"I've seen it in the newspaper, but never connected it with you. Being
out of the medical line I lost interest. Say, it's a wonder! Did it
fetch 'em?"
"Fetch 'em? It knocked 'em flat. That picture's the foundation of this
business. Talk about suggestion in advertising! He's a regular
hypnotist, Old Lame-Boy is. Plants the suggestion right in the small of
your back, where we want it. Why, Elpy, I've seen a man walk up to that
picture on a bill-board as straight as you or me, take one good, long
look, and go away hanging onto his kidneys, and squirming like a lizard.
Fact! What do you think of that? Genius, I call it: just flat genius, to
produce an effect like that with a few lines and a daub or two of
color."
"Some pull!" agreed Mr. McQuiggan, with professional approval. "And
then--'Try Certina,' eh?"
"For a starter and, for a finisher 'Certina _Cures_.' Shoves the bottle
right into their hands. The first bottle braces 'em. They take another.
By the time they've had half a dozen, they love it."
"Booze?"
"Sure! Flavored and spiced up, nice and tasty. Great for the temperance
trade. _And_ the best little repeater on the market. Now take a look,
Elpy."
He tapped the end of his pen upon the rough sketch of the mining
advertisement, which he had drafted. Mr. McQuiggan bent over it in
study, and fell a swift victim to the magic of the art.
"Why, that would make a wad of bills squirm out of the toe of a
stockin'! It's new game to me. I've always worked the personal touch.
But I'll sure give it a try-out, Andy."
"I guess it's bad!" exulted the other. "I guess I've lost the trick of
tolling the good old dollars in! Take this home and try it on your cash
register! Now, come around and meet the boy."
Thus it was that Editor-in-Chief Harrington Surtaine, in the third week
of his incumbency received a professional call from his father, and a
companion from whose pockets bulged several sheets of paper.
"Shake hands with Mr. McQuiggan, Hal," said the Doctor. "Make a bow when
you meet him, too. He's your first new business for the reformed
'Clarion.'"
"In what way?" asked Hal, meeting a grip like iron from the stranger.
"News?"
"News! I guess not. Business, I said. Real money. Advertising."
"It's like this, Mr. Surtaine," said L.P. McQuiggan, turning his spare,
hard visage toward Hal. "I've got some copper stock to sell--an A1
under-developed proposition; and your father, who's an old pal, tells me
the 'Clarion' can do the business for me. Now, if I can get a good rate
from you, it's a go."
"Mr. Shearson, the advertising manager, is your man. I don't know
anything about advertising rates."
"Then you'd best get busy and learn," cried Dr. Surtaine.
"I'm learning other things."
"For instance?"
"What news is and isn't."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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