While he was thus engaged, Phil was commissioning the best sign-writers in Vernock to do a hurry-up job of absolutely first-class workmanship and have it in place above their office windows the next morning, regardless of cost.
He was too late to get a full-page advertisement in the Advertiser, which came out the next day, but he arranged it for the next issue and, on the strength of it, succeeded in inducing McQuarrie––Ben Todd’s advertising manager––to rush off two thousand dodgers and insert them between the sheets of each copy of the current weekly, although not exactly a legal thing to do.
He ordered five thousand letter forms announcing the new business partnership and he had McQuarrie send them next day to every name on his special mailing list. This job alone, including the mailing, local and foreign, cost them three hundred dollars; but, for the time being, money was no object.
Two card writers, each at three dollars an hour, worked all night on Jim’s purloined information, making out window cards which offered every available and unavailable piece of land in the Valley for sale, at a figure. A whole army of fat, lean and guttural-speaking charladies, behind carefully drawn blinds, worked all night long on the office floors, desks, counters and windows. Luxurious carpets and new filing cabinets were rushed in.
A typewriter was purchased. The prettiest stenographer in town was engaged to operate it––or, at least, to sit behind it for effect––regardless of expense. Two telephones, 329 which had not been removed since the Bank’s occupancy, were arranged for and retained. The dull electric lights were taken down and powerful oxygen lamps put in place. There was going to be nothing dull in the Langford-Ralston Financial Corporation.
A joint visit by Phil and Jim was made to the tailor’s and each got fitted out in a new suit of the latest model, with fancy and somewhat garish waistcoats. Cigars of the best brand––five boxes of them––and two thousand cigarettes were purchased for the purpose of camaraderie and general corruption.
A new auto, not too sporty but brave and dazzling in its unscratched varnish and untarnished nickel-plated lamps and rods, value fifteen hundred dollars, was purchased on terms:––five hundred dollars down and the balance in equal payments, three and six months.
Everything but that automobile was fully paid for on the nail, for Jim contended, and rightly too, that cash with a first order very often assured credit with the order to follow.
It was strenuous work, and exciting while it lasted, but they had the satisfaction of accomplishing almost everything they had set out to do.
Next morning the town was jolted with surprise at finding a new business in full operation on one of the chief sites on Main Street. The new Catteline-Harvard car was standing at the kerb before the door, shrieking its newness. A great sign over the door told the world at large, and in no uncertain manner, that the Langford-Ralston Financial Corporation was doing business below. The two windows were a dainty display of the show-card writers’ art, hanging above and around a miniature fruit ranch, complete with trees, house and barns in the one, and a miniature townsite in the making in the other. “Come in and Talk It Over,” said one card. “Nothing 330 in Land We Cannot Buy for You. Nothing We Cannot Sell,” proclaimed another. “If you have tried all the others and have not got what you want––try Us.” “Better Save Yourself Time and Worry by Trying Us First.” “The Recognised, Reliable Okanagan Land Agents.” “Our Time and Our Cars are at Your Disposal.”