“There you have the unfairness of the system,” Jeremy pointed out. “Mr. Stockmuller is as frequent a user of space as some of you who have taken rebates. Gentlemen, it does n’t go any more.”
“Well, this is a hell of a note!” murmured a discontented voice which seemed to emanate from the depths of the abdominal curve of the senior partner of Arndt & Niebuhr, furniture dealers.
“Did any of these private letters from Mr. Wymett mention reading notices as an extra inducement?” asked the host of the occasion. .
“There was no need,” stated Ellison. “‘Readers’ are a recognized courtesy to advertisers.”
“They take up space,” Jeremy pointed out. “They cost money, for ink, paper, and setting up. From the newspaper’s viewpoint, they’re a dead loss.”
“We pay for ’em in our advertising bills,” said Friedland, of the Big Shop.
“Then you regard them as advertising?”
“Certainly.”
“But they don’t appear as advertising. They are in regular news type, made up to look like news items, and they carry no a-d-v mark.”
Matthew Ellison took it upon his kindly self to enlighten this innocent young adventurer in untried fields. “If they appeared as advertising, the public would be less likely to read them.”