e 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
Cor