“Woonsocket Kumfee-Fit Undervest Co., Woonsocket, R. I. Attention Mr. Snedecker——”
And, thus launched, Mr. Bowser whizzed through his correspondence like a buzz saw through a ladyfinger, ejecting punch-laden sentences even as a machine gun ejects used cartridges.
A person unfamiliar with the principles of high-speed efficiency on which Mr. Bowser conducted his life, business and domestic, might have thought that Mrs. Bowser was in Fiji or Lapland or some equally remote spot. As a matter of fact the surveyed distance between Mr. Bowser and Mrs. Bowser at that precise moment was twelve feet, for she occupied the office next to his, and, as his partner and associate publicity engineer, herself daily coined Slogans That Sell and mothered Phrases That Put Products on the Map.
She would have been the first to reject with scorn the suggestion that he should stick his head through the doorway that connected their offices, and tell her, verbally, about the teething rings.
“The Secret of our Success,” she would have said—for she, too, talked like a twenty-four-sheet poster—“is Organization. Nothing is Too Small to be Organized. In our country home, Caslon Farm, we have a model kitchen and by motion study we have cut down the motions our cook uses in making rice pudding from forty-three to seven, or, with raisins, eight. Organization! It used to take our nurse twenty-six minutes by stop watch to bathe our baby; now she does it in fourteen; we saved seven minutes just by using blotters instead of towels. Yes, Henry T. Organization is first vice-president of Success, Progress & Co.”
Mr. Bowser’s memo in re teething rings reached Mrs. Bowser’s desk within an hour. Mrs. Bowser—she had been Pandora Irene Kunkle, of Dingman, Tinney & Kunkle, “Advertising in All Its Arteries,” until a mutual devotion to slogans had brought her and Mr. Bowser into partnership, commercial and matrimonial—was a well-developed, copper-haired woman, hovering around thirty-five. She had a sharp chin and wore a stiff linen collar.
“Gussing, take a memo,” she directed.
Miss Gussing also wore a stiff collar and had a light blond mustache, but at heart she was a woman. The Bowsers always called the women of their company by their last names; Mrs. Bowser was an ardent feminist and felt that to call the female slogan makers Ruth or Hattie or Olivia was too feminine, and to call them Miss not in keeping with the spirit of camaraderie which prevailed about the Bowser office except during one short painful period each year when increases in salaries were being discussed. Mrs. Bowser stared thoughtfully from the window of the lofty Bowser Building—“Built—like the Himalayas—for the Ages,” and her gray-green eyes roved over the kaleidoscope of New York’s roofs—red, green, brown, purple.
“Memo to Mr. Bowser,” she said, “in re teething ring for baby. Cohnco Rings may be O. K. scientifically, but our Mr. Hencastle reports that he is soliciting the account of the Ess-Bee-Dee people who make Kiddie-Kutter Rings. I therefore think it wise to choose Kiddie-Kutter Rings for our son because of the effect on the trade. I do not check with your suggestion that we get a gross. One ring will be enough. This proves my contention that no man understands children or the Feminine Appeal in Advertising Copy.
“(Signed) P. I. Bowser, Associate President.”