dodge, but a good one. Nothing appeared on the advertisements but the
mere title. No word as to what "The Crimson Cord" was. Perkins merely
announced the 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.