“ ‘TUB-PUP—Just Sic it on the Dirt’—is snappy but hardly serious enough for a product that retails at one dollar a can. Humor has no place in business.
“ ‘ROSE-DUST—The Powder That Perfumes as it Cleans’—is the best on your list because it suggests quality and also Hammers Home” (caps, Gussing) “the one distinctive point about the new powder—i.e., the fact that it has a pleasant smell. It is rather more like fresh pine shavings than roses, I think. In the name and slogan we must put across the punch idea that this good-smelling powder is also a cleaning agent with a kick. I attach list of names I have developed.
“Please let me have your reactions to these names very soon as Peabody Garfinkle called up today to ask when he can go ahead and order cans and labels for the new powder. He wants to get it on the dealers’ shelves in time for spring house cleaning. Action please.
“(Signed) P. I. Bowser, Associate President.”
Mrs. Bowser skimmed with agile eye her list headed “Things To Get Done This Day,” then dictated:
“Memo to Mr. Bowser. In re christening baby. Please note that baby will be one year old tomorrow. He should be christened then. It is not intelligent to continue to call him Baby and Junior indefinitely. I suggest that you send me without delay list of names you consider suitable for him. I will give them my careful attention and I hope we can reach an agreement today on this subject.
“(Signed) P. I. Bowser, Associate President.”
Mrs. Bowser tapped her teeth for two seconds, glanced at her watch—a Krafty-Kronometer, “The Personality Timepiece with the Different Tick” (her own slogan)—and then became all animation.
“Gussing,” she shot out, “get the Chicago and Salt Lake City offices on the long distance, send Meldrum, O’Grady and Kitchell to me at once, and order a taxi to be here in fifteen minutes to take me to a conference with Miss Switzer of the I-Say-Ma-Ma Mechanical Doll Company at the Jill Club.”
Miss Gussing bustled out and Mrs. Bowser tore into her work like a tornado through a picnic of paper dolls.