It may not, perhaps, be necessary to continue the whole list here; but as it was read aloud to Mr. Brown, he sat aghast with astonishment. "George!" said he, at last, "I don't like it. It makes me quite afeard. It does indeed."

"And why do you not like it?" said Robinson, quietly laying down the ma.n.u.script, and putting his hand upon it. "Does it want vigour?"

"No; it does not want vigour."

"Does it fail to be attractive? Is it commonplace?"

"It is not that I mean," said Mr. Brown. "But--"

"Is it not simple? The articles are merely named, with their prices."

"But, George, we haven't got 'em. We couldn't hold such a quant.i.ty.

And if we had them, we should be ruined to sell them at such prices as that. I did want to do a genuine trade in stockings."

"And so you shall, sir. But how will you begin unless you attract your customers?"

"You have put your prices altogether too low," said Jones. "It stands to reason you can't sell them for the money. You shouldn't have put the prices at all;--it hampers one dreadful. You don't know what it is to stand down there among 'em all, and tell 'em that the cheap things haven't come."

"Say that they've all been sold," said Robinson.

"It's just the same," argued Jones. "I declare last Sat.u.r.day night I didn't think my life was safe in the crowd."

"And who brought that crowd to the house?" demanded Robinson. "Who has filled the shop below with such a throng of anxious purchasers?"

"But, George," said Mr. Brown, "I should like to have one of these bills true, if only that one might show it as a sample when the people talk to one."

"True!" said Robinson, again. "You wish that it should be true! In the first place, did you ever see an advertis.e.m.e.nt that contained the truth? If it were as true as heaven, would any one believe it? Was it ever supposed that any man believed an advertis.e.m.e.nt? Sit down and write the truth, and see what it will be! The statement will show itself of such a nature that you will not dare to publish it. There is the paper, and there the pen. Take them, and see what you can make of it."

"I do think that somebody should be made to believe it," said Jones.

"You do!" and Robinson, as he spoke, turned angrily at the other.

"Did you ever believe an advertis.e.m.e.nt?" Jones, in self-defence, protested that he never had. "And why should others be more simple than you? No man,--no woman believes them. They are not lies; for it is not intended that they should obtain credit. I should despise the man who attempted to base his advertis.e.m.e.nts on a system of facts, as I would the builder who lays his foundation upon the sand. The groundwork of advertising is romance. It is poetry in its very essence. Is Hamlet true?"

"I really do not know," said Mr. Brown.

"There is no man, to my thinking, so false," continued Robinson, "as he who in trade professes to be true. He deceives, or endeavours to do so. I do not. No one will believe that we have fifteen hundred dozen of Balbriggan."

"n.o.body will," said Mr. Brown.

"But yet that statement will have its effect. It will produce custom, and bring grist to our mill without any dishonesty on our part.

Advertis.e.m.e.nts are profitable, not because they are believed, but because they are attractive. Once understand that, and you will cease to ask for truth." Then he turned himself again to his work and finished his task without further interruption.

"You shall sell your stockings, Mr. Brown," he said to the senior member of the firm, about three days after that.

"Indeed, I hope so."

"Look here, sir!" and then he took Mr. Brown to the window. There stood eight stalwart porters, divided into two parties of four each, and on their shoulders they bore erect, supported on painted frames, an enormous pair of gilded, embroidered, brocaded, begartered wooden stockings. On the ma.s.sive calves of these was set forth a statement of the usual kind, declaring that "Brown, Jones, and Robinson, of 81, Bishopsgate Street, had just received 40,000 pairs of best French silk ladies' hose direct from Lyons."

"And now look at the men's legs," said Robinson. Mr. Brown did look, and perceived that they were dressed in magenta-coloured knee-breeches, with magenta-coloured stockings. They were gorgeous in their attire, and at this moment they were starting from the door in different directions. "Perhaps you will tell me that that is not true?"

"I will say nothing about it for the future," said Mr. Brown.

"It is not true," continued Robinson; "but it is a work of fiction, in which I take leave to think that elegance and originality are combined."

"We ought to do something special in shirts," said Jones, a few days after this. "We could get a few dozen from Hodges, in King Street, and call them Eureka."

"Couldn't we have a shirt of our own?" said Mr. Robinson. "Couldn't you invent a shirt, Mr. Jones?" Jones, as Robinson looked him full in the face, ran his fingers through his scented hair, and said that he would consult his wife. Before the day was over, however, the following notice was already in type:--

MANKIND IN A STATE OF BLISS!

BROWN, JONES, AND ROBINSON have sincere pleasure in presenting to the Fashionable World their new KATAKAIRION SHIRT, in which they have thoroughly overcome the difficulties, hitherto found to be insurmountable, of adjusting the bodies of the n.o.bility and Gentry to an article which shall be at the same time elegant, comfortable, lasting, and cheap.

B., J., and R.'s KATAKAIRION SHIRT, and their Katakairion Shirt alone, is acknowledged to unite these qualities.

Six Shirts for 39_s._ 9_d._

The Katakairion Shirt is specially recommended to Officers going to India and elsewhere, while it is at the same time eminently adapted for the Home Consumption.

"I think I would have considered it a little more, before I committed myself," said Jones.

"Ah, yes; you would have consulted your wife; as I have not got one, I must depend on my own wits."

"And are not likely to have one either," said Jones.

"Young men, young men," said Mr. Brown, raising his hands impressively, "if as Christians you cannot agree, at any rate you are bound to do so as partners. What is it that the Psalmist says, 'Let dogs delight, to bark and bite--.'"

The notice as to the Katakairion shirt was printed on that day, as originally drawn out by Robinson, and very widely circulated on the two or three following mornings. A brisk demand ensued, and it was found that Hodges, the wholesale manufacturer, of King Street, was able to supply the firm with an article which, when sold at 39_s._ 6_d._, left a comfortable profit.

"I told you that we ought to do something special in shirts," said Jones, as though the whole merit of the transaction were his own.

Gloves was another article to which considerable attention was given;--

BROWN, JONES, AND ROBINSON have made special arrangements with the glove manufacturers of Worcestershire, and are now enabled to offer to the public English-sewn Worcester gloves, made of French kid, at a price altogether out of the reach of any other house in the trade.

B., J., and R. boldly defy compet.i.tion.

When that notice was put up in front of the house, none of the firm expected that any one would believe in their arrangement with the Worcestershire glove-makers. They had no such hope, and no such wish.

What gloves they sold, they got from the wholesale houses in St.

Paul's Churchyard, quite indifferent as to the county in which they were sewn, or the kingdom from which they came. Nevertheless, the plan answered, and a trade in gloves was created.

But perhaps the pretty little dialogues which were circulated about the town, did more than anything else to make the house generally known to mothers and their families.