“So they got wise and changed their act and begun writing the kind of real stuff about which I’ve been talking to you about. It got to be so good, so full of real American life and everything, that some of it gets printed every week on the page facing the highest priced full page ad in the Saturday Evening Post, and that’s the proudest position in American literature to which any man can aspire to. It used to be that the preferred position, as the ad-men say, for an ad was next to reading-matter. Now look at the columns of the greatest American magazine with its millions of readers. Are the ads next to reading-matter? No, sir, not on your life. The reading-matter is next to the ads—and that’s saying something, believe you me.
“Now, gentlemen, let me say a few words about the book about which we are gathered here to-night, and I will not detain you long.
“It’s a good book, a great book, and yet, my friends, it has its faults, as whom of us has not?
“Friend author, for all he calls himself a realist and pretends he don’t shy at nothing in calling a spade a spade, don’t do it. No, sir, he don’t. Take that chapter in this book, now, about me getting up and getting dressed. What’s he say there? Why he talks about ‘the best of nationally advertised and quantitatively produced alarm clocks.’ Now, anybody here knows he means a Big Bob, and why not say it right out, just like that? Why, he just as well say ‘he removed the superfluous growth of hair from his countenance by means of an instrument designed for that purpose,’ when he means ’he shaved his face with a razor.’
“But these realistic fictitious writers will come to it, and just to help them I’ll tell you how that chapter ought to be wrote.
“The Big Bob alarm clock gave him a jolt that knocked all the sleep out of him. He drug his legs, in Matchless Pajamas, out from under the Downiwool Blanket and sat on the edge of the Ostermarsh Mattress, supported by the Neversag Spring. While he paddled around with his feet to find his Comfy Slippers, he looked out at his new Flimsibilt Sectional Garage, which looked good to him.
“Then he beat it to the good old warm bathroom, all tiled with Shiniwhite Glazed Tiles. The bathroom was fitted with a Staykleen Bath Tub, a Porcellow Washstand and other sanitary fixtures all complete, including a Nasco All-Steel Medicine Cabinet.
“He cleaned his teeth with a Rubwell toothbrush and a squeeze of Lillidol to get the fuzzy taste out of his mouth.
“Then he rubbed a gob of Whiskerine on his face to soften his beard and lathered her good with Shavo Cream on his Bristletite Shaving Brush. The good old Neverkeen Safety Razor did the rest.
“A D. V. undershirt and knee-length drawers started the job of dressing, followed by a Bronx Shirt, onto which he buttoned a Spear Collar with a Kalisch One-Piece Collar Button. Then he put on his Hartenheimer Suit and a pair of Walkstrate Shoes.