"Well, when you signed your okay on the Atummyc--"
"That was an interview voucher!"
"Not--exactly," she said ducking her head.
The damage was done. You don't get ahead in this game by admitting
mistakes, and the production department was already packaging and
labelling samples of Atummyc Bath Powder to send out to the
distributors.
* * * * *
I had to carve the $25,000 out of my lipstick budget and keep my mouth
shut. When the ad copy came over from my firm I looked it over,
shuddered at the quickie treatment they had given it and turned it
loose. Things were beginning to develop fast in my lipstick
department, and I didn't have time to chase the powder thing like I
should have--since it was my name on the whole damned project.
So I wrote off the money and turned to other things.
We were just hitting the market with Madame Elaine Templeton's
"Kissmet" when the first smell of smoke came my way. The pixie came
into my office one morning and congratulated me.
"You're a genius!" she said.
"Like the Kissmet campaign, do you?" I said pleased.
"It stinks," she said holding her nose. "But Atummyc Bath Powder will
pull you out of the hole."
"Oh, that," I said. "When does it go to market?"
"Done went--a month ago."
"What? Why you haven't had time to get it out of the lab yet. Using a
foreign substance, you should have had an exhaustive series of allergy
skin tests on a thousand women before--"
"I've been using it for two months myself," she said. "And look at me!
See any rashes?"
I focussed my eyes for the first time, and what I saw made me wonder
if I were losing my memory. The pixie had been a pretty little French
pastry from the first, but now she positively glowed. Her skin even
had that "radiant atomic look", right out of our corny, low-budget ad
copy.
"What--have you done to yourself, fallen in love?"
"With Atummyc After Bath Powder," she said smugly. "And so have the
ladies. The distributors are all reordering."
Well, these drug sundries houses have some sharp salesmen out, and I
figured the bath powder must have caught them needing something to
promote. It was a break. If we got the $25,000 back it wouldn't hurt
my alibi a bit, in case the Kissmet production failed to click.
Three days later the old man called me from the New York branch of our
agency. "Big distributor here is hollering about the low budget we've
given to this Atummyc Bath Powder thing," he said. "He tells me his
men have punched it hard and he thinks it's catching on pretty big.
Maybe you better talk the Madame out of a few extra dollars."
"The Old Hag's in Europe," I told him, "and I'm damned if I'll rob the
Kissmet Lipstick deal any more. It's mostly spent anyway."
The old man didn't like it. When you get the distributors on your side
it pays to back them up, but I was too nervous about the wobbly first
returns we were getting on the Kissmet campaign to consider taking
away any of the unspent budget and throwing it into the bath powder
deal.
The next day I stared at an order from a west coast wholesaler and
began to sweat. The pixie fluttered it under my nose. "Two more
carloads of Atummyc Bath Powder," she gloated.
"Two more _carloads_?"
"Certainly. All the orders are reading _carloads_," she said. "This
thing has busted wide open."
And it had. Everybody, like I said earlier, lost their head. The
bath-powder plant was running three shifts and had back-orders chin
high. The general manager, a joker name of Jennings, got excited,
cabled Madame Elaine to get back here pronto, which she did, and then
the panic was on.
The miracle ingredient was this Atummion, and if Atummion sold bath
powder why wouldn't it sell face-cream, rouge, mud-packs, shampoos,
finger-nail polish and eye-shadow?
For that matter, the Old Hag wanted to know, why wouldn't it sell
Kissmet Lipstick?
The answer was, of course, that the magic legend "Contains the
Exclusive New Beauty Aid, Atummion" _did_ sell these other products.
Everything began going out in carload lots as soon as we had the new
labels printed, and to be truthful, I breathed a wondrous sigh of
relief, because up to that moment my Kissmet campaign had promised to
fall flat on its lying, crimson face.
* * * * *
The staggering truth about Atummion seeped in slowly. Item one:
Although we put only a pinch of it in a whole barrel of talcum powder,
_it did give the female users a terrific_ complexion! Pimples,
black-heads, warts, freckles and even minor scars disappeared after a
few weeks, and from the very first application users mailed us
testimonials swearing to that "atomic feeling of loveliness".
Item two: About one grain of Atummion to the pound of lipstick brought
out the natural color of a woman's lips and maintained it there _even
after the lipstick was removed_.
Item three: There never was such a shampoo. For once the ad
copywriters failed to exceed the merits of their product.
Atummion-tinted hair took on a sparkling look, a soft texture and a
_natural-appearing wave_ that set beauty-operators screaming for
protection.
These beauticians timed their complaint nicely. It got results on the
morning that the whole thing began to fall to pieces.
About ten A. M. Jennings called a meeting of all people concerned in
the Atummyc Powder project, and they included me as well as the pixie
and her brother, the assistant chemist.
Everyone was too flushed with success to take Jennings' opening remark
too seriously. "It looks like we've got a winner that's about to lose
us our shirts," he said.
He shuffled some papers and found the one he wanted to hit us with
first. "The beauticians claim we are dispensing a dangerous drug
without prescription. They have brought suits to restrain our use."
Madame Elaine in her mannishly tailored suit was standing by a window
staring out. She said, "The beauticians never gave us any break,
anyway. Hell with them! What's next?"
Jennings lifted another paper. "I agree, but they sicked the Pure Food
and Drug people on us. They tend to concur."
"Let them prove it first," the Old Hag said turning to the pixie's
brother. "Eh, Bob!"
"It's harmless!" he protested, but I noticed that the pixie herself,
for all her radiance, had a troubled look on her face.
The general manager lifted another paper. "Well, there seems to be
enough doubt to have caused trouble. The Pure Food and Drug labs have
by-passed the courts and put in a word to the Atomic Energy
Commission. The AEC has cut off our supply of the fission salts that
go into Atummion, pending tests."
That brought us all to our feet. Madame Elaine stalked back to the
huge conference table and stared at Bob, the chemist. "How much of the
gunk do we have on hand?"
"About a week's supply at present production rates." He was pale, and
he swallowed his adam's apple three times.
The worst was yet to come. The pixie looked around the table
peculiarly unchanged by the news. She had trouble in her face but it
had been there from the start of the conference. "I wasn't going to
bring this up just yet," she said, "but since we're here to have a
good cry I might as well let you kick this one around at the same
time. Maybe you won't mind shutting down production after all."
The way she said it froze all of us except the Madame.