"Yes," said Perkins, "that's Perkins' method. Who originated the Crimson Cord? Perkins did. Who is entitled to the profits on the Crimson Cord? Perkins is. Perkins is wide awake all the time. Perkins gets a profit on the aftermath and the math and the before the math."
And so he did. He made his new contracts with the magazines on the exchange plan—we gave a page of advertising in the "Crimson Cord" for a page of advertising in the magazine. We guaranteed five million circulation. We arranged with all the manufacturers of the Crimson Cord brands of goods to give coupons, one hundred of which entitled the holder to a copy of "The Crimson Cord." With a pair of Crimson Cord suspenders you get five coupons; with each Crimson Cord cigar, one coupon; and so on.
IV
On the first of October we announced in our advertisement that "The Crimson Cord" was a book; the greatest novel of the century; a thrilling, exciting tale of love. Miss Vincent had told me it was a love story. Just to make everything sure, however, I sent the manuscript to Professor Wiggins, who is the most erudite man I ever met. He knows eighteen languages, and reads Egyptian as easily as I read English. In fact his specialty is old Egyptian ruins and so on. He has written several books on them.
Professor said the novel seemed to him very light and trashy, but grammatically O.K. He said he never read novels, not having time, but he thought that "The Crimson Cord" was just about the sort of thing a silly public that refused to buy his "Some Light on the Dynastic Proclivities of the Hyksos" would scramble for. On the whole I considered the report satisfactory.
We found we would be unable to have Pyle illustrate the book, he being too busy, so we turned it over to a young man at the Art Institute.
That was the fifteenth of October, and we had promised the book to the public for the first of November, but we had it already in type and the young man, his name was Gilkowsky, promised to work night and day on the illustrations.
The next morning, almost as soon as I reached the office, Gilkowsky came in. He seemed a little hesitant, but I welcomed him warmly, and he spoke up.
"I have a girl to go with," he said, and I wondered what I had to do with Mr. Gilkowsky's girl, but he continued:
"She's a nice girl and a good looker, but she's got bad taste in some things. She's too loud in hats, and too trashy in literature. I don't like to say this about her, but it's true and I'm trying to educate her in good hats and good literature. So I thought it would be a good thing to take around this 'Crimson Cord' and let her read it to me."