A week later Chicago and the greater part of the United States was
placarded with “The Crimson Cord.” Perkins did his work thoroughly and
well, and great was the interest in the mysterious title. It was an old
dodge, but a good one. Nothing appeared on the advertisements but the
mere title. No word as to what “The Crimson Cord” was. Perkins merely
announced the words, and left them to rankle in the reader's mind; and
as a natural consequence each new advertisement served to excite new
interest.
When we made our contracts for magazine advertising,--and we took a
full page in every worthy magazine,--the publishers were at a loss
to classify the advertisement; and it sometimes appeared among the
breakfast foods, and sometimes sandwiched in between the automobiles and
the hot-water heaters. Only one publication placed it among the books.
But it was all good advertising, and Perkins was a busy man. He racked
his inventive brain for new methods of placing the title before the
public. In fact, so busy was he at his labor of introducing the title,
that he quite forgot the book itself.
One day he came to the office with a small rectangular package. He
unwrapped it in his customary enthusiastic manner, and set on my desk
a cigar-box bound in the style he had selected for the binding of
“The Crimson Cord.” It was then I spoke of the advisability of having
something to the book besides the cover and a boom.
“Perkins,” I said, “don't you think it is about time we got hold of the
novel--the reading, the words?”
For a moment he seemed stunned. It was clear that he had quite forgotten
that book-buyers like to have a little reading-matter in their books.
But he was only dismayed for a moment.
“Tut!” he cried presently. “All in good time! The novel is easy.
Anything will do. I'm no literary man. I don't read a book in a year.
You get the novel.”
“But I don't read a book in five years!” I exclaimed. “I don't know
anything about books. I don't know where to get a novel.”
“Advertise!” he exclaimed. “Advertise! You can get anything, from an
apron to an ancestor, if you advertise for it. Offer a prize--offer a
thousand dollars for the best novel. There must be thousands of novels
not in use.”
Perkins was right. I advertised as he suggested, and learned that there
were thousands of novels not in use. They came to us by basketfuls
and cartloads. We had novels of all kinds,--historical and hysterical,
humorous and numerous, but particularly numerous. You would be surprised
to learn how many ready-made novels can be had on short notice. It beats
quick lunch. And most of them are equally indigestible. I read one or
two, but I was no judge of novels. Perkins suggested that we draw lots
to see which we should use.
It really made little difference what the story was about. “The Crimson
Cord” fits almost any kind of a book. It is a nice, non-committal sort
of title, and might mean the guilt that bound two sinners, or the tie of
affection that binds lovers, or a blood relationship, or it might be a
mystification title with nothing in the book about it.
But the choice settled itself. One morning a manuscript arrived that
was tied with a piece of red twine, and we chose that one for good luck
because of the twine. Perkins said that was a sufficient excuse for the
title, too. We would publish the book anonymously, and let it be known
that the only clue to the writer was the crimson cord with which the
manuscript was tied when we received it. It would be a first-class
advertisement.
Perkins, however, was not much interested in the story, and he left me
to settle the details. I wrote to the author asking him to call, and he
turned out to be a young woman.
Our interview was rather shy. I was a little doubtful about the proper
way to talk to a real author, being purely a Chicagoan myself; and I
had an idea that, while my usual vocabulary was good enough for business
purposes, it might be too easy-going to impress a literary person
properly, and in trying to talk up to her standard I had to be very
careful in my choice of words. No publisher likes to have his authors
think he is weak in the grammar line.
Miss Rosa Belle Vincent, however, was quite as flustered as I was. She
seemed ill at ease and anxious to get away, which I supposed was because
she had not often conversed with publishers who paid a thousand dollars
cash in advance for a manuscript.
She was not at all what I had thought an author would look like. She
didn't even wear glasses. If I had met her on the street I should have
said, “There goes a pretty flip stenographer.” She was that kind--big
picture hat and high pompadour.
I was afraid she would try to run the talk into literary lines and Ibsen
and Gorky, where I would have been swamped in a minute, but she didn't;
and, although I had wondered how to break the subject of money when
conversing with one who must be thinking of nobler things, I found she
was less shy when on that subject than when talking about her book.
“Well, now,” I said, as soon as I had got her seated, “we have decided
to buy this novel of yours. Can you recommend it as a thoroughly
respectable and intellectual production?”
She said she could.
“Haven't you read it?” she asked in some surprise.
“No,” I stammered. “At least, not yet. I'm going to as soon as I can
find the requisite leisure. You see, we are very busy just now--very
busy. But if you can vouch for the story being a first-class
article,--something, say, like 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' or 'David
Hamm,'--we'll take it.”
“Now you're talking,” she said. “And do I get the check now?”
“Wait,” I said, “not so fast. I have forgotten one thing,” and I saw her
face fall. “We want the privilege of publishing the novel under a title
of our own, and anonymously. If that is not satisfactory, the deal is
off.”
She brightened in a moment.
“It's a go, if that's all,” she said. “Call it whatever you please; and
the more anonymous it is, the better it will suit yours truly.” So we
settled the matter then and there; and when I gave her our check for a
thousand, she said I was all right.