PERKINS slammed the five-o'clock edition of the Chicago “Evening Howl”
into the waste-paper basket, and trod it down with the heel of his
Go-lightly rubber-sole shoe.
“Rot!” he cried. “Tommy rot! Fiddlesticks! Trash!”
I looked up meekly. I had seldom seen Perkins angry, and I was abashed.
He saw my expression of surprise; and, like the great man he is, he
smiled sweetly to reassure me.
“Diamonds again,” he explained. “Same old tale. Georgiana De Vere,
leading lady, diamonds stolen. Six thousand four hundred and tenth time
in the history of the American stage that diamonds have been stolen. If
I couldn't--”
“But you could, Perkins,” I cried, eagerly. “You would not have to
use the worn-out methods of booming a star. In your hands theatrical
advertising would become fresh, virile, interesting. A play advertised
by the brilliant, original, great--”
“Illustrious,” Perkins suggested. “Illustrious Perkins of Portland,”
I said, bowing to acknowledge my thanks for the word I needed, “would
conquer America. It would fill the largest theatres for season after
season. It would--”
Perkins arose and slapped his “Air-the-Hair” hat on his head, and
hastily slid into his “ready-tailored” overcoat. Without waiting for me
to finish my sentence he started for the door.
“It would--” I repeated, and then, just as he was disappearing, I
called, “Where are you going?”
He paused in the hall just long enough to stick his head into the room.
“Good idea!” he cried, “great idea! No time to be lost! Perkins the
Great goes to get the play!”
He banged the door, and I was left alone.
That was the way Perkins did things. Not on the spur of the moment, for
Perkins needed no spur. He was fall of spurs. He did things in the
heat of genius. He might have used as his motto those words that he
originated, and that have been copied so often since by weak imitators
of the great man: “Don't wait until to-morrow; do it to-day. Tomorrow
you may be dead.” He wrote that to advertise coffins, and--well, Li Hung
Chang and Sara Bernhardt are only two of the people who took his advice,
and lay in their coffins before they had to be in them.
I knew Perkins would have the whole affair planned, elaborated, and
developed before he reached the street; that he would have the details
of the plan complete before he reached the corner; and that he would have
figured the net profit to within a few dollars by the time he reached
his destination.
I had hardly turned to my desk before my telephone bell rang. I slapped
the receiver to my ear. It was Perkins!
“Pilly,” he said. “Pilly willy. Pilly willy winkum. Pilliwink! That's
it. Pilliwink, Princess of. Write it down. The Princess of Pilliwink.
Good-by.”