Personality Plus | Page 7

the expression and general outline.
Poster stuff, really. Then this young man will pose for the summer
union suit pictures."
"Don't apologize," said Miss Galt. "We had a hard enough time to get
that Kool Komfort account. We don't want to start wrong with the
pictures. Besides, I think posing's real fun."
Jock thought so too, quite suddenly. Just as suddenly Von Herman
remembered the conventions and introduced them.
"McChesney?" repeated Miss Galt, crisply. "I know a Mrs. McChesney,
of the T.A. Buck--"
"My mother," proudly.
"Your mother! Then why--" She stopped.

"Because," said Jock, "I'm the rawest rooky in the Berg, Shriner
Company. And when I begin to realize what I don't know about
advertising I'll probably want to plunge off the Palisades."
Miss Galt smiled up at him, her clear, frank eyes meeting his.
"You'll win," she said.
"Even if I lose--I win now," said Jock, suddenly audacious.
"Hi! Hold that pose!" called Von Herman, happily.
[Illustration: "'Hi! Hold that pose!' called Von Herman"]

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, anæmic 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