Personality Plus | Page 7

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II
PERSONALITY PLUS
There are seven stages in the evolution of that individual whose appearance is the signal for a listless "Who-do-you-want-to-see?" from the white-bloused, drab-haired, an?mic little girl who sits in the outer office forever reading last month's magazines. The badge of fear brands the novice. Standing hat in hand, nervous, apprehensive, gulpy, with the elevator door clanging behind him, and the sacred inner door closed before him, he offers up a silent and paradoxical "Thank heaven!" at the office girl's languid "Not in," and dives into the friendly shelter of the next elevator going down. When, at that same message, he can smile, as with a certain grim agreeableness he says, "I'll wait," then has he reached the seventh stage, and taken the orders of the regularly ordained.
Jock McChesney had learned to judge an unknown prospective by glancing at his hall rug and stenographer, which marks the fifth stage. He had learned to regard office boys with something less than white-hot hate. He had learned to let the other fellow do the talking. He had learned to condense a written report into twenty-five words. And he had learned that there was as much difference between the profession of advertising as he had thought of it and advertising as it really was, as there is between a steam calliope and a cathedral pipe organ.
In the big office of the Berg, Shriner Advertising Company they had begun to chuckle a bit over the McChesney solicitor's reports. Those same reports indicated that young McChesney was beginning to find the key to that maddening jumble of complexities known as human nature. Big Sam Hupp, who was the pet caged copy-writing genius of the place, used even to bring an occasional example of Jock's business badinage into the Old Man's office, and the two would grin in secret. As when they ran thus:
_Pepsinale Manufacturing Company_:
Mr. Bowser is the kind of gentleman who curses his subordinates in front of the whole office force. Very touchy. Crumpled his advertising manager. Our chance to get at him is when he is in one of his rare good humors.
Or:
_E.V. Kreiss Company_:
Kreiss very difficult to reach. Permanent address seems to be Italy, Egypt, and other foreign ports. Occasionally his instructions come from Palm Beach.
At which there rose up before the reader a vision of Kreiss himself--baggy-eyed, cultivated English accent, interested in polo, fast growing contemptuous of things American.
Or still another:
_Hodge Manufacturing Company:_
Mr. Hodge is a very conservative gentleman. Sits still and lets others do the talking. Has gained quite a reputation for business acumen with this one attribute. Spent $500 last year. Holding his breath preparatory to taking another plunge.
It was about the time that Jock McChesney had got over the novelty of paying for his own clothes, and had begun to talk business in a slightly patronizing way to his clever and secretly amused mother, Mrs. Emma McChesney, secretary of the T.A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company, that Sam Hupp noticed a rather cocky over-assurance in Jock's attitude toward the world in general. Whereupon he sent for him.
On Sam Hupp's broad flat desk stood an array of diminutive jars, and bottles, and tiny pots that would have shamed the toilette table of a musical comedy star's dressing-room. There were rose-tinted salves in white bottles. There were white creams in rose-tinted jars. There were tins of ointment and boxes of fragrant soap.
Jock McChesney, entering briskly, eyed the array in some surprise. Then he grinned, and glanced wickedly at Sam Hupp's prematurely bald head.
"No use, Mr. Hupp. They say if it's once gone it's gone. Get a toupee."
"Shut up!" growled Sam Hupp, good-humoredly. "Stay in this game long enough and you'll be a hairless wonder yourself. Ten years ago the girls used to have to tie their hands or wear mittens to keep from running their white fingers through my waving silken locks. Sit down a minute."
Jock reached forward and took up a jar of cream. He frowned in thought. Then: "Thought I recognized this stuff. Mother uses it. I've seen it on the bathroom shelf."
"You bet she uses it," retorted Sam Hupp. "What's more, millions of other women will be using it in the next few years. This woman," he pointed to the name on the label, "has hit upon the real thing in toilette flub-dub. She's made a little fortune already, and if she don't look out she'll be rich. They've got quite a plant. When she started she used to put the stuff together herself over the kitchen stove. They say it's made of cottage cheese, stirred smooth and tinted pink. Well, anyway they're nationally known now--or will be when they start to advertise right."
"I've seen some of their stuff advertised--somewhere," interrupted Jock, "but I don't remember--"
"There you are. You see the head of