She would forward mail to Edna Cutler, but the actual address of her client was confidential — very much of a secret.
I told the Little Rock man the agency would send him a check, and then hunted up a commercial typing agency. I asked the girl in charge, “Could you make a stencil for me and run off a thousand letters on a mimeograph machine?”
“Why, certainly.”
“Got a stenographer I can dictate a sales letter to?”
The girl smiled at me, picked up her pencil. “The managing department now becomes the clerical unit. You can start whenever you’re ready.”
I said, “I’m ready. Here we go.”
I started dictating:
Dear Madam: A close personal friend of yours says that you have pretty legs. You want them to look pretty, and ice want them to look pretty. You can’t get the sheer hosiery which you could formerly buy — not if you try to buy in the United States. It is quite possible, however, that exclusive arrangements could be made to supply you with sheer silk hosiery for the duration of the war. At the time of Pearl Harbor a Japanese ship put into a Mexican port and we were able to obtain its cargo of silk stockings originally destined for the United States. This hosiery would be shipped to you duty prepaid from Mexico City. All you’ll have to do will be to open the package, put on the stockings, and wear them for thirty days. If, at the end of those thirty days, you are entirely satisfied, make a remittance at the same price you were paying for hosiery a year ago. If any of the hose should develop runs or show signs of defective workmanship or of material, you need only to return such defective hose for a complete credit. Simply place your name and address, the size, style, and color of sheer silk stocking you prefer to wear on the enclosed blank, put it in the enclosed, stamped, addressed envelope, drop it in the mail. You are not obligated in any way.
The girl looked up. “That all?”
“That’s all,” I said, “except that it will be signed Silk-wear Importation Company, and I’ll have to work out a color chart and order blank to enclose.”