Ellis Butler - Perkins of Portland - Perkins The Great

THERE was very little about Perkins that was not peculiar. To mention his peculiarities would be a long task; he was peculiar from the ground up. His shoes had rubber soles, his hat had peculiar mansard ventilators on each side, his garments were vile as to fit, and altogether he had the appearance of being a composite picture.

We first met in the Golden Hotel office in Cleveland, Ohio. I was reading a late copy of a morning paper and smoking a very fairish sort of cigar, when a hand was laid on my arm. I turned and saw in the chair beside me a beaming face.

“Just read that!” he said, poking an envelope under my nose. “No, no!” he cried; “on the back of it.”

What I read was:

“Perkins’s Patent Porous Plaster Makes all pains and aches fly faster.”

“Great, isn’t it?” he asked, before I could express myself. “That first line, ‘Perkins’s Patent Porous Plaster,’ just takes the cake. And the last line! That is a gem, if I do say it myself. Has the whole story in seven words. ‘All pains and aches!’ Everything from sore feet to backache; all the way from A to Z in the dictionary of diseases. Comprehensive as a presidential message. Full of meat as a refrigerator- car. ‘Fly faster!’ Faster than any other patent med. or dope would make them fly. ‘Makes!’ They’ve got to fly! See? ‘Perkins’s Patent Porous Plaster MAKES all pains and aches fly faster,’ ‘makes ALL pains and aches fly faster,’ ‘makes all pains and aches fly FASTER.’ Isn’t she a beaut.? Say, you can’t forget that in a thousand years. You’ll find yourself saying it on your death-bed:

“‘Perkins’s Patent Porous Plaster

Makes all pains and aches fly faster.’”

I held the envelope toward him, but he only tapped it with his finger.

“There is a fortune in those two lines,” he said. “I know it I’m Perkins, known from Maine to California as Perkins of Portland, Perkins the Originator. I have originated more ads. than any man living. See that shoe? It’s the ‘Go-lightly’ kind. I originated the term. See this hat? It’s Pratt’s. ‘Pratt’s Hats Air the Hair.’ I originated that ad. Result, six million pair of the Go-lightly kind of shoes sold the first year. Eight million Pratt’s Hats sold on the strength of ‘Air-the-Hair.’ See this suit? I originated the term ‘Ready-tailored.’ Result, a boom for the concern. Everybody crazy for Ready-tailored clothes. It’s all in the ad. The ad.‘s the thing. Say, who originated ‘up-to-date in style, down-to-date in price?’ I did. Made half a million for a collar concern on that. See that fringe on those pants? And to think that the man who’s wearing them has made millions! Yes, millions – for other guys. But he’s done. It’s all off with Willie. Now Willie is going to make money for himself. Mr. Perkins of Portland is going to get rich. Are you with him?”

“How is the plaster?” I asked, for there was something taking about Perkins. “Is it good for anything?”

“Plaster!” he said. “Bother the plaster! The ad.‘s all right, and that’s the main thing. Give me a good ad., and I’ll sell lead bullets for liver pills. Display ‘Perkins’s Bullets Kill the Disease’ in all the magazines, and in a year every person with or without a liver would be as full of lead as a printer’s case. Paint it on ten thousand barns, and the inhabitants of these glorious States would be plugged up like Mark Twain’s frog. Now I have here an ad. that is a winner. Give me fifty thousand dollars, and we will have every man, woman, and child in America dreaming, thinking, and wearing Perkins’s Patent Porous Plaster. We will have it in every magazine, on every barn, fence, and rock, in the street-cars, on highways and byways, until the refrain will ring in sixty million American heads —

“‘Perkins’s Patent Porous Plaster

Makes all pains and aches fly faster.”

“But, my dear sir,” I said, “is the plaster good?”

Mr. Perkins of Portland leaned over and whispered in my ear, “There is no plaster.”

“What?” I cried.

“Not yet,” he said, “that will come later. We will get that later. Law of supply and demand, you know. When there is a demand, there always turns up a supply to fill it. See the point? You look bright. See this. We advertise. Get, say, fifty thousand orders at ten dollars each; total, five hundred thousand dollars. What next? We sell out. We go to some big concern. ‘Here,’ we say – ‘Here is an article advertised up to the handle. Here are orders for five hundred thousand dollars’ worth. Thing on the boom. Give us two hundred thousand cash, and get up your old plaster, and fill the orders. Thanks. Good day.’ See? They get a well-established business. We get a clear profit of one hundred and fifty thousand. What next? We get up another ad. Invest our whole capital. Sell out for a million. Invest again, sell out again. In ten years we can buy Manhattan Island for our town-seat and Chicago for our country-seat. The richest firm in the world – Perkins and – ”

“Brown,” I said, supplying the blank; “but I haven’t fifty thousand dollars, nor yet ten thousand.”

“What have you got?” he asked, eagerly. “Just five thousand.”

“Done!” Perkins cried.

And the next day we had the trade-mark registered, and had made contracts with all the Cleveland papers.

“You see,” said Perkins, “we are shy of money. We can’t bill the universe with a measly little five thou. We’ve got to begin small. Our territory is Ohio. Perkins’s Patent Porous Plaster shall be known to every Buckeye, and we will sell out for twenty thousand.”

So we soon had the words, on the fences and walls throughout Ohio. Every paper proclaimed the same catchy couplet. One or two magazines informed the world of it. The bill-boards heralded it. In fact, Perkins’s Patent Porous Plaster was in everybody’s mouth, and bade fair to be on everybody’s back as soon as there was a Perkins’s Patent Porous Plaster to put on those same backs.

“Perkins’s Patent Porous Plaster

Makes all pains and aches fly faster,”

For Perkins was right. The backs seemed fairly to ache for plasters of our making. From all over the State druggists wrote for terms; and we soon kept two typewriters busy informing the anxious pharmacists that, owing to the unprecedented demand, our factory was two months behind on orders, and that “your esteemed favor will have our earliest attention, and all orders will be filled in rotation at the earliest possible moment.” Each day brought a deluge of letters, and we received several quite unsolicited testimonials to the merits of Perkins’s Patent Porous Plaster. Perkins was radiant.

Then he faded.

He set out to sell the trade-mark, and failed! No one wanted it. Money was tight, and patent medicines were a drug.

Porous Plasters were dead. Perkins was worried. Day followed day; and the orders began to decrease, while countermands began to arrive. We had just two hundred dollars left, and bills for four thousand dollars’ worth of advertisements on our file. At last Perkins gave up. He came in, and leaned despondently against my desk. Sorrow marked every feature.

“No use,” he said, dolefully, “they won’t bite. We have to do it.”

“What?” I asked; “make an assignment?”

“Nonsense!” cried Perkins. “Fill those orders ourselves!”

“But where can we get – ”

“The plasters?” Perkins scratched his head. He repeated softly, “Makes all pains and aches fly faster,” and swung one foot sadly. “That’s it,” he said; “where?”

The situation was becoming acute. We must have plasters quickly or fail. A look of sadness settled on his face, and he dropped limply into a chair. Instantly he sprang to his feet with a yell. He grasped the tail of his coat and tugged and struggled. He had sat on a sheet of sticky fly-paper, and he was mad, but even while he struggled with it, his eyes brightened, and he suddenly darted out of the office door, with the fly-paper rattling behind him.