“In rename for new cleaning powder,” said Mrs. Bowser. “I have noted with care list of names for new cleaning powder suggested by you. I do not check with any of them.“ ‘GARFINKLE’S Pride of the Bathroom’ has a high-class appeal but is too long.“ ‘KLASSIC-KLEENER—Out, darned spot’—is good and would permit a tie-up with Shakespere in the ads, but the profanity might offend some possible buyers.“ ‘TUB-PUP—Just Sic it on the Dirt’—is snappy but hardly serious enough for a product that retails at one dollar a can. Humor has no place in business.“ ‘ROSE-DUST—The Powder That Perfumes as it Cleans’—is the best on your list because it suggests quality and also Hammers Home” (caps, Gussing) “the one distinctive point about the new powder—i.e., the fact that it has a pleasant smell. It is rather more like fresh pine shavings than roses, I think. In the name and slogan we must put across the punch idea that this good-smelling powder is also a cleaning agent with a kick. I attach list of names I have developed.“Please let me have your reactions to these names very soon as Peabody Garfinkle called up today to ask when he can go ahead and order cans and labels for the new powder. He wants to get it on the dealers’ shelves in time for spring house cleaning. Action please.“(Signed)P. I. Bowser,Associate President.”
“In rename for new cleaning powder,” said Mrs. Bowser. “I have noted with care list of names for new cleaning powder suggested by you. I do not check with any of them.
“ ‘GARFINKLE’S Pride of the Bathroom’ has a high-class appeal but is too long.
“ ‘KLASSIC-KLEENER—Out, darned spot’—is good and would permit a tie-up with Shakespere in the ads, but the profanity might offend some possible buyers.
“ ‘TUB-PUP—Just Sic it on the Dirt’—is snappy but hardly serious enough for a product that retails at one dollar a can. Humor has no place in business.
“ ‘ROSE-DUST—The Powder That Perfumes as it Cleans’—is the best on your list because it suggests quality and also Hammers Home” (caps, Gussing) “the one distinctive point about the new powder—i.e., the fact that it has a pleasant smell. It is rather more like fresh pine shavings than roses, I think. In the name and slogan we must put across the punch idea that this good-smelling powder is also a cleaning agent with a kick. I attach list of names I have developed.
“Please let me have your reactions to these names very soon as Peabody Garfinkle called up today to ask when he can go ahead and order cans and labels for the new powder. He wants to get it on the dealers’ shelves in time for spring house cleaning. Action please.
“(Signed)P. I. Bowser,Associate President.”
Mrs. Bowser skimmed with agile eye her list headed “Things To Get Done This Day,” then dictated:
“Memo to Mr. Bowser.In rechristening baby. Please note that baby will be one year old tomorrow. He should be christened then. It is not intelligent to continue to call him Baby and Junior indefinitely. I suggest that you send me without delay list of names you consider suitable for him. I will give them my careful attention and I hope we can reach an agreement today on this subject.“(Signed)P. I. Bowser,Associate President.”
“Memo to Mr. Bowser.In rechristening baby. Please note that baby will be one year old tomorrow. He should be christened then. It is not intelligent to continue to call him Baby and Junior indefinitely. I suggest that you send me without delay list of names you consider suitable for him. I will give them my careful attention and I hope we can reach an agreement today on this subject.
“(Signed)P. I. Bowser,Associate President.”
Mrs. Bowser tapped her teeth for two seconds, glanced at her watch—a Krafty-Kronometer, “The Personality Timepiece with the Different Tick” (her own slogan)—and then became all animation.
“Gussing,” she shot out, “get the Chicago and Salt Lake City offices on the long distance, send Meldrum, O’Grady and Kitchell to me at once, and order a taxi to be here in fifteen minutes to take me to a conference with Miss Switzer of the I-Say-Ma-Ma Mechanical Doll Company at the Jill Club.”
Miss Gussing bustled out and Mrs. Bowser tore into her work like a tornado through a picnic of paper dolls.
When Mrs. Bowser returned from her luncheon conference glowing with triumph over the fact that she had sold Miss Switzer the idea of making some of the dolls say “Pa-pa,” she found on her broad, plate-glassed-topped, thoroughly organized desk two memos on the bright orange paper Mr. Bowser used so that memos emanating from the presidential office might not be confused with the pallid blue and punchless pink of lesser memoranda. She read them.
“In reslogan for new cleaning powder. I do not like any names you have suggested.
“ ‘LILY-LAVA—Makes Your Bathroom a Conservatory’ has possibilities, but my opinion is that many housewives do not know what a conservatory is.”
Mrs. Bowser, as a fighting feminist, frowned at this slight on the vocabulary of her sex, and read on:
“ ‘GARFINKO NOSTINKO—Easy on the Nostrils but Hard on the Dirt’—is the best, but it just misses hitting me hard enough. Somehow it lacks dignity; I FEEL this lack. I shall concentrate on this problem tonight after dinner and see if I can evolve a Clarion Phrase That Will Shout Its Message from the Shelves. I will let you know my final choice tomorrow.“(Signed)J. Sanford Bowser,President.”
“ ‘GARFINKO NOSTINKO—Easy on the Nostrils but Hard on the Dirt’—is the best, but it just misses hitting me hard enough. Somehow it lacks dignity; I FEEL this lack. I shall concentrate on this problem tonight after dinner and see if I can evolve a Clarion Phrase That Will Shout Its Message from the Shelves. I will let you know my final choice tomorrow.
“(Signed)J. Sanford Bowser,President.”
Mrs. Bowser emitted a sound resembling “Humph.”
“His final choice!” she remarked, frowning at the buzzer buttons on her desk, of which there were enough to make a vest. “His final choice! As if I personally did not sell Peabody Garfinkle the Bowsers’ Big Idea—Words That Hit Buyers in the Pocketbook! As if I myself didn’t get his signature on a three-hundred-thousand-dollar contract. Now Bowser acts as if it were his product. Humph! Just like a man. Garfinko Nostinko does not lack dignity. Printed in orange-red on a deep purple background it would Hit Any Housewife in the Buying Eye. I’m going to fight for it. He is getting too bossy lately, anyhow.”
She was in a decidedly truculent frame of mind as she picked up the second orange memo from her spouse:
“To Mrs. Bowser.In rechristening baby. Have given this matter much thought. Have decided that the following points must be considered in choosing name:“A.Our baby is no ordinary baby. An Unusual Child should have an Unusual Name.“B.Obviously, ordinary names, such as Robert, Henry and Thomas, will not do; they are for ordinary infants.“C.Our baby will be much in the public eye. As the son of The Bowsers, Inc., he will receive much publicity. Later when he is head of the company his name will be a household word. His name must be one that leaps out of a printed page and has strong memory value.“D.To get a really distinctive name for him we must COIN ONE! We must use just as much scientific care in coining it as if it were the name of a product for which we were trying to create a National Market.“E.Therefore, in considering names for baby, ask yourself these questions:“1. Does it express baby’s personality?“2. Is it distinctively individual?“3. Is it easy to spell?“4. Is it easy to say?“5. Is it easy to get over the telephone?“6. Does it look well in type? (N. B. Have all names set up in 12-point Caslon, new style.)“7. Has it a flowing, harmonious sound?“8. Does it begin with some incisive, unusual, INTEREST-GRABBING letter, like K, U, Y, V or Z?“9. Has it that Can’t-Be-Forgotten PUNCH that makes it Bite into a Man’s Memory and STICK there?“F.I attach list of names that answer these requirements. These names have been selected from more than six hundred coined by myself and the staff of the Product-Naming Department. To which one do you react most strongly? Action, please!“(Signed)J. Sanford Bowser,President.”
“To Mrs. Bowser.In rechristening baby. Have given this matter much thought. Have decided that the following points must be considered in choosing name:
“A.Our baby is no ordinary baby. An Unusual Child should have an Unusual Name.
“B.Obviously, ordinary names, such as Robert, Henry and Thomas, will not do; they are for ordinary infants.
“C.Our baby will be much in the public eye. As the son of The Bowsers, Inc., he will receive much publicity. Later when he is head of the company his name will be a household word. His name must be one that leaps out of a printed page and has strong memory value.
“D.To get a really distinctive name for him we must COIN ONE! We must use just as much scientific care in coining it as if it were the name of a product for which we were trying to create a National Market.
“E.Therefore, in considering names for baby, ask yourself these questions:
“1. Does it express baby’s personality?“2. Is it distinctively individual?“3. Is it easy to spell?“4. Is it easy to say?“5. Is it easy to get over the telephone?“6. Does it look well in type? (N. B. Have all names set up in 12-point Caslon, new style.)“7. Has it a flowing, harmonious sound?“8. Does it begin with some incisive, unusual, INTEREST-GRABBING letter, like K, U, Y, V or Z?“9. Has it that Can’t-Be-Forgotten PUNCH that makes it Bite into a Man’s Memory and STICK there?
“1. Does it express baby’s personality?
“2. Is it distinctively individual?
“3. Is it easy to spell?
“4. Is it easy to say?
“5. Is it easy to get over the telephone?
“6. Does it look well in type? (N. B. Have all names set up in 12-point Caslon, new style.)
“7. Has it a flowing, harmonious sound?
“8. Does it begin with some incisive, unusual, INTEREST-GRABBING letter, like K, U, Y, V or Z?
“9. Has it that Can’t-Be-Forgotten PUNCH that makes it Bite into a Man’s Memory and STICK there?
“F.I attach list of names that answer these requirements. These names have been selected from more than six hundred coined by myself and the staff of the Product-Naming Department. To which one do you react most strongly? Action, please!
“(Signed)J. Sanford Bowser,President.”
Mrs. Bowser, with frosty eye scrutinized the list, then tossed it on her desk with unmistakable petulance. She had read:
“Names for Baby:“Ugobono Bowser“Veekar Bowser“Zail Bowser“Zazzar Bowser“Zerric Bowser“Yondo Bowser“Vindo Bowser“Yubar Bowser“Kinzo Bowser.”
“Names for Baby:
“Ugobono Bowser“Veekar Bowser“Zail Bowser“Zazzar Bowser“Zerric Bowser“Yondo Bowser“Vindo Bowser“Yubar Bowser“Kinzo Bowser.”
“Ugobono Bowser
“Veekar Bowser
“Zail Bowser
“Zazzar Bowser
“Zerric Bowser
“Yondo Bowser
“Vindo Bowser
“Yubar Bowser
“Kinzo Bowser.”
If it is possible for a lady, a sloganeer and a college graduate, to snort, Mrs. Bowser, at that moment, snorted. She pronged at one of the buzzer buttons with an outraged finger. Miss Gussing shot in as if from a pneumatic tube.
“Gussing, take a memo. To Mr. Bowser.In rechristening baby. I have noted with care your lists of names (baby). I emphatically do not check with you on any of them. There is only one name I want to have baby christened. It is not on your list.“(Signed)P. I. Bowser,Associate President.
“Gussing, take a memo. To Mr. Bowser.In rechristening baby. I have noted with care your lists of names (baby). I emphatically do not check with you on any of them. There is only one name I want to have baby christened. It is not on your list.
“(Signed)P. I. Bowser,Associate President.
“Gussing,” snapped Mrs. Bowser, “please deliver this memo to Mr. Bowser personally.”
Miss Gussing vanished as if she had seen a boojum, but reappeared again after a brief interval, in her hand one of the sacred orange memos. Mrs. Bowser examined it.
“Memo to Mrs. Bowser.In rechristening baby. I am always open to GOOD suggestions. What is yours?“(Signed)J. Sanford Bowser,President.”
“Memo to Mrs. Bowser.In rechristening baby. I am always open to GOOD suggestions. What is yours?
“(Signed)J. Sanford Bowser,President.”
Mrs. Bowser’s eyes sparkled with determination.
“Gussing, take a memo,” she said in a crossing-the-Rubicon voice. “Memo to Mr. Bowser.In rechristening baby.
“JOHN.
“(Signed)P. I. Bowser,Associate President.”
Miss Gussing regarded her chief blankly.
“John?” queried Miss Gussing. “John what?”
“Nothing. Just ‘JOHN.’ All caps, Gussing,” said Mrs. Bowser, and her protruded chin symbolized a made-up mind.
She signed the memo so fiercely that she broke her pen—a Bowser-sold Product—“The Last-a-Lifetime Pen—Shakspere Would Have Used One.”
“Now,” ordered Mrs. Bowser, “take this to Mr. Bowser at once and see that it is called to his attention.”
Miss Gussing bounded from the room on her rubber heels—they were “Spine-Pals—Your Backbone’s Best Buddy.” Soon she bounded back. She carried reverently an orange memo which she placed on the desk. Mrs. Bowser plucked it up, read it, scowled.
“Memo to Mrs. Bowser.In rechristening baby. I cannot permit my son to be named John. Suggest conference on this subject in Quiet Room at 4:40. Do you check?“(Signed)J. Sanford Bowser,President.”
“Memo to Mrs. Bowser.In rechristening baby. I cannot permit my son to be named John. Suggest conference on this subject in Quiet Room at 4:40. Do you check?
“(Signed)J. Sanford Bowser,President.”
“Memo, Gussing.” Mrs. Bowser was almost feverish. “To Mr. Bowser.In rechristening baby. Must remind you baby is my son as well as yours. I insist on John. I will have conference with you in Quiet Room at 4:40.“(Signed)P. I. Bowser,Associate President.”
“Memo, Gussing.” Mrs. Bowser was almost feverish. “To Mr. Bowser.In rechristening baby. Must remind you baby is my son as well as yours. I insist on John. I will have conference with you in Quiet Room at 4:40.
“(Signed)P. I. Bowser,Associate President.”
The Quiet Room was a Bowser institution. It was his idea, and he was proud of it.
“It’s Psychological!” he exclaimed. “I Believe in Psychology. Do you know”—here he lowered his voice as one imparting a confidence—“Psychology Plays a Big Part in Modern Business?”
He contrived to give the impression to some of his clients that he, Mr. Bowser, had discovered psychology. At no small expense he had installed a laboratory as part of the Bowser establishment, and to it he brought all prospective clients that they might observe his two hired psychologists, grave men, peering darkly into microscopes or chevying guinea pigs through mazes.
“We are endeavoring to determine,” Mr. Bowser would explain, “the basic psychological reason why New York ladies prefer pink underthings while Boston ladies prefer them white. Ultimately, through psychology, we will be able to Condition the Buying Habits of the Consumer.”
“This Bowser is a deep fellow,” the clients would say to one another. “He’s scientific. He gets right down to the bottom of things.” And they would hasten to inscribe their names on the dotted line.
The Quiet Room had been planned by the psychologists, after a series of experiments that cost the lives of uncounted guinea pigs.
“This,” said Mr. Bowser, in introducing the Quiet Room to his staff, “is a Thinking Chamber. Here you can bring your Big Problems and in the Thought-Compelling Silence Think Through to a Sane Solution. When your Thinker is Fagged, come in here. Just put up a sign outside the door, ‘Someone is Now Thinking in this Room. Quiet, please,’ and no one, not even the president, will dare disturb you.
“Of course,” added Mr. Bowser, with a smile at once playful and yet with its serious side, “I hope that this will not be construed as a suggestion that you come in here to take a nap. That,” he concluded, “would be beneath contempt.”
The Quiet Room idea had worked out well; three pairs of copy writers—one male and one female to the pair—had announced their engagements since its introduction.
The Quiet Room was done in mouse gray—walls, carpets, furniture, even the lights were all of that inaudible hue.
There were no pictures to distract attention; just a simple sign in gray letters, “Quiet, please. This is a Room for Thought.”
To this room Mrs. Bowser repaired at 4:40 precisely. Mr. Bowser, himself the epitome of punctuality, was just opening the door as she reached it.
“Good afternoon, Bowser,” he said pleasantly.
“Good afternoon, Bowser,” she returned. They had agreed that in business hours they would be strictly businesslike.
“No Sentiment Between Nine and Five,” he had proposed as, on their honeymoon, they motored through New England looking for billboard sites. And she had agreed heartily.
They hung up the “Quiet, please” sign outside and sat in mouse-toned chairs at a mouse-toned table. Mr. Bowser spread out a sheaf of memos.
“I brought the correspondence in this matter,” he explained.
“Bowser,” said his wife, “I want to say right here and now that I won’t stand for one of your coined names for my baby. I want to christen him John.” She glanced at a list. “Yubar,” she said disdainfully. “Sounds like a varnish.”
“It strikes me,” said Mr. Bowser with dignity, “that Yubar is an especially distinctive name.”
“Yes, for a varnish,” flashed Mrs. Bowser. “But our son is not a varnish.”
The masculine Bowser frowned, then spoke in a low-pitched voice:
“You are getting excited, Bowser. You are raising your voice. Permit me to remind you that this is the Quiet Room, not the smoking room at the Jill Club.”
“Don’t use that tone to me, Bowser. I’ll raise my voice if I please.”
“But think of the employees!”
“I’m thinking of my son.”
“My son, if I may say so.”
“Your son!” Mrs. Bowser exclaimed. “You talk as if you’d bought him from a jobber.”
“Bowser! In the Quiet Room too.”
“Quiet Room be hanged!”
“You amaze me. Frankly, this conference cannot proceed while you are in this mood. We are here to confer, not to shout.”
“Very well. You agree to John?”
“No. Emphatically no. I will not agree to John, I tell you.”
“Who’s shouting now?”
“I’ll shout if I please. I veto John.”
“Oh, you do, do you! What am I—a rubber stamp?” Mrs. Bowser’s eyes were snapping. “Don’t try that he-man business on me, Bowser. First you try to legislate through your own slogan for the cleaning powder, and now you are trying to give my son a name like a patented stove polish. I say John. John! John!”
Her voice was shrill and his was not exactly suppressed.
“Do you realize,” he said, “that we are having our first quarrel?”
“I guess I have good reason to quarrel. I want to name the baby John. My mind’s made up.”
“No. Never. Not John.”
“Well, what do you want to call him?”
Mr. Bowser compressed his lips masterfully.
“Kinzo,” he said loudly.
“Kinzo?” she protested.
“Kinzo Bowser,” he repeated. “An almost perfect name! Look,” he went on in his selling voice. “Just say it over. Just roll the syllables over on your tongue. Kinzo Bowser! Hasn’t that a smooth, lyric quality? Kin-zo Bow-ser! Get it?”
He whipped from his pocket a large card on which he had printed KINZO BOWSER.
“Look!” he cried triumphantly. “Hasn’t that name Eye-Stabbing Power? See how that ‘K’ sticks out. Notice how that final ‘O’ ends the word with a snap. Why, that name fairly sings out loud. Kinzo Bowser! I tell you it would stand out on a dealer’s shelf like a wart on a bald head!”
“Who wants our baby’s name to stand out on a shelf?” Mrs. Bowser demanded.
“Oh!” said Mr. Bowser with some slight confusion. “I meant in case he ever manufactured canned goods. He might, you know. We owe it to him to pick a name that would be useful under any and all circumstances, don’t we?”
“John!” was all Mrs. Bowser said.
“John?” Mr. Bowser’s voice had many elements of a roar in it. “John? Plebeian! Common! One instantly associates John with mediocrity, with nincompoopity. Why, when I hear the name John it always suggests a man who sleeps in his underwear and thinks grapefruit is poisonous.”
“Your name is John,” his wife reminded him.
Mr. Bowser flushed.
“Am I to blame for that?” he inquired warmly. “You notice I call myself J. Sanford. Besides, my father was a farmer, not a publicity engineer. He knew about alfalfa but not about the Psychology of A Name With A Punch. I tell you I won’t even consider John. I want Kinzo.”
“Bah! Sounds like a Japanese acrobat or a cure for flat feet.”
He fastened upon her an eye impatient and stern.
“Apparently you haven’t grasped the first principles of Names that Mean Something. Well, I won’t argue with you while you’re in this state. Let’s discuss something else.”
“John,” said Mrs. Bowser with set jaw.
“Let’s postpone that subject, please,” he said. “Peabody Garfinkle just phoned me that he must start printing labels for his cans tomorrow. He wants the design and name by one o’clock. He’ll use any one our organization works out. That’s Client Confidence, eh?”
“I hope it is not misplaced,” said Mrs. Bowser, her voice scented with a faint perfume of irony.
Mr. Bowser ignored this observation.
“Sorry I couldn’t check on any of your slogans for the cleaning powder,” he remarked with a great show of amiability. “One of yours—Garfinko Nostinko—almost made the grade, but not quite. Just didn’t pull the trigger with me, somehow. Your slogan is excellent—‘Easy on the Nostrils But Hard on the Dirt!’ Very pretty, very pretty. Pithy too. But—a little long, don’t you think?”
“No.”
“But, Bowser, don’t you recall that our Doctor Butterfield worked out in the laboratory that the Human Eye Can Only Rivet on Seven Words at Once? Your slogan has nine. If you could somehow boil it down——”
“I’ll boil nothing down. I like it as it is.”
Mr. Bowser shrugged his well-tailored shoulders.
“And fly in the face of psychology?” he asked gently, but as one who is hurt.
Mrs. Bowser bridled.
“Don’t look at me as if I were a naughty child, Bowser!” she ejaculated. “I’m not a green copy writer that you’ve caught wearing an unadvertised brand of rubber heels. I was a Successful Slogan Builder before I ever met you, please remember.”
“Come now, control yourself. At least let me tell you about the Big Thought I just had before I came in here.”
Mrs. Bowser tapped her teeth with her pencil. Mr. Bowser jumped to his feet and when he spoke his voice held chords of rapture and his eyes were alight with the joy of creation.
“Listen,” he began. Then in his special slogan voice he declaimed: “Smelly-Welly—dirt-devourer!”
Mrs. Bowser regarded him without enthusiasm.
“Not bad,” she admitted.
“Not bad?” he cried. “Great Scott, woman, it’s perfect! Smelly-Welly! Why, it’s an inspiration. Came to me like a flash from the sky. Smelly-Welly! Easy to say, easy to spell and chock-full of punch. Look here, Bowser, just look here!” From an inside pocket he took a strip of cardboard on which he had hastily lettered in large black print:
SMELLY-WELLYDirt-devourer
SMELLY-WELLY
Dirt-devourer
He held it aloft, eyes beaming.
“Just picture that in orange on a dark blue background! Smelly-Welly! A child can say it. Ah, an idea! ‘A child can use it just as easily as a child can say it.’ We’ll print that on every can. Why, it would be a sin to retail Smelly-Welly at a dollar a can. I bet we could get a dollar and a half easy for a product with a name like that. Smelly-Welly! There’s magic in it, I tell you. Isn’t it a peach, Bowser?”
“I like Garfinko Nostinko better,” she answered doggedly.
He bit his lip.
“Oh, do you?” he said stiffly.
“Yes; Smelly-Welly lacks dignity.”
“Is that so? Well, I tried it on Mink, Pffeffer, Boley, Deyo, Hendricks and Shinners, and they were all most enthusiastic about it.”
“They would be, the jellyfish,” said Mrs. Bowser dryly. “If you suggest Cupid’s Caress as the name for a tire pump they’d applaud.”
Mr. Bowser was outraged by this suggestion.
“You’re just in a stubborn streak, Bowser,” he declared. “No use reasoning with you. I shall use Smelly-Welly.”
“It lacks dignity,” she retorted.
“Smelly-Welly,” said Mr. Bowser with concentrated gravity, “is my choice, and I intend that it shall be used.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Mrs. Bowser grimly.
A light and timorous tap sounded on the door; the frightened face of Miss Mink peeped through the crack.
“Sorry, Mr. Bowser,” she said, “but your reducing class at the Billboard A. C. starts at 5:30 and it’s now 5:25. You told me to be sure you didn’t miss it again. Your car is waiting.”
“I’ll come directly, Mink,” said Mr. Bowser. He turned to his wife. “I shall stay at the club tonight,” he informed her, then stalked out.
She said nothing; ominously she tapped her teeth. There was a buzzer in the Quiet Room—a pale gray buzzer with a wan buzz; this she pressed. Miss Gussing flitted into the room.
“Gussing, take a memo. To cook.In redinner tonight. Mr. Bowser will not be present. Tomato soup, roast chicken, little green beans, guava jelly, raspberry mousse, eight sharp.“(Signed)P. I. Bowser,Associate President.”
“Gussing, take a memo. To cook.In redinner tonight. Mr. Bowser will not be present. Tomato soup, roast chicken, little green beans, guava jelly, raspberry mousse, eight sharp.
“(Signed)P. I. Bowser,Associate President.”
Morn came to the office of J. Sanford Bowser. Up and down, up and down paced Mr. Bowser, heedless of the fact that he might wear a path in the genuine Cabistan rug. That he, most careful of men, should thus imperil so costly a piece of his own property was a sure sign to his employees that he was in no mood to be trifled with. His brow, generally bland, was creased with care and perplexity. He lit Marlborough-Somerset after Marlborough-Somerset, then tossed them, half-smoked, into the copper ash tray. J. Sanford Bowser was in conference with himself.
Heads of departments tiptoed about with ashen faces and tight-shut lips; now and then they paused in the corridors to exchange a few tense, whispered words. Copy writers in their coops wrote furiously but silently with soft black pencils; now and then they glanced apprehensively over their shoulders as if they momentarily expected the grim reaper himself to enter. Little girls down in the checking department curbed their giggles and masticated their gum with nervous molars; even the space salesmen on the benches in the reception room sensed the fact that the atmosphere was electric with suspense; in muted voices they muttered their selling talk over to themselves.
“J. S. B. is making some big decision,” whispered the head of the copy department to the head of the media department.
“The Chief is making some big decision,” whispered Copy Writer Deyo to Copy Writer Shinners as they held hands in the Quiet Room.
“Mr. Bowser is makin’ some big decision,” whispered Mickey the messenger to Sallie the checker.
And Mrs. Bowser, where was she? Alone and aloof in her own private concentrating room on the roof of the building, she did not know of the spiritual wrestling match that went on in Mr. Bowser’s soul. She was busy; her chin jutted out resolutely; with pieces of colored paper and with paint she frantically designed car cards, posters, cartons, on which she lettered vigorously “Garfinko Nostinko.”
“Hit them in the Eye with Something Tangible,” she explained to the faithful Gussing who stood guard outside the door to prevent interruption. “Once Bowser sees these, he’ll forget Smelly-Welly. Smelly-Welly lacks dignity, don’t you think, Gussing?”
“Yes, Bowser.”
From the theater of war, where Mr. Bowser battled with himself, came a news bulletin which leaped from mouth to mouth:
“J. S. B. is going into the Quiet Room.”
“The Chief is going into the Quiet Room.”
“Mr. Bowser is going into the Quiet Room.”
They saw him, hands clasped behind him, chin resting on necktie, eyes oblivious to things mundane, stride down the corridor and into the Quiet Room. As noiselessly as if it were the cobweb door to ghostland the gray door purred shut behind him. From basement to roof in the vast Bowser Building breaths were held.
In the Quiet Room Mr. Bowser set up on racks four cards, in groups of two. The first card bore the words:
SMELLY-WELLYDirt-devourer
SMELLY-WELLY
Dirt-devourer
The second card had inscribed on it:
GARFINKO-NOSTINKOEasy on the Nostrils, But Hard on the Dirt
GARFINKO-NOSTINKO
Easy on the Nostrils, But Hard on the Dirt
The other two cards were smaller. One bore the words:
KINZO BOWSER
The other had written on it:
JOHN BOWSER
J. Sanford Bowser leaned back in a gray easy-chair, stretched out his long legs and studied for many minutes the cards.
Abruptly he stood erect; dynamically his teeth clicked. With quick hands he seized the Garfinko Nostinko card and the John Bowser card and tore them into small bits.
“Thinking out loud,” he said—a favorite expression of his—“I intend to be master in my own office and in my own home.”
He jabbed a buzzer button. Two thousand employees of The Bowsers, Inc., breathed again. They knew that the big decision had been made.
In spurted Miss Mink.
“Minktakmemo.”
She looked at him in some alarm; he appeared ruffled, almost agitated. It was contagious; her hand trembled.
“Memo to Hencastle,” he jerked out. “In rename. My final decision is SMELLY-WELLY—Dirt-devourer! This name must be used no matter what objections are raised; it will be up to you to see that this is done. Please note that appointment is for one sharp, as per verbal instructions given this morning.“(Signed)J. Sanford Bowser,President.”
“Memo to Hencastle,” he jerked out. “In rename. My final decision is SMELLY-WELLY—Dirt-devourer! This name must be used no matter what objections are raised; it will be up to you to see that this is done. Please note that appointment is for one sharp, as per verbal instructions given this morning.
“(Signed)J. Sanford Bowser,President.”
He signed it as if he were signing the Declaration of Independence.
“Minktaknuthermemo.”
Miss Mink snapped to attention.
“To Hendricks.In rematter discussed this morning. My final choice is Kinzo. Please carry out my instructions to the letter. Use my limousine.“(Signed)J. Sanford Bowser,President.”
“To Hendricks.In rematter discussed this morning. My final choice is Kinzo. Please carry out my instructions to the letter. Use my limousine.
“(Signed)J. Sanford Bowser,President.”
“Now,” he directed, “when Hencastle and Hendricks have left the office please find Mrs. Bowser and ask her to be so good as to come to the Quiet Room as soon as she can for a very important conference.”
Miss Mink scurried forth, and he picked up a large pad of paper and began to sketch out posters for the forthcoming Smelly-Welly campaign.
So engrossed was he in this work that he did not notice that it was fully two hours before Mrs. Bowser entered. She was slightly disheveled, slightly smeared with purple ink, slightly flushed, and in her hand were many papers.
“Well, Bowser?” she inquired.
“Sit down, please,” he said most affably.
She did so.
“Bowser,” he began levelly, “I’m not going to beat around the bush. I’m going to tell you straight out.”
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Two heads,” stated Mr. Bowser, “may be better than one in thinking, but one is better than two in doing. So I determined today that I would go ahead and name the new cleaning powder and attend to the christening of the baby myself.”
“Oh, have you really?” said Mrs. Bowser in a voice ten degrees below freezing. “Important, if true.”
“It is true,” he rejoined calmly. “The things have been done.”
“Done? Done!” The first “done” she uttered was a whisper; the second “done” a scream.
“Precisely. Both jobs I put through according to a careful plan,” he continued with serenity. “By my order Hencastle went to Peabody Garfinkle and told him he could order one million cans bearing the label Smelly-Welly.”
Mrs. Bowser, incapable of speech, sucked in her breath sharply.
“And,” finished Mr. Bowser, “also by my order, Hendricks called at the house today, took the baby to the church in the limousine, and had him christened.”
“What?” asked Mrs. Bowser faintly. “John?”
“No,” said Mr. Bowser; “Kinzo.”
For a brief second Mrs. Bowser appeared to be about to swoon, but she didn’t; she spoke, but with an effort.
“There are times,” she said slowly, “when mere words cannot express thoughts. And this is one of them.” Then, with mounting ire: “Do you mean to sit there and tell me, J. Sanford Bowser, that you had the unmitigated nerve to name my baby without——”
“Hush, for heaven’s sake! There’s somebody at the door,” he said. There was indeed somebody at the door; the Bowsers heard a crackling noise.
“Look! What’s that?” exclaimed Mr. Bowser.
“It’s a newspaper; someone is poking it under the door,” she said, mystified.
He stooped and picked up the paper.
“Early edition of the Evening Clarion,” he said. “Look—it’s marked—right here.”
For a moment they bent their heads over the sheet.
Then Mrs. Bowser gave forth a heartrending scream that made the gray walls of the Quiet Room tremble; then Mr. Bowser cried aloud “Great Cæsar’s ghost!” and collapsed into a chair. Staring out in cold black type they saw:
Late NewsBowser Scion ChristenedThe infant son of Mr. and Mrs. J. Sanford Bowser, well-known publicity engineers, of Park Avenue, and Great Neck, L. I., was christened at noon today in the Church of Saint Jude the Obscure, by the Rev. James Russell Swiggette. The name given the infant was Smelly-Welly Dirt-devourer Bowser.
Late News
Bowser Scion Christened
The infant son of Mr. and Mrs. J. Sanford Bowser, well-known publicity engineers, of Park Avenue, and Great Neck, L. I., was christened at noon today in the Church of Saint Jude the Obscure, by the Rev. James Russell Swiggette. The name given the infant was Smelly-Welly Dirt-devourer Bowser.
Mr. Bowser recovered just enough to moan, “Great Cæsar’s ghost—they got the memos mixed! They got the memos mixed!”
“Smelly-Welly Bowser,” repeated Mrs. Bowser over and over, as if under some horrible spell. “Smelly-Welly Bowser. My baby! Smelly-Welly Bowser.”
“They got the memos mixed, Pandora,” he said abjectly. “I tell you they got the memos mixed.”
“Smelly-Welly Bowser,” she moaned. “You wanted an unusual name! You wanted a name no one will forget! You wanted a name easy to say! Well, you’ve got it! Oh, dear; oh, dear—Smelly-Welly Bowser! My son. Smelly-Welly——”
“Oh, Pandora,” he cried, taking her hand, “how can you—or he—ever forgive me?”
She looked up and the beginning of a smile twitched her lips.
“Now we’ll just have to call him John,” she said.
THE WRONGING OF EDWIN DELL
“ONE, two, three, four,” counted Aunt Charity as she put the hard-boiled eggs into the shoebox beside the bananas, and twisted a little cornucopia from the sheep-dip advertisement in the Crosby Corners’ News to hold the pepper and salt. “Do you think four will be enough, Edwin?”
“Four what, Aunt Charity?” asked Edwin Dell, looking up from his book; it was Jeremy Taylor’s “Holy Living and Holy Dying.”
“These,” she said, pointing a long, pale forefinger. She never mentioned the word egg. To her there was a suggestion of the improper about an egg.
Edwin Dell looked at them, blushed, turned his head away.
“I think so, Aunt Charity,” he murmured.
She cut slices of bread from the home-made loaf and swaddled each slice in tissue paper.
“You’ll be careful what victuals you eat in New York, Edwin,” she said; it was half question, half command.
“Oh, yes, Aunt Charity,” promised the young man. “I’m always most particular about my victuals.”
“Sit up straight, Edwin. And be sure to allow plenty of time to get to the station. The New York train leaves at three-twenty-four. What is it Emerson says about punctuality?”
“Punctuality,” Edwin quoted, “is one of the legs of the table of Success.” He knew his Emerson.
“And Edwin——”
“Yes, Aunt Charity?”
“Don’t forget what I said about women.”
“Indeed I shan’t, aunt,” he said, earnestly. “I shall eschew them. Indeed I shall eschew them, Aunt Charity.”
“You’d better,” said his aunt, grimly. She was a geometric woman, all angles, corners, tangents and plane surfaces. The one man who might have loved her was Euclid. She had come to Crosby Corners, Connecticut, from Louisburg Square, Boston, to bring up her infant nephew, Edwin Dell, an orphan whose parents had been called away when lightning struck the village church during Wednesday prayer meeting. After Edwin was one year old she always called the gardener in to give Edwin his bath. She had conducted an exclusive school for girls in Boston, and so was able to bring the child up carefully and well. He had not been permitted to go to school; that would have brought him in contact with gauche persons. Any young man would have envied him his ability to read Latin at sight and his considerable knowledge of ecclesiastical history. The malady of the time—ingrown worldliness—had never tainted him. At twenty-one he had conversed with practically no one but his aunt, and the Rev. Vernon Stickney Entwistle, who came to tea on alternate Tuesdays, and Palumbo, the Italian gardener, whose remarks, by Aunt Charity’s strict orders were confined to agricultural subjects, such as “Theesa punk” and “Theesa cab.” It took Edwin some years to discover that Palumbo was saying “This is a pumpkin” and “This is a cabbage.”
Aunt Charity’s library consisted of the following books: The Book of Common Prayer, Young’s Night Thoughts, Fox’s Book of Martyrs, Holy Living and Holy Dying, the Sermons of Bishop Amos Pratt, the Sermons of the Rev. Hosea Ballou (in eleven volumes), the Sermons of John Wesley Tweedy, D.D., the Collected Prayers of the Rev. Nathaniel Beasley, the Sermons (one volume each) of the Revs. Snellgrove, Tetter, Peabody, Kinsolving, Struthers, Kipp, Manning, Pinkney, and Dodd, and The Genealogical History of the Tillotson Family. Aunt Charity was a Boston Tillotson. Young Edwin had free access to this library, and, being by nature bookish, he read all the volumes so assiduously that his aunt had to renew the chintz slip-covers three distinct times.
And now Edwin Dell was going to New York to seek his fortune. It was his first visit to that great city. In its libraries he planned to find material to finish the work on which he was engaged, a scholarly and exhaustive treatise on The History of the Dogma of Infant Damnation in New England between 1800 and 1830. It was to fill six large volumes, possibly ten. It would make something of a stir in the more thoughtful literary circles, he expected, in all modesty. He was a modest young man; he could not tolerate mirrors in his bathroom.
His heart beat fast as he took his seat in the train to New York. There he sat, waiting for the train to start, his ticket and the address of his boarding house clutched in one hand, his lunch box, with the four hard-boiled blanks, clutched in the other. His first week’s allowance was pinned to his union suit by two safety pins.
Passengers, even hardened traveling salesmen, turned to look twice at Edwin Dell; he was so young, so fresh. His light blue eyes were large, round, wondering; they looked at the world so candidly, so trustingly. He had the tall, well-proportioned body of the Tillotsons and the frank, boyish features of the Dells. Not a million mud-baths could have given him those cheeks, to which the color came easily; they were Nature’s reward for clean living, early retiring, and waking with the lark. Electricity had had nothing to do with that wave in his blond hair; that, too, was Nature’s gift. He was quietly dressed in a pepper and salt suit; his necktie was blue with white polka dots.
“Edwin,” his aunt called through the window, “are you sure you packed”—she looked about to be sure no one overheard her—“your woolens?”
“Yes, Aunt Charity.”
“And the goose-grease?”
“Yes, Aunt Charity.”
“When you feel a cold coming on,” she said, “be sure to rub the goose-grease on your——self.”
He knew she meant “chest”. He was glad she didn’t say the word in front of all those strangers, but, of course, he reflected, there was not the slightest danger of Aunt Charity committing an indelicacy; she tacitly admitted the existence of Edwin from chin to ankles, but never mentioned it.
“Edwin?”
“Yes, aunt.”
“Remember what I said.”
“About what, aunt?”
“About women.”
“Have no apprehension,” he said. “I shall eschew them.”
The engine tooted, the train creaked, and he was off to New York.
General Grant, it is likely, never stayed at the boarding house of Miss Hetty Venable in West 13th street. But the mark of his régime was on it, particularly in its interior decorations. In Edwin Dell’s room on the second floor, rear, hung heavy velvet portières that still smelled faintly, from the campaign cigar some roomer had smoked there during the Hayes-Tilden election. The furniture was massive and glum; the marble mantel was covered with a cloth with yellow tassels; in the bathtub were painted purple and green tulips of decalcomaniac tendencies; the gas jets suffered from chronic asthma and halitosis. The view from the window embraced four back-yards as similar as pocket-dictionaries, with frescoes of clothes-lines, and a liberal sprinkling of ash-barrels, elderly shoes and used cats. Edwin rubbed his hands with satisfaction; it seemed to him an ideal place to write his kind of book.
Four days after Edwin Dell came to New York and to West 13th Street, Miss Venable’s cook left to accept a position in the moving pictures, and Edwin, who had had his meals in his rooms till then, was now forced to seek his nourishment outside. Was it he who impersonated a serpent in a garden some eons ago who led Edwin Dell to select for his meals the Scarlet Hyena Tea Room, dinner eighty five cents, with soup or salad, one dollar; chicken Sundays? He thought he chose it because it lay on his route to the Greenwich Village branch of the public library.
It was during his second dinner there that Edwin Dell, looking up from page 512 of Bishop Groody’s masterly defense of the theory of infant damnation, saw the girl. He had been aware that there were many girls in New York, but he had ignored them. This girl was hard to ignore. She was looking at him, looking directly and smiling a slight, shameless smile. Edwin frowned, dropped his eyes to his book, and felt uncomfortable. In his confusion he salted his cocoa, and, on tasting it, sputtered. He heard her only partly suppressed titter. He knew that he was flushing. He tried to look up without meeting her eye but he ran straight into her gaze; she was smiling most provocatively. He gulped down his cocoa, salt and all, and fled from the restaurant.
How fresh and pure seemed the air of Seventh Avenue as he crossed it! How reassuring the presence of the traffic policeman! Edwin picked his way along through the crisp December evening. The sound of steps on the sidewalk behind him made him glance over his shoulder. His heart fluttered. Somebody was following him.
Under the arc light he could see her unmistakable dress, an unrestrained maroon batik affair besprint with ochre fish pursuing mauve worms. It was she, the one who had smiled. Edwin Dell’s backward glance was hasty, but hasty as it was, it saw her smile, and her wink. Something close akin to panic gripped him and he lengthened his strides; from thelap, lap, lapof her sandals he knew she too had increased her pace. With anxious eyes he glanced at the numbers; he had forty houses to go before he reached Miss Venable’s. His breath began to come jerkily. Thirty numbers more. She was gaining on him, and was clearing her throat with a loud “Ahem” that even to his inexperienced ears sounded manufactured. Twenty more numbers; and the girl drew nearer, nearer. Edwin broke into a species of canter;lap, lap, lap, lap—she was cantering, too. Just in time he reached the brown stone steps of Miss Venable’s house; with two leaps he reached the door and miraculously hit the key-hole the first stab. He slammed the door shut behind him, and sank down, almost fainting on the derby hats of the other roomers on the hall hat-rack.
Next day before Edwin Dell went forth, he stood for a long time looking at a steel engraving he had brought with him from his home in the country and had tacked to the rose-dappled wall-paper. It was a picture of Ralph Waldo Emerson. New courage rushed into his system like air into a tire as he gazed into the wise, kind, understanding eyes. He ate a push-cart apple for breakfast and another for lunch, and entrenched himself in the library behind the bulwark of Bishop Groody’s ponderous tome. It was past seven that evening when Edwin Dell had intimations that he had a grosser side and must appease it with food. He set forth to do so.
Edwin Dell’s acquaintance with Freud was as limited as Freud’s acquaintance with Edwin Dell. Edwin Dell knew no more of the theory of the subconscious than a trout does of trigonometry. Little did the country lad realize that he was an iceberg with one-third of him projecting above the surface of consciousness, and the other two-thirds plunged deep down in the murky realms of the subconscious. So, with the utmost innocence of intention (ah, little did he reck of the tricks of the subconscious!) he found himself well into the fried atmosphere of the Scarlet Hyena before he remembered that he had resolved never to set foot in that place again. He wheeled about to leave, but a vigilant waiter herded him into a seat in a corner and affixed him there with a napkin, a glass of water and butter. Edwin peered round, and saw no cause for alarm. The girl was not there. Her bobbed red head was nowhere visible in the forest of black, brown, yellow and brindle bobbed heads. With a relieved sigh he ordered chicken liver omelet and weak tea.
He was seeking for vestiges of chicken liver with one eye and reading Groody’s epoch-making chapter, “Have Babies Adult-sized Souls?” with the other, when he became aware that someone had taken the vacant seat across the table from him. Of course he did not look up; he hadn’t the slightest interest in knowing who it was. But the person addressed him.
“I beg your pardon, but will you give me a light,” the voice said. He had to look up then. It was she.
He wished to leave at once, but he was too well-bred, so he said, with impersonal politeness:
“I’m sorry, but I have no matches.”
“Ah,” she laughed, “I’ll bet your aunt won’t let you carry them.”
Surprise made him exclaim:
“My aunt? How do you know I have an aunt?”
The girl laughed again.
“You would,” was all she said. “Have a cigaret?”
“Thank you, I never smoke.”
“I do,” she said, and taking a box of matches from her hand-bag she lit a long Russian cigaret.
“Then you did have matches all the time!” cried Edwin.
She looked at the box in her hand, and said, as if she were the most astonished person in the world:
“Why, so I did.” Then she added, “My name is Valerie Keat.”
Edwin had it drawn forcibly to his attention that this woman was outrageously pretty in a bold, obvious way. She had adventurous green eyes and an insinuating mouth; her lips were a vivid carmine. Red, thought Edwin, the sign of danger; a person to be eschewed.
With a brief prayer that his tapioca pudding would be brought soon, he took up his book and sought safety in the prose of Bishop Groody. But the book had changed to some foreign tongue; its pages seemed blurred and its words hieroglyphics; had the Bishop lapsed into Czech? His table companion laughed.
“Do you always read upside down?” she inquired.
He turned his book right side up and looked at her with what for Edwin was a glare.
“No,” said he, stiffly.
“You’re from the country?”
He nodded. Why didn’t that wretch of a waiter hurry with the pudding?
“You’ve just come to New York?”
Again Edwin nodded.
“Ever been kissed?”
He straightened up in his chair as if a pin had been abruptly inserted in him.
“Really, now——” he began.
“Call me Val,” she said. “What shall I call you?”
His mind was too beside itself to be on the defensive.
“My name,” he said, “is Edwin Tillotson Dell.”
“I’ll call you ‘Ned!’ ” she said. “I’m an artist. How do you cheat the wolf, Ned?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What field of endeavor do you decorate?”
“Me? Oh, I’m an—author.”
“How interesting your work must be!” Was she sincere, or was she putting it all on? “What do you author?”
It occurred to him as an inspiration that he might be able to swamp and daze her with technical theological terms till his pudding came, so he began to quote his book, beginning on page one. He did not, however, get far.
“You can tell me all that when you come to see me,” the girl interrupted.
“When I come to see you?”
“Certainly. You’ll come, won’t you? Or shall I come to see you?”
He thought of the eyes of Emerson—wise, kind, understanding. His resolute teeth closed on a bit of chicken liver.
“Neither,” he said.
This, he thought, should abash her, but it did nothing of the sort. Instead, she gave him a playful wink.
“Ned,” she said, “I used to belong to the Northwestern Mounted Police and you know their motto.”
“I do not.”
“Get your man,” said Miss Keat.
He buried embarrassed eyes in the tapioca pudding which that moment providentially arrived.
“I hope,” he said, his eyes still on his plate, “that nothing in my manner has encouraged you to venture on such familiarity.”
It was impossible to rebuff this woman with the adventurous eyes and the carmine lips. Rebuffs rebounded from her.
“What are you doing this evening, Ned?” she asked.
Intuitively he sensed his peril.
“I am going to my room,” he said, “to think.”
He picked up book, coat, hat.
“You’re not mad, Ned?” she called after him.
“No, not mad,” he said, simply. “Only hurt, terribly hurt.”
He did go to his room as swiftly as if he had been tapped for Skull and Bones. He locked the door. He tried not to think of her, of those eyes, those lips. He looked hard at the picture of Emerson, and tried to think of him.
Valerie Keat lived in a reformed haymow over a converted stable in a redeemed alley in Greenwich Village. She had nineteen pairs of jade earrings, black, georgette underwear, and the following books: the Droll Tales, Jurgen, Mlle. de Maupin, The Rainbow, the collected writings of Havelock Ellis, the Decameron, the works of Rabelais, Ulysses, The Genius, Many Marriages, The Memoirs of Casanova, Sappho, Leaves of Grass, and an array of books in French, beginning with Volupte by Sainte-Beuve and Fleurs de Mal by Baudelaire and ending with La Garconne by Victor Margueritte. She had divorced one husband, had been divorced by a second, and kept a little red leather note-book full of names and telephone numbers. She was not a good girl.
Her haymow studio was large, with several square yards of north-light sky-light and a balcony from which were draped bright Spanish shawls. On the walls hung a dozen of her own paintings, most of them guilty of grand or petty nudity. Her gold bed stood on a platform reached by four purple steps and it was snowed under by twenty-four fat, odd-shaped cushions, each a different color, vermilion, heliotrope, claret, taupe, wisteria, tan, orchid, bisque, chrome yellow, bice, russet, carnation, cream, periwinkle, cherry, azure, citrine, jet, bister, salmon, maize, cinnabar, flame and flesh. She had invested some of her alimony in Chinese screens, Japanese prints, Russian brasses, Czecho-Slovakian china, East Indian hand-printed curtains, French futuristic furniture, a brocaded Bengal howdah to house her telephone, tall, white, wicked-eyed Copenhagen porcelain cats, Viennese statuettes, Florentine candle-sticks, carved ivory cigarette boxes from Egypt, and a profusion of thick, soft, Oriental rugs—Cabistans, Hamadan Mosouls, Namazis-Kanepas, Zaronims, Dozar-Namazis, Noborans, Ispahans, and a priceless Anatolian prayer-rug. But this last she never used; Valerie Keat was the sort of woman who never prays. Soft lights with strange shades by Bakst, Urban and Alice O’Neill filled the room with a sensuous glow. In one corner a green bronze cobra made by Javanese natives emitted subtle chypre incense from its eyes. At the end of the room stood the model stand, covered with black velvet. Beside it was a crimson baize screen behind which the models undressed. Before the fireplace lay a tiger-skin rug. Such was the place to which Valerie Keat had sought to lure Edwin Dell.
At the very moment that night when Valerie Keat in écru satin pajamas, sank down on her twenty-four cushions, lit a Persian narghil, and opened a French novel by Gyp, Edwin Dell, in his unpretentious white muslin nightshirt, was lying on his plain iron cot; was rereading a sentence from a letter he had just received from his aunt. Half aloud he read the words in Aunt Charity’s precise, virginal script: