Chapter II: Part 2

“Yes,” said Saunders Rook, in the voice of a man whose mind is irrevocably made up, “really.”

“By Jove!” cried Oscar Findlater, and sat down. He was plainly stirred. “Do you mind talking to me about it?”

“Not at all,” said Saunders Rook, trying to inject casualness into his tone, “if you think it at all interesting.”

“Interesting?” Oscar Findlater excitedly stroked the black ribbon that streamed from his nose-glasses. “Why, man alive, it’s overpowering. Biggest idea I’ve struck this year.”

He studied Saunders Rook.

“Your mind is made up?” the great man asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Nothing can change it?”

“Nothing.”

“Well,” said Findlater, with a sigh, “then I suppose we must make the best of it.”

He sank his head on his bosom, the usual attitude by which his disciples knew he was submerged in thought. Then he said:

“Rook, would you consider doing a series of essays for ‘The Liberal Voice’?”

Would he? What a question! Saunders Rook could only nod.

“Let’s say six essays tracing the genesis of the idea, you know, and arraigning civilization.”

But Saunders Rook merely nodded.

“Of course,” went on Oscar Findlater, “there are only three weeks between now—” he paused embarrassed—“and then.”

Saunders Rook murmured:

“Of course.”

“Still,” exclaimed Oscar Findlater, struck by a happy thought, “we could bring out the last three posthumously.”

“Posthumously,” echoed Saunders Rook, sepulchrally. At that second came again the impulse to say, “But, of course, this is all in fun.” He stifled it. After all, it was something to have essays in “The Liberal Voice,” even posthumously. “How long should they be?” Saunders Rook found himself asking carelessly.

“Oh, about three thousand words; more if necessary. Not too heavy in tone, of course, or morbid. Readable, you know, almost chatty; but with an underlying strain of philosophy.”

“Precisely,” said Saunders Rook.

“We’ll want the first one immediately,” said the editor.

“You shall have it,” promised Saunders Rook.

He could not but note the admiration, almost awe, in the circle of eyes. He was wise enough to depart before the spell was broken.

“Well,” he said, rising, “I think I’ll run along to bed now. Can’t be too careful of my health, you know.” He tossed this last sentence off with a grim smile. He was full of inspiration tonight.

The members crowded around him.

“Will you come to my studio for tea tomorrow?” asked Lucile Davega.

“And dine with me afterward at the Authors’ Club,” insisted Max Skye. “Some fellows I want you to meet.”

“We’d love to have you come up to Croton for a week-end,” said Rogers Joyce. “The crowd up there would like to know you. Jolly lot. Keen on new ideas like yours.”

For the first time in his thirty-three years Saunders Rook had the gratifying sensation of being inundated with invitations, of being sought after. He consulted a date-book, appeared surprised to find that it so happened that he was not booked up to any extent in the near future, and accepted sundry invitations.

As he strolled to his snug two rooms and bath in Grove Street, Saunders Rook could not but congratulate himself on being a singularly fortunate fellow.

At the tea given by Lucile Davega Saunders Rook experienced a new and not unwelcome sensation: he was lionized. He found it extremely pleasant to play the lion to a studio of pretty women. He noted how the tea went cold and the toast untasted as they flocked around him. Also, each one found an opportunity to take him aside and say:

“Of course you don’t really mean it.”

“But I do,” he would reply almost severely.

“But what have you against civilization?”

“It’s rotten,” he would growl. He was getting better and better in the rôle.

“O Mr. Rook!”

He enjoyed the sensation he was creating.

One girl, Margery Storey, who was young and had red hair, a combination that sometimes appeared in Saunders Rook’s dreams and private yearnings, whispered to him that she was sure he was disappointed in love; but, she added archly, there were plenty of uncaught fish in the sea.

He said sternly that love or lack of it did not enter into his plan at all. The act he was to perform was to be a perfectly calm, philosophic protest against the state of civilization in America.

“You will remember,” he told her, “how the early Christians walked naked into the arenas as a protest against the brutality of the gladiatorial combats. My motive, I hope, is equally untinged by any selfish emotion.”

His heart was accelerated by her glance, so full of compassion. She said a little diffidently that she was a painter, and would he sit for his portrait? She’d love to do it; her studio was Number 148——

No, he interrupted, he could not. Actually he wanted to very much. He was busy, he explained, on a series of essays for “The Liberal Voice.”

“After that, then?” she suggested.

“For me,” said Saunders Rook, “there will be no ‘after that.’”

Her blue eyes were full of sympathy.

“It seems too bad,” she said. “You are still so young.”

He smiled a smile of practised cynicism.

“In years, perhaps,” he said.

He saw that he had moved her.

Decidedly, this new rôle of his was worth playing, said Saunders Rook to himself as he donned his dinner-jacket that night in preparation for his dinner with Max Skye at the Authors’ Club. He was pleased with himself. In retrospect were the sympathetic blue eyes of Margery Storey; in prospect, a dinner among the celebrities of the Authors’ Club, into which sacred premises he had never gone physically, but solely in his most roseate imaginings.

Max Skye, who was a poet of no mean repute, introduced Saunders Rook to a group of notable men.

“This,” said Max Skye, with the air of a showman, “is Mr. Saunders Rook, who is going to commit suicide on the Fourth of July.”

Saunders Rook bowed to them; gravely they bowed back and stared at him, fascinated.

“In Central Park,” continued Max Skye.

Saunders Rook bowed deeply.

“As a protest against the rotten state of our civilization,” added Max Skye.

Saunders Rook again bowed.

They returned his bows with marked deference, he noted delightedly. He managed, however, to maintain an air of great world-weariness as he said:

“When one feels as I do about it, what else can one do?”

He had rehearsed this coming up in the taxicab.

“Mr. Rook is writing a series of six essays for ‘The Liberal Voice,’” announced Max Skye, plainly proud to be the discoverer and friend of so remarkable a man.

“But,” objected Deline, the novelist, a man Saunders Rook had long admired from afar, “how can you publish six essays? It’s June now. When could the last three be published?”

“Posthumously,” said Saunders Rook, with a touch of pride.

“Posthumously?”

They all repeated the word as if there was magic in it.

“But why do you feel that the state of civilization requires so drastic a protest?”

Deline asked this question as Saunders Rook was enjoying the third course, tender roast young guinea-fowl with mushrooms; Rook loved good food.

“Because,” said Saunders Rook, with fork poised, “it’s rotten.”

Around the table went murmurs of approbation and interest.

“But, my dear fellow,” exclaimed Deline, warmly laying his hand on Saunders Rook’s arm, “we need men like you.”

“Yes, yes,” cried others about the table. “America needs men with the courage of their convictions.”

“You see,” said Deline, with a wave of his hand. “You’re needed.”

No one had ever before intimated to Saunders Rook that he was in the least needed. The happy thought occurred to him to rise and say, “In that case, gentlemen, I shall stay with you.” But he didn’t say that. Going home in the taxicab, he wished that he had. What he actually did was to sit with folded arms, a picture of determination, and say:

“When one feels as I do about it, what else can one do?”

Perhaps, after all, he mused, it was just as well that he had not recanted. It was something to be told by a great novelist that you are needed. Perhaps, if he recanted, they might discover that they did not need him so very much, after all.

A few days later as he sat at his desk among the other sub-editors—beauty editors, household editors, baby-care and feeding editors, kiddie page editors, cooking editors—he was summoned, just as he’d finished writing a letter to a lady in Waterloo, Iowa, to tell her that engraved invitations are not required for a straw-ride, into the sanctum and presence of the publisher and owner of the magazine, Keable Gowler, a man of terrifying importance in Saunders Rook’s eyes. Until that moment it had not occurred to Saunders Rook that he was anything more to Mr. Gowler than a name on the pay-roll, and rather far down on the pay-roll at that. Yet Mr. Gowler greeted him with a fatherly affability, and offered him a chair.

“Well, Rook, tell me all about it,” said Mr. Gowler, with heavy geniality.

“About what, Mr. Gowler?”

“This story I’ve been hearing about you and the Fourth of July.”

“Really now——” began Saunders Rook.

“Is it true, or is it not true that you are going to commit suicide in Madison Square?” demanded Mr. Gowler.

“Central Park,” corrected Saunders Rook, mildly.

“It is true, then?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Gowler made tutting noises with his lips.

“Oh, come now, Rook,” he said, “you’re not serious.”

“I am,” said Saunders Rook. He was pleased to know that he was more than a mere name to his employer, and he wished to remain a personage.

“But, my dear young man,” cried Mr. Gowler, distressed, “I ask you, would that be fair to the magazine? People might hold us responsible, you know.”

“No, they won’t.”

“How can we be sure?”

“I have made it plain,” said Saunders Rook, “that no petty, personal motives are behind my act. It is to be purely a protest against the state of civilization in America.”

“America seems pretty civilized to me,” observed Mr. Gowler. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s rotten,” said Saunders Rook.

Mr. Gowler looked horrified, but he surveyed Mr. Rook with a strong, new interest.

“Come, now,” said Mr. Gowler, soothingly. “Let’s see if we can’t settle this thing. We’d miss you, Rook. The interior decoration page would miss you.”

“I do the etiquette page, Mr. Gowler,” said Saunders Rook, gently.

“Yes, yes. I meant that; why, of course,” said Mr. Gowler, hastily. He decapitated a cigar and faced Saunders Rook. “Look here, Rook,” he said, “I’m afraid we’ve been hiding your light under a bushel around here. To be frank with you, I didn’t realize the stuff you were made of—until a few days ago.” Mr. Gowler paused significantly.

“Now, what this magazine needs,” he went on, “is a live young man of forceful character, who has modern ideas and isn’t afraid to back them up. Roscoe Quimper is getting old; been an editor too long; we need a man with spirit for his position. Will you take it?”

Saunders Rook moistened dry lips; speech failed him; it was a post he had long coveted. He affected to consider.

“It pays fifteen thousand,” said Mr. Gowler. His tone was actually persuasive.

Saunders Rook thought swiftly.

“I’ll take charge, Mr. Gowler.”

“Good!” cried Mr. Gowler. “Good!”

“Until the Fourth of July,” added Saunders Rook.

Mr. Gowler evinced his concern by a sharp elevation of his shrubbery of eyebrows.

“Then you are in earnest?”

“Absolutely.”

“Of course”—this was said almost cajolingly—“if fifteen thousand seems too little, I might be willing to——”

Saunders Rook held up his hand.

“Thanks,” he said; “but it’s not a question of money.”

Mr. Gowler shook his head dejectedly.

“Then I guess there’s nothing I can say. Still”—he brightened—“even if your mind is made up, you could take charge until the Fourth of July and outline a policy and get things started, couldn’t you?”

“If you wish,” said Saunders Rook, handsomely.

“Good!” ejaculated Mr. Gowler. “Good!”

Saunders Rook, somewhat in a daze, started for the door.

“Oh, by the way, Rook,” said Mr. Gowler, “couldn’t you take dinner with us next Thursday? The governor of the State, two United States senators, a few congressmen, and a professor will be there. They’d like to know you.”

Saunders Rook riffled through his date-book and said he might be late, as he had two teas and a talk before a Brooklyn club scheduled for that day, but that he would try to get to the dinner in time for the dessert. Mr. Gowler was greatly obliged to him.

At the dinner at Keable Gowler’s Fifth Avenue house the attention paid to Saunders Rook by the governor, the senators, the assorted congressmen, the professor, and their wives would have flattered a person even less susceptible than he. In trumpet tones Mr. Gowler announced him:

“This is Mr. Saunders Rook, one of my most valued associates. On the Fourth of July, as a protest against our civilization, he will commit suicide in Washington Square.”

“Central Park,” said Saunders Rook, bowing modestly.

“Not really?” they all said in breathless chorus.

“Yes, really,” said Saunders Rook.

He talked, and they listened. He had been expanding the idea, and had worked up an indictment or two against civilization.

Over his after-dinner liqueur the governor declared that, if necessary, he would do the only thing he could think of to prevent Saunders Rook from robbing the State of so valued a citizen, and that was call out the militia. He was not prepared to say, he remarked darkly, how he should employ it, for he was fresh in the gubernatorial chair. However, he knew that a governor has the power to call out the militia, and he was interested to learn what would happen if he did call it out. Surely the case of Saunders Rook, he maintained, warranted the step.

The senator from Alabama promised that he would see the President at once, and volunteered to get the cooperation of Federal troops to help the governor’s militia. Saunders Rook listened, sphinx-like, outwardly impassive, inwardly agog. The senator from North Dakota said that it had not before been called to his attention that the state of civilization in these United States was sufficiently rotten to cause a man of his good friend Rook’s high type to plan so violent a protest, but now that it had been called to his attention, something should be done about it by the Senate. Political considerations, he said, prevented him from committing himself to any definite program, but this he would do: he would rush back to Washington on the morrow and start a senatorial investigation into civilization at which Saunders Rook would be the chief witness.

One of the congressmen present said that for his part he was prepared to introduce a resolution in the House of Representatives calling for the immediate appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars for the establishing of a congressional commission of seven on civilization, and that, obviously, the only person for the chairmanship was Mr. Rook. Another congressman said he was in hearty agreement with his honorable colleague in principle, but would like to amend the bill, so that it would call for eight hundred thousand dollars and a commission of twenty-one. While they were debating this point, Saunders Rook forced himself to depart. He had to look over the proofs of his article in “The Liberal Voice,” he said. Keable Gowler himself helped Saunders Rook on with his coat and urged him to come again.

The appearance of the first Rook article brought him a tidal wave of letters. Scores of persons in all parts of the globe begged him for various reasons not to do it; two elderly ladies offered to adopt him and leave him their not inconsiderable estates; a group of young Russian radicals by cable offered to jump into the Volga on the Fourth of July to show they were in sympathy with him; eleven clergymen asked permission to call; a publishing house offered him a handsome figure for his diary, novel, or what had he? Fourteen ladies of different ages offered to marry him, and of these seven sent photographs, of which two were quite personable; three motion-picture companies asked him to name his own price for the exclusive rights; a vaudeville syndicate offered him two thousand a week for a ten-minute monolog twice daily until the Fourth of July; the police commissioner wrote to warn him that suicide is an offense amounting to disorderly conduct, and is punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both. A procession of reporters, photographers, feature-story writers, and interviewers invaded his apartment. In newspapers and magazines his wan features began to appear, accompanied by stories of varying degrees of accuracy. He began to be pointed out on the street; ribs were nudged as he passed. He loved it.

Crowded days passed, days full of pleasurable excitement and intense living for Saunders Rook. So swiftly did they speed by that it was a distinct shock for him, one morning, to be awakened by a boy with a tall stack of telegrams. The messages were from many people and many places; some urged, begged, and a few even conjured him not to do it today; many said simply, “Farewell.” Today? Saunders Rook glanced at the date on the telegrams—“July Fourth.”

He dressed himself with care in his new gray suit and lavender tie, took his bamboo stick, and sauntered up Fifth Avenue. It was a delicious, sun-lit day; the avenue was bright with flags; somewhere a parade was forming, and he heard the gay sounds of distant bands. Life had never seemed quite so fair to Saunders Rook, but, and he stopped abruptly, what of tomorrow?

Today, the Fourth of July, the eyes of the nation were on him. He bought a morning paper. Yes, there he was on the front page, a picture, smudged, but resolute-looking, and a two-column headline, “Saunders, Self-Slain Today for Civilization’s Sake.”

He wiped his brow with his silk handkerchief. It was impossible for him not to think of himself on July fifth; also July sixth, seventh, eighth.

“What a lot of dynamite there is in one little word!” he muttered to himself. “What a difference there is between, ‘Saunders Rook, the man who is going to commit suicide on the Fourth of July,’ and ‘Saunders Rook, the man who _was_ going to commit suicide on the Fourth of July!’ One is romantic, promising, glorious; the other,—ugh!—the other is the epitaph of a weakling, a turncoat, a failure.”

He stopped before a picture-store and moodily gazed at a seascape in the window. He recalled that some sage has said, “Any man can make a reputation; it takes a real man to keep one.” He had a reputation, he reflected. He derived pleasure from that fact even now. It was more than he had dared hope for. Three weeks before it had seemed that he had been cast for a minor rôle in life, the voice of the mob offstage; almost overnight he had attained stardom. He, who had never expected to have a line to speak, had strutted and postured and declaimed in the center of the stage and heard the sweet music of applause. Today he was a hero; tomorrow he would be a joke. The day was warm, but he shuddered.

A holiday crowd in summer colors was passing. There was laughter in the air. How intelligent the people looked, he mused, and how civilized! A graceful, powerful motor car purred by.

He paused before a window full of books, and saw many that interested him. He glanced up at the spired heights of a church, and his gaze traveled onward to a new building, towering, shapely, beautiful; men, he reflected, had made it, had shaped the steel and stone to their will. The paper dropped from his fingers, and a passing stranger courteously picked it up, and handed it to Saunders Rook with a friendly smile. Saunders Rook felt an impulse to cry aloud, “This land, these times aren’t so rotten, after all.” The words died still-born. Down Fifty-second Street he heard the shrill cry of a newsboy, “All about Saunders Rook, the martyr.”

He hurried on toward Central Park. The governor had kept his word; he had called out the militia; alert soldiers with fixed bayonets patrolled the paths and scrutinized the picnickers from under their hat-brims. The green lawns were dotted with blue policemen. They, too, were watchful. Indeed, as Saunders Rook slipped into the park, unrecognized, he saw a burly officer collar a mild, blond little man, and heard the man protesting loudly that he was not Saunders Rook, but only Ole Svenson, a pastry-cook, and that the thing he had just eaten was not poison, but a banana. As he left the man struggling in the hands of the law, Saunders Rook shrugged his shoulders, smiled a pale smile, and penetrated deeper into the park.

“They’ve gone to a lot of trouble on my account,” he said to himself, almost proudly. “It wasn’t always like that. Funny how little interest people took in me when I only wanted to live.”

He picked a flower and stuck it in his buttonhole.

“It’s great to have a reputation,” he remarked. Then, as he paced along, added, “But it’s tough to have to live up to it.”

He had reached the sequestered end of the reservoir, and, glancing about, saw neither soldier nor policeman in sight.

“Stupid, incompetent fools!” he muttered.

He stood looking down into the cool, clear water. Then he raised his head and drew the fresh air into his lungs, and expelled it with a sigh. How well he felt! Slowly from an inside pocket he took his little red date-book, and with his fountain-pen wrote in his round, precise hand:

“I do this as a protest against the rotten state of civilization. Saunders Rook.” He blotted it neatly with a pocket blotter. He looked up at the smiling sky and sighed deeply.

“Still, after all, a reputation is a reputation,” he said.

Then he jumped.

SON OF A SLOGANEER

MR. BOWSER thumbed a buzzer. His secretary popped into his office. All his staff popped when Mr. Bowser buzzed. “Minktakmemo,” commanded that high-powered executive. Translated this meant, “Mink, take memo.” Mr. Bowser avoided the use of useless words such as “a” and “the”; he had calculated that they waste from twenty-one to twenty-seven minutes of a busy man’s time per month. To get into the habit of eliminating these words might have proved difficult for an ordinary man, but not for J. Sanford Bowser. He was not ordinary, and he was, distinctly, a doer. There was a doing air about him from hair tonic to rubber heels.

“Get-There Men have the Get-Things-Done Habit,” he liked to say. As president of The Bowsers, Inc., publicity engineers, “Let The Bowsers Put You on the Map!”—slogans leaped from his lips as naturally as rabbits have children, and with even less effort. He was passionately devoted to the science of slogan making; to coin a striking trade name for a new can opener, and couple with it some pregnant selling epigram—that, to Mr. Bowser, was almost the apex of human achievement. His mind, by long training, plucked from the air pithy punch phrases—his own expression—as swiftly and subconsciously as a man tottering on the brink of a sneeze reaches for his handkerchief.

“Minktakmemo.”

Miss Mink poised her silver-plated pencil—it was a Bowser-advertised product—a Rite-Riter, “The Pencil That Does Everything But Think”—over her book. Mr. Bowser cleared his throat.

“Memo to Mrs. Bowser,” he dictated staccatoly, “_in re_ teething
ring for baby. I have personally tried all advertised brands of
teething rings. My tests show most scientific ring to be Cohnco
Ring, Toy Efficient for Teething Tots. (N. B. Pretty good
slogan). Cohnco Rings are (a) less rubbery in taste, (b) more
durable, and (c) fit well in the mouth. If you check with me on
Cohnco Rings I’ll order one gross sent to our house at once.

“(Signed) J. Sanford Bowser, _President_.”

Mr. Bowser lit a Marlborough-Somerset, “Each Puff Has a Pedigree,” smoothed his straw colored hair, and swooped down on a pile of mail.

“Minktakletter.”

Miss Mink prepared to take a letter.

“Woonsocket Kumfee-Fit Undervest Co., Woonsocket, R. I. Attention Mr. Snedecker——”

And, thus launched, Mr. Bowser whizzed through his correspondence like a buzz saw through a ladyfinger, ejecting punch-laden sentences even as a machine gun ejects used cartridges.

A person unfamiliar with the principles of high-speed efficiency on which Mr. Bowser conducted his life, business and domestic, might have thought that Mrs. Bowser was in Fiji or Lapland or some equally remote spot. As a matter of fact the surveyed distance between Mr. Bowser and Mrs. Bowser at that precise moment was twelve feet, for she occupied the office next to his, and, as his partner and associate publicity engineer, herself daily coined Slogans That Sell and mothered Phrases That Put Products on the Map.

She would have been the first to reject with scorn the suggestion that he should stick his head through the doorway that connected their offices, and tell her, verbally, about the teething rings.

“The Secret of our Success,” she would have said—for she, too, talked like a twenty-four-sheet poster—“is Organization. Nothing is Too Small to be Organized. In our country home, Caslon Farm, we have a model kitchen and by motion study we have cut down the motions our cook uses in making rice pudding from forty-three to seven, or, with raisins, eight. Organization! It used to take our nurse twenty-six minutes by stop watch to bathe our baby; now she does it in fourteen; we saved seven minutes just by using blotters instead of towels. Yes, Henry T. Organization is first vice-president of Success, Progress & Co.”

Mr. Bowser’s memo _in re_ teething rings reached Mrs. Bowser’s desk within an hour. Mrs. Bowser—she had been Pandora Irene Kunkle, of Dingman, Tinney & Kunkle, “Advertising in All Its Arteries,” until a mutual devotion to slogans had brought her and Mr. Bowser into partnership, commercial and matrimonial—was a well-developed, copper-haired woman, hovering around thirty-five. She had a sharp chin and wore a stiff linen collar.

“Gussing, take a memo,” she directed.

Miss Gussing also wore a stiff collar and had a light blond mustache, but at heart she was a woman. The Bowsers always called the women of their company by their last names; Mrs. Bowser was an ardent feminist and felt that to call the female slogan makers Ruth or Hattie or Olivia was too feminine, and to call them Miss not in keeping with the spirit of camaraderie which prevailed about the Bowser office except during one short painful period each year when increases in salaries were being discussed. Mrs. Bowser stared thoughtfully from the window of the lofty Bowser Building—“Built—like the Himalayas—for the Ages,” and her gray-green eyes roved over the kaleidoscope of New York’s roofs—red, green, brown, purple.

“Memo to Mr. Bowser,” she said, “_in re_ teething ring for baby.
Cohnco Rings may be O. K. scientifically, but our Mr. Hencastle
reports that he is soliciting the account of the Ess-Bee-Dee
people who make Kiddie-Kutter Rings. I therefore think it wise
to choose Kiddie-Kutter Rings for our son because of the effect
on the trade. I do not check with your suggestion that we get a
gross. One ring will be enough. This proves my contention that
no man understands children or the Feminine Appeal in
Advertising Copy.

“(Signed) P. I. Bowser, _Associate President_.”

Having discharged this wood-pulp arrow at her spouse, Mrs. Bowser tapped her front teeth with her pencil for three seconds; then, briskly: “Gussing, take another memo.”

“Yes, Bowser,” said Miss Gussing, who had a bass voice. Mrs. Bowser herself insisted on this method of address; it gave her a hearty man-to-man feeling with Miss Gussing. With Mr. Bowser the case was somewhat different; his male hired help with salaries of more than five thousand dollars a year called him J. S. B. as more intimate than Mister and not so presumptuous as Sanford. Lesser employees called him Chief, and still lesser ones Mistered him.

“Memo,” dictated Mrs. Bowser, “to Mr. Bowser.”

“Shall I incorporate it with the first one?” asked Miss Gussing.

Mrs. Bowser gave her a look fraught more with pain than anger.

“Gussing,” she said, the sweetness of patience struggling with the vinegar of reproof, “must I remind you that the rule of The Bowsers, Inc., is: One subject to one memo? Simplicity, Gussing, is one of the First Flowers in the Garden of Organization. M-m-m-m-m—not bad, that. Take that down, Gussing. I may be able to use that phrase in the Bedfello—the Hot Water Bottle Beautiful—campaign. Now take a memo—a separate one if you please, to Mr. Bowser.”

The chastened Gussing suspended her pencil over a virgin sheet.

“_In re_ name 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 re_ christening 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 re_ slogan 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_.”

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 re_ christening 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_.”

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.”

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 re_ christening 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 re_ christening 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 re_ christening 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 re_ christening 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 re_ christening 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-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 re_ dinner 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-WELLY

Dirt-devourer

The second card had inscribed on it:

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 re_ name. 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.