"On the modern business principle that to accomplish anything you must
work on a large scale," said the Idiot. "Philander Kenilworth Dubbins
was a better proposition than P. K. Dubbins. The difference between them
in the mere matter of potentialities is the difference between a corner
grocery and a department store, or a kite with a tail and one without.
Well, having created the name, the next thing to do was to exploit it,
and we advertised Dubbins for all there was in him. We got Mr. William
Jones Brickbat, the eminent novelist, to say that he had read Dubbins's
poems, and had not yet died; we got Edward Pinkham, the author of "The
Man with the Watering-pot," to send us a type-written letter, saying
that Dubbins was a coming man, and that his latest book, _Howls from
Helicon_, contained many inspired lines. But, best of all, we prevailed
upon the manufacturers of celluloid soap to print a testimonial from
Dubbins himself, saying that there was no other soap like it in the
market. That brought his name prominently before every magazine-reader
in the country, because the celluloid-soap people are among the biggest
advertisers of the day, and everywhere that soap ad went, why, Dubbins's
testimonial went also, as faithfully as Mary's Little Lamb. After that
we paid a shirt-making concern down-town to put out a new collar called
"The Helicon," which they advertised widely with a picture of Dubbins's
head sticking up out of the middle of it; and, finally, as a crowning
achievement, we leased Dubbins for a year to a five-cent cigar company,
who have placarded the fences, barns, and chicken-coops from Maine to
California with the name of Dubbins--'Flora Dubbins: The Best Five-Cent
Smoke in the Market.'"
"And thus you made the name of Dubbins famous in letters!" sneered the
Doctor.
"That was only the preliminary canter," replied the Idiot. "So far,
Dubbins's greatness was confined to fences, barns, chicken-coops, and
the advertising columns of the magazines. The next thing was to get him
written up in the newspapers. That sort of thing can't be bought, but
you can acquire it by subtlety. Plan one was to make an after-dinner
speaker out of Dubbins. This was easy. There are a million public
dinners every year, but a limited supply of good speakers; so, with a
little effort, we got Dubbins on five toast-cards, hired a humorist out
in Wisconsin to write five breezy speeches for him, Dubbins committed
them to memory, and they went off like hot-cakes. Morning papers would
come out with Dubbins's picture printed in between that of Bishop Potter
and a member of the cabinet, who also spoke. Copies of Dubbins's
speeches were handed to the reporters before the dinner began, so that
it didn't make any difference whether Dubbins spoke them or not--the
papers had 'em next morning just the same, and inside of six months you
couldn't read an account of any public banquet without running up
against the name of Philander Kenilworth Dubbins."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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