The girls engaged canvassers for the very necessary advertisements, and that is the reason they began to grow so thin. The first two men undertook the work on commission, but came back after some time with the sad news that no one seemed to want to advertise, and that it would not pay them to work for commission only. In fear and trembling the editors engaged one of them at the alarming salary of ten shillings a [243] ]week, and a commission of so much per cent. The man drew his ten shillings a week for a month, and found one pound’s worth of advertisements; that did not answer at all.
Then a very energetic man came along who only wanted commission, and said he could get any amount of people to advertise. In a week he filled three pages of the paper, and the two breathed freely again. They sent him out at the end of the month to collect the moneys due, and then came a frightful blow,—he quietly absconded with the full purse.
They almost gave in after that; yet how could they allow the expenses of that first issue to fall on the doctor?
The printer suggested that they should go and get advertisements for themselves; lots of ladies did, he said. He himself gave them a list of City men likely (he judged by their kind hearts) to advertise.
It was the only course left; even the doctor and Mrs. Wise could think of no other way to pay for that first issue, and allow a second one to make its appearance. So there came a summer’s day when two trembling girls in white muslin dresses and sailor hats went forth and assailed the big insurances offices, and the busy agents of various patent cocoas, and soaps and perfumes.
When they finally knocked for admittance at the inner glass doors, no manager ever dreamed how long they had been outside the great building, hesitating, [244] ]trying to screw up their courage, walking up the steps, assailed with fears and descending again, finally biting their lips and forcing themselves to walk in.
The clerks did not take them for canvassers, they looked too youthful, and they had no difficulty in gaining the private room.
“And what can I do for you?” a manager would say, at a loss to think what two nervous-looking girls could want with them.
Then Phyl or Dolly, for they took the speaking strictly in turn—
[“This is our paper], Mr. Jamieson prints it; the circulation is a thousand; will you advertise in it?—it is a pound for one month, but less for a year.”