Hoping to hear from you, we are,
Yours truly,
[Signature: THE MADEWELL ENGINE CO.]
* * * * *
The letter is illogical, disjointed and lacking in that dominant idea that carries conviction. Yet the writer had material at hand for a strong, logical selling letter. To have interested the prospect he should have told something specific about his engine. Here is the letter, rewritten with due regard to the demands of unity, sequence, logic and climax:
Dear Sir:
A friend told me yesterday that you want a gas engine for irrigating, so I am sending you bulletin "B."
Do you notice that all its parts are in plain view and easy to get at? Mr. Wilbur, who invented this engine, had a good many years of practical experience installing gasoline engines before he started to manufacture his own, and he knows what it means to tighten up a nut or some other part without having to send to the factory for a special man with a special wrench to do the work.
Sparkers sometimes get gummed up. To take the Wilbur sparker out you simply remove two nuts and out comes the sparker complete, and you cannot get it back the wrong way. It isn't much of a job to wipe the point off with a rag, is it?
And the governor! Just the same type of throttling governor that is used on the highest grade of steam engine, allowing you to speed her up or slow her down while the engine is running. That's mighty handy. Few engines are built like this. It costs a good deal of extra money but it does give a lot of extra satisfaction.
Nothing shoddy about the equipment described in the bulletin, is there? No. We don't make these supplies ourselves, but we do watch out and see that the other fellow gives us the best in the market because WE GUARANTEE IT.