no-to-what-you-may-call-it water. Big jug full. Jug
too blamed big. Yes? Freight too much. Yes? Listen--'Perkins Pays the
Freight!'”
He sat down suddenly, and beamed upon me joyfully.
The advertising possibilities of the thing impressed me immediately.
Who could resist the temptation of getting such a monstrous package of
glassware by freight free of charge? I saw the effect of a life-size
reproduction of the bottle on the bill-boards with “Perkins Pays the
Freight” beneath it in red, and the long name in a semicircle of
yellow letters above it. I saw it reduced in the magazine pages, in
street-cars--everywhere.
“Great?” queried Perkins.
“Yes,” I admitted thoughtfully, “it is great.”
He was at my side in an instant.
“Wonderful effect of difficulty overcome on the human mind!” he bubbled.
“Take a precipice. People look over, shudder, turn away. Put in a
shoot-the-chutes. People fight to get the next turn to slide down. Same
idea. People don't want O-no-to-thing-um-bob water. Hold on, 'Perkins
pays the freight!' All right, send us a demijohn!”