Personality Plus | Page 8

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 this concern is a little bit
frightened at the way she seems slated to become a lady cold cream
magnate. They say she's scared pink for fear somebody will steal her
recipes. She has a kid nephew who acts as general manager, and they're
both on the job all the time. They say the lady herself looks like the
spinster in a b'gosh drama. You can get a boy to look up your train
schedule."
Train! Schedule! Across Jock McChesney's mind there flashed a vision
of himself, alert, confident, brisk, taking the luxurious nine o'clock for
Philadelphia. Or, maybe, the Limited to Chicago. Dashing down to the
station in a taxi, of course. Strolling down the car aisle to take his place
among those other thoroughbreds of commerce--men whose chamois
gloves and walking sticks, and talk of golf and baseball and motoring
spelled elegant leisure, even as their keen eyes and shrewd faces and
low-voiced exchange of such terms as "stocks," and "sales" and
"propositions" proclaimed them intent on bagging the day's business.
Sam Hupp's next words brought him back to reality with a jerk.
"I think you have to change at Buffalo. It gets you to Tonawanda in the
morning. Rotten train."
"Tonawanda!" repeated Jock.
"Now listen, kid." Sam Hupp leaned forward, and his eyes behind their
great round black-rimmed glasses were intent on Jock. "I'm not going
to try to steer you. You think that advertising is a game. It isn't. There
are those who think it's a science. But it isn't that either. It's white
magic, that's what it is. And you can't learn it from books, any more
than you can master trout fishing from reading 'The Complete Angler.'"
He swung about and swept the beauty lotions before him in a little heap
at the end of his desk. "Here, take this stuff. And get chummy with it.

Eat it, if necessary; learn it somehow."
Jock stood up, a little dazed. "But, what!--How?--I mean--"
Sam Hupp glanced up at him. "Sending you down there isn't my idea.
It's the Old Man's. He's got an idea that you--" He paused and put a
detaining hand on Jock McChesney's arm. "Look here. You think I
know a little something about advertising, don't you?"
"You!" laughed Jock. "You're the guy who put the whitening in the
Great White Way. Everybody knows you were the--"
"M-m-m, thanks," interrupted Sam Hupp, a little dryly. "Let me tell
you something, young 'un. I've got what you might call a
thirty-horse-power mind. I keep it running on high all the time, with the
muffler cut out, and you can hear me coming for miles. But the Old
Man,"--he leaned forward impressively,--"the Old Man, boy, has the
eighty-power kind, built like a watch--no smoke, no dripping, and you
can't even hear the engine purr. But when he throws her open! Well, he
can pass everything on the road. Don't forget that." He turned to his
desk again and reached for a stack of papers and cuts. "Good luck to
you. If you want any further details you can get 'em from Hayes." He
plunged into his work.
There arose in Jock McChesney's mind that instinct of the man in his
hour of triumph--the desire to tell a woman of his greatness. He paused
a second outside Sam Hupp's office, turned, and walked quickly down
the length of the great central room. He stopped before a little glass
door at the end, tapped lightly, and entered.
Grace Galt, copy-writer, looked up, frowning a little. Then she smiled.
Miss Galt had a complete layout on the desk before her--scrap books,
cuts, copy, magazines. There was a little smudge on the end of her nose.
Grace Galt was