Now the query was, "How is the picture to be advertised?" Merely the ordinary billing in front of the picture playhouses and on the display boards, was not enough. An interest must be stirred of a deeper and broader nature than that which such a casual manner of advertising could be expected to engender.
"How'll we do it?" demanded Jennie, with as much solemnity as it was possible for her rosy, round face to express. "We should invent some catch-phrase to introduce the great film—something as effective as 'Good evening! have you used Higgin's Toothpaste?' or, 'You-must-have-a pound-cake.' You know, something catchy that will stick in people's minds."
"It has taken years and years to make some of those catchy trademarks universal," objected Ruth, seriously. "Our advertising must be done in a hurry."
"Well, we've got to put our best foot forward, somehow," declared Helen. "Everybody must be made to know that the Briarwood girls have a show of their own—a five-reel film that is a corker——"
"Hear! hear!" cried Belle. "Wait till the censor gets hold of that word."
"Quite right," agreed Ruth. "Let us be lady-like, though the heavens fall!"
"And still be natural?" chuckled Jennie. "Impossible!"
"Her best foot forward—one's best foot forward." Mary Cox kept repeating Helen's remark while the other girls chattered. Mary had a talent for drawing. "Say!" she suddenly exclaimed. "I could make a dandy poster with that for a text."
"With what for a text?" somebody asked.
"'Putting One's Best Foot Forward,'" declared Mary Cox, and suddenly seizing charcoal and paper, she sketched the idea quickly—a smartly dressed up-to-date Briarwood girl with her right foot advanced—and that foot, as in a foreshortened photograph—of enormous size.