testimonials, or the admirable Jones whom _prima donnas_ love
because his soap preserves their dainty complexions--can any one credit
the fact that Smith and Jones have passions like other men, have
hatreds, likes and dislikes?

Such a condition of things, incredible as it may appear, exists in
London. There are men in the metropolis, utterly unknown personally,
whose names are more widely spread over the earth than the names of the
greatest novelists, living or dead, and these men have feeling and form
like unto ourselves.

There was the firm of Danby and Strong for instance. The name may mean
nothing to any reader of these pages, but there was a time when it was
well-known and widely advertised, not only in England but over the
greater part of the world as well. They did a great business, as every
firm that spends a fortune every year in advertising is bound to do. It
was in the old paper-collar days. There actually was a time when the
majority of men wore paper collars, and, when you come to think of it,
the wonder is that the paper-collar trade ever fell away as it did,
when you consider with what vile laundries London is and always has
been cursed. Take the Danby and Strong collars for instance, advertised
as being so similar to linen that only an expert could tell the
difference. That was Strong's invention. Before he invented the
Piccadilly collar so-called, paper collars had a brilliant glaze that
would not have deceived the most recent arrival from the most remote
shire in the country. Strong devised some method by which a slight
linen film was put on the paper, adding strength to the collar and
giving it the appearance of the genuine article. You bought a
pasteboard box containing a dozen of these collars for something like
the price you paid for the washing of half a dozen linen ones. The