Читать книгу Poppy Ott's Seven-League Stilts - Edward Edson Lee - Страница 4

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After that a billboard was a hunk of chocolate cake to Poppy. He’d stop and feast his eyes on it and act as though he was going to take a bite out of it. Polarine cans and scouring-powder cartons pictured on the billboards were a beautiful sight to him. Once I had to take him by the head of the hair, as the saying is, and drag him away from a garbage can that had something or other posted on the side of it. Advertising! Having had a taste of advertising in the successful shoe sale, all he could think about now and all he cared to talk about was advertising. He got up some advertisements of his own, too. And they were pretty clever. However, I didn’t brag on them. For I didn’t want to make him any worse than he was. What he needed was some one to squash him instead of praise him.

“Well,” says I the following Tuesday, “have you got it figured out yet how we’re going to work that horn scheme of yours and get rich?”

This inquiry was a merry little scheme of mine to kid him along. But he never tumbled. The poor fish!

“I’ve given the matter a lot of thought, Jerry,” says he earnestly.

“So I noticed,” says I, remembering how he had been walking around with his head in the clouds.

“And I’ve come to one conclusion.”

“Spill it,” says I. “I’ve got two good ears. And they’re both uncovered.”

“If we’re going to make a success of the scheme—a big success, I mean—we’ve got to have a better premium than a horn.”

“How about a drum?” says I helpfully.

But my brilliant suggestion didn’t receive thunderous applause.

“No,” says he, shaking his head. “A drum is no better than a horn. Both are common toys. As I see it, we’ve got to have something exclusive.”

“That’s an awful big word,” says I.

“I mean,” says he, “that we’ve got to have a premium that no one else can sell to storekeepers except us.”

I looked at him curiously. And at the moment it seemed to me that I liked him better than ever. There was something about him that made me like him. It was his earnest enthusiasm, I guess. I suddenly wondered, in deeper appreciation of him, if great business men like Edison and Ford hadn’t acted like this when they were boys.

“You talk as though we’re really going into business,” says I quietly.

“Why not?” was his reply.

“Well,” says I, shrugging, “I suppose we can, if you say so.”

He strutted around in fun.

“Advertising specialists, Jerry! That’s us.”

“Fine!” says I, joining him in his nonsense. “I’ve always wanted to be an advertising specialist, only I don’t know what it is.”

“No?” and he laughed sort of contented-like. “Well, here’s my scheme. First we invent a new kind of toy. See? Then we patent it and start manufacturing it. And then—”

“Wait a minute; wait a minute,” says I, stopping him with my hand. “What did you say we were going to be?”

“Advertising specialists.”

“But how can we be advertising specialists,” says I, puzzled, “when we’re inventors and manufacturers?”

He grinned.

“We’re inventors and manufacturers and advertising specialists all rolled up in one.”

I drew a deep breath.

“I’m glad you’re talking through your hat,” says I.

“But I mean it, Jerry. Honest I do.”

“Then you better count me out of it,” says I. “For this advertising specialist stuff is too deep for me. My talents run to pitching horseshoes and chewing gum.”

“Shucks, Jerry! We’re going to have fun.”

“Maybe.”

“Besides,” says he, all wound up, “think of the money we’re going to make.”

“Oh! . . .” says I, perking up. “We’re going to make money, hey?”

“Oodles of it.”

“Hot dog!” says I. “Now you’ve got me all excited.”

“Of course,” says he, as an afterthought, “we won’t get rich the first month or two.”

“What a disappointment!” I groaned.

“It’ll take us some time to build up our business.”

“That being the case,” says I, in further nonsense, “the sooner we start twisting the cow’s tail the sooner she’ll kick the bucket over.”

“Our first job,” says he, “will be to invent a new kind of toy.”

“For boys?”

“Principally. But we mustn’t forget about the girls.”

“Boys like noisy toys,” says I. “So let’s invent a new kind of horn. You put the big end of the horn in your mouth instead of the small end. See? That’s the new feature. And when you gurgle, the horn makes a noise like a jellyfish eating soup.”

“Jerry, you’re crazy.”

“Of course I am,” I laughed. “How could you expect me to be any different when I hang around with you?”

“Your horn idea is rotten.”

“Go ahead and knock on it,” says I. “You can’t make me sore. The trouble with you is that you’re jealous because I’m a smarter inventor than you are.”

“We’ve got to get something simpler than a horn,” says he, thinking. “Something we can manufacture ourselves.”

“And after we get it invented and manufactured—then what?”

“We sell it, of course.”

“To kids?”

“No, to storekeepers like Mr. Harper. We’re advertising specialists. See? That’s our business. And we tell the customer that we’ve got a scheme to help him sell more shoes. ‘Mr. Harper,’ we say, ‘here is a brand new toy—a double-jointed whirligig. The kids are crazy over it. They all want it. But they can’t buy it. No. The only way they can get it is by trading at your store. We don’t sell our goods to toy shops—we just sell to merchants like you. And if you give us an order your competitor across the street will be left out. For we won’t sell to him if we can sell to you. Boys will know that your store is the only place in town where they can get a double-jointed whirligig free. So you’ll get all the kid shoe business.’”

I let him run down.

“When did you memorize all that junk?” says I.

“Oh, I’ve been thinking about it.”

“You must have been dreaming about it, too.”

“Maybe I have,” says he, grinning. Then he went on: “We get an order from Mr. Harper. See? And then—”

“Is he the only customer we’re going to have?”

“Of course not. We’re going to sell our premiums all over the country. From coast to coast. I just used his name as an illustration.”

“I’ll tell the world,” says I, heaving a full-grown sigh, “that we’re going to have our hands full. For first we invent a double-jointed whirligig. And then, having manufactured it, we tour the country selling it. When are we going to eat and sleep?”

“After we get going, Jerry, we’ll do our selling with advertising. That’ll make it a lot easier for us.”

“So we’re going to send out advertising, hey?”

“Sure thing. As I say, that’ll be our way of getting business. Like the mail-order catalogues.”

“What kind of advertising are we going to send out?—billboards?”

“You poor fish! I’ll use your head for a billboard if you don’t talk sense.”

“All right,” says I, grinning. “We get a lot of orders. And then what?”

“We ship the goods and collect the money, after which we split the profits fifty-fifty.”

“Which means,” says I, “that if we make a million dollars you get half a million and I get half a million.”

“Exactly.”

“Or, if we make ten million dollars, I get five million and you get five million.”

“Don’t be crazy, Jerry.”

“I’m just trying to keep up with you,” says I.

But old sober-sides didn’t see anything funny in that.

“I’ve always wanted to go into business for myself,” says he. “And there’s no business I’d rather be in than advertising novelties.”

“Advertising novelties?” says I, looking at him. “I thought you said a moment ago that we were going to manufacture toys?”

“If we sold our double-jointed Whirligig to the toy stores it would be called a toy. But used the other way, as a premium to boost sales, it’s an advertising novelty. For it advertises the store giving it away. That’s the purpose of it.”

I laughed.

“The Tutter Advertising Novelty Company,” says I, giving our new company a name. “Poppy Ott, president, and Jerry Todd, vice-president.”

“I’ll be the general manager, too,” says the chief Whirligigger, “and you can be the secretary and treasurer.”

“That sounds big,” says I.

“The secretary and treasurer,” says he, “is the man who handles the money.”

I scratched my head.

“But how can I handle the money,” says I, “when we haven’t got any to handle?”

“Oh, we’ll have plenty of money when our customers’ checks begin coming in.”

I saw a flaw in his brilliant little scheme.

“But if we’re going to run a factory and manufacture stuff,” says I, “we’ve got to have money before we collect from our goods.”

“We’ll borrow what money we need from the bank. All manufacturers do that.”

I let out a crazy yip.

“Us borrow money?” says I, ridiculing the idea. “Say, you’re loony. The banker wouldn’t lend us fifteen cents.”

“He will,” says Poppy, confident-like, “if we can show him that we can make the money grow. For it’s a bank’s business to lend money to reliable business men.”

I was dizzy now. He had me all tangled up.

“But we’re just boys,” says I, trying to picture myself in business with him. “And if we go to the bank to borrow money they’ll laugh at us. They’ll think we’re cuckoo.”

The president and general manager of the Tutter Advertising Novelty Company showed in a cool look that he was out of patience with me.

“Jerry, I do wish you’d forget this talk about ‘we’re just boys.’ You sprung it the other day. Yet we turned a neat advertising trick for Mr. Harper, didn’t we? So why can’t we do something bigger in advertising? I believe we can. In fact I know we can. It’s simply a matter of using our heads.”

I couldn’t get away from the thought of us borrowing money at the bank.

“And you really think,” says I, “that the banker will lend us money?”

“I don’t see why he shouldn’t. But don’ t get the idea that we’re going to borrow a thousand dollars the first crack out of the box. Hardly. We’ve got to start our business in a small way and prove to the banker as we go along that we’ve got something worth supporting. Probably we won’t be able to borrow more than twenty-five dollars to start with. We’ll build fifty dollars’ worth of whirligigs with the money. As soon as we collect from our customers the banker gets his twenty-five dollars back, with interest. Then we borrow fifty dollars and build a hundred dollars’ worth of whirligigs. See how we grow? Every week we get bigger and bigger.”

I shook my head.

“It sounds fine,” says I, “but I want to see it to believe it.”

“There’s just one thing that puzzles me,” says he thoughtfully.

“Yes?”

“As yet I haven’t been able to figure out what we’re going to manufacture.”

He got a disgusted stare from me then. Of all the crazy day-dreamers!

“And what’s more,” says I, losing all faith in his scheme, “you never will be able to figure it out.”

“What day is this?” says he, after a moment.

“Tuesday,” says I.

“Um. . . . It might hustle us to get our business going full blast by next Monday. Still, a fellow never knows what he can do till he tries.”

I got up then and started for home. For I was convinced that he was a hopeless case. Yes, sir, he was plum cuckoo. It was that blamed old advertising book! It was getting the best of him. I wondered if I hadn’t better snitch the book and chuck it into somebody’s cistern.