Perker

“ Does Perkins of Portland ever forget his friend? Never! Sooner will the public forget that 'Pratt's Hats Air the Hair,' as made immortal by Perkins the Great! Sooner will the world forget that 'Dill's Pills Cure All Ills,' as taught by Perkins!”
“Is it a very good thing, this time?” I asked.
“Good thing?” he asked. “Say! Is the soul a good thing? Is a man's right hand a good thing? You know it! Well, then, Perkins has fathomed the soul of the great U. S. A. He has studied the American man. He has watched the American woman. ”

“ Plain Perkins, who urged and begged and prayed Silas Boggs to let go of a few dollars, and Perkins the Great, the Originator,—Perkins of Portland, who originated the Soap Dust Triplets, the Smile that Lasts for Aye, Ought-to-hawa Biscuit,—who, in short, is the father, mother, and grandparent of modern advertising, are the selfsame Perkinses. From such small beginnings can the world's great men spring. ”

“ He caught his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, and waved his fingers slowly back and forth. “My boy,” he said, “Perkins of Portland conquers all things! Else why is he known as Perkins the Great? Genius, my boy, wins out. Before genius the automobile bows down like the camel, and takes aboard the advertisement. Perkins has conquered the automobile!” ”

“ Perkins think it hard upon the young man if there really is no will, and consider that a handsome present ought to be made him out of the estate. Young Piper and young Perkins, as members of that restless juvenile circle which is the terror of the foot-passengers in Chancery Lane, crumble into ashes behind the pump and under the archway all day long, where wild yells and hootings take place over their remains. ”

“ He would stand in front of the plot of weeds that was the site of the opera-house, and get all enrapt and enthusiastic just thinking how fine that opera-house would be some day; and then he would imagine he was on our street-car line going down to the library. But the thing Perkins liked best was to go to church. Whenever he passed one of the corner lots that we had set aside for a church, he would take off his hat and look sober, as a man ought when he has suddenly run into an ennobling religious atmosphere. ”

“ Such a good chap, too,” he added.
“Well, I am glad she has Franz to look after her, and he will have the means to go on with his studies,” continued Perkins.
“He is fortunate,” Philip replied. “We so seldom get what we want—generally it's what we don't want that comes to us.”
Perkins looked at him curiously, his head well to one side and his chubby hands buried in the depths of his trousers pockets.
“I say—what's up? Aren't you happy?”
“I am blue, and not so decent as I should be. I am always and everlastingly thinking of myself. ”

“ It only required a little more persuasion, just enough to save his self-respect, and Philip would have done anything that Mr. Perkins wished; but his face showed nothing of his conflicting emotions. It was placid and sullen.
"I think I'd rather go, sir," he said.
Mr. Perkins, like many men who manage things by their personal influence, grew a little impatient when his power was not immediately manifest. He had a great deal of work to do, and could not waste more time on a boy who seemed to him insanely obstinate. ”

“ Five dollars, you mean! Why, man, you have a corner in lop-ears. You have all there are. Shake hands!”
The two men shook hands solemnly. Mr. Perkins was hopefully solemn. Mr. Boggs was amazedly solemn.
“I shake your hand,” said Perkins, “because I congratulate you on your fortune. You will soon be a wealthy man.” He paused, and then added, “If you advertise judiciously.”
There were real tears in the eyes of Silas Boggs, as he laid his arm affectionately across Perkins's shoulders.
“Perkins,” he said, “I can never repay you. I can never even thank you. I will advertise. ”

“ The temper of the Percheron breeder is invariably mild. He knows all the importance of attention to the race which [Pg 14] he rears, and nevertheless, it must be confessed, that with the exception of the mildness with which he treats it, he has done next to nothing to ameliorate it or preserve it in its beauty. Nature, time, and the climate, have done all.
Perche has a climate eminently favorable to horse-breeding. Under its influence, the water is tonic and the food nutritious, the air is pure, bracing, and drier than that of Normandy. ”

“ In the midst of the confusion and noise, Perkins quietly retired. He has been known, ever since, in the village, much to his chagrin and scandalization, he being still a warm temperance man, as the "tipsy parson."
"There goes the 'tipsy parson'" he hears said, as he passes along the street, a dozen times in a week, and he is now seriously inclined to leave the village, in order to escape the ridicule his over-zealous effort to blast the minister's reputation has called into existence. As for the Rev. Mr. Manlius, he often tells the story, and laughs over it as heartily as any one. ”

“ I was beginning to tire of sitting indolently in my office, with nothing to do but clip coupons from my bonds. Money is good enough in its way, but it is not interesting unless it is doing something lively—doubling itself or getting lost. What I wanted was excitement,—an adventure,—and I knew that if I could find Perkins, I could have both. A scheme is a business adventure, and Perkins was the greatest schemer in or out of Chicago. ”

“ I said, humoring him, for I knew something great would be evolved from his wonderful brain, “is a ball of red twine I bought at the ten-cent store. I bought it last Saturday. It was sold to me by a freckled young lady in a white shirt-waist. I paid—”
“Stop!” Perkins cried, “what is it?”
I looked at the ball of twine curiously. I tried to see something remarkable in it. I couldn't. It remained a simple ball of red twine, and I told Perkins so.
“The difference,” declared Perkins, “between mediocrity and genius! Mediocrity always sees red twine; genius sees a ball of Crimson Cord!” ”

“ When Perkins had finished touching up that opera, it was not such an every-day opera as it had been. He put some life into it.
I asked him if he didn't think he had given it a rather commercial atmosphere by introducing the Porous Plaster and the Pink Pellets, but he only smiled knowingly.
“Wait!” he said, “wait a week. Wait until Perkins circulates himself around town. Why should the drama be out of date? Why avoid all interest? Why not have the opera teem with the life of the day? Why not?” He laid one leg gently over the arm of his chair and tilted his hat back on his head. ”

“ Kukor gives me filled fish I can see a big diff'rence right away!"
"Fat isn't what a boy wants," returned Mr. Perkins. "He wants good blood, and strong muscles, and a first-class pair of lungs!"
"Oh!" Raising the big shirt on high, Johnnie disappeared into it, fixing upon Mr. Perkins as he went a look that was full of anxiety. As he emerged, his lip was trembling. "You—you don't think I look all right, do you?" he asked. "Maybe you think I can't ever—you mean I—I can't be——"
"Oh, nothing of the kind!" laughed Mr. Perkins. "Fact is, Johnnie, you're way ahead as far as your mind is concerned. ”

“ Cis ran to Mr. Perkins, laughing, "Oh, you're safe! You're safe!" Whereupon he kissed her fingers again; and Johnnie, on his feet now, felt that here, indeed, was a young knight come from defending his lady. And he asked himself why he had ever thought that Mr. Perkins was too much of a gentleman to be awe-inspiring.
Meanwhile, Father Pat and Mrs. Kukor were shaking hands like mad, and mingling their broken English in a torrent of gratitude. To their voices, Grandpa, out of sight beyond the bedroom door, added his, not knowing what the celebration was about, yet cackling hilariously. ”

“ Old Perkins has no more love for style than I have for his dratted poor kin. But as I was going to tell you, Perkins received a letter from Indiana, stating this Cousin Sally wished to make us a visit. She's a plain, poor girl, that knows no more of style than Perkins does of a woman's comforts. I'll tell you what it is, Mrs. Daymon, if she does come, if I don't make it hot for old Perkins, it'll be because I can't talk. A woman has nothing but her tongue, and while I live I will use mine. ”

“ Perkins. "We simply take your word for it."
"I know I did. He's also a balance of power, my dear. Jorrigan controls the Eighth Ward. That's the only reason I've let him in the house," said Thaddeus.
"You've been very chummy with him, I must say," sniffed Mrs. Perkins.
"Well, I've had to be," said the candidate. "That man is a power, and he knows it."
"What's his business?" asked Mrs. Perkins.
"Interference between capital and labor," replied Perkins. "So I've cultivated him."
"He never struck me as being a very cultivated person," smiled Mrs. Perkins. ”

“ We looked up the rheumatism statistics of the United States, and, wherever there was a rheumatism district, we billed the barns and fences. We sent circulars and “follow-up” letters, and advertised in local and county papers. We shipped the water by single demijohns at first, and then in half-dozen crates, and then in car-lots. We established depots in the big business centres, and took up magazine advertising on a big scale. Wherever man met man, the catchwords, “Perkins pays the freight,” were bandied to and fro. “How can you afford a new hat?” “Oh, 'Perkins pays the freight'!” ”

“ Perkins's oldest, awed by reports of his fabulous wealth, could hardly find his tongue when the distinguished visitor laid a friendly hand on his embarrassed tow head, and inquired about the old swimming-hole, and the mill-dam where he used to fish. But the boy's interest grew stronger every minute as he watched him turning over the limited assortment of fishing tackle. The men he knew had outlived such frivolous sports. It was a sight to justify one's gazing open-mouthed,—a grown man deliberately preparing for a month's idleness. ”

“ Perkins at that time had a room in the Silas Boggs mansion, and he entered the wood-shed merely to get an armful of wood with which to replenish his fire.
“Well, Boggs,” he remarked in his cheerful way—and I may remark that, since Perkins has become famous, every advertising agent has copied his cheerful manner of speech, so that the ad. man who does not greet you with a smile no longer exists—
“Well, Boggs,” he remarked, “more family ties, I see. Great thing, family ties. What is home without sixty-eight guinea-pigs?”
Silas Boggs grinned. “Perkins!” he gasped. “Perkins! Oh, Perkins! ”

“ How ’bout that, Jack?”
If either the factor or the ancient trapper noticed the rather odd familiarity existing between Perk and his supposedly wealthy employer, it did not strike them as strange—away up in this jumping-off place, as far as civilization was concerned, men were more or less equals, being judged more from what their accomplishments might be than from their money and besides, they doubtless remembered that Perk had always been a sort of free and easy independent fellow when with the Mounties. ”

“ Perkins & Co., Glaubus, Ia.”
I began spelling out the name by syllables, “O—no—to—wat—” when Perkins clapped me on the back.
“Great, hey? Can't pronounce it? Nobody can. Great idea. Got old Hunyadi Janos water knocked into a cocked hat. Hardest mineral water name on earth. Who invented it? I did. Perkins of Portland. There's money in that name. Dead loads of money. Everybody that can't pronounce it will want it, and nobody can pronounce it—everybody'll want it. Must have it. Will weep for it. But that isn't the best!” ”

“ Perkins is the advertising man. Advertising is not his specialty. It is his life; it is his science. That is why he is known from Portland, Me., to Portland, Oreg., as Perkins the Great. There is but one Perkins. A single century could never produce two such as he. ”

“ A gleam of surprise came into the butler's eyes, but he controlled it instantly, and strode from the breakfast-room like a liveried automaton.
"You are not eating, Reginald," said my wife, in a gruff whisper, glancing at the door through which Jones had made his exit. "You must not give way to your nervousness, dear boy. You'll need all your strength before the day is over."
"Gad, you're right--if I can judge by the last hour, Caroline," I remarked, endeavoring by force of will to beget an appetite for toast and eggs. "Just hand me my letters, will you? Here are yours, my dear." ”

“ No help for Perkins's oldest in that conversation. He waited awhile longer. Presently an old gentleman in a long-tailed, quaintly cut black coat, stepped up on the porch. He had a gold-headed cane under his arm, and the eyes behind the square-bowed spectacles beamed kindly on the little fellow. He stopped beside the starch-box a moment with a friendly question about school and the health of the Perkins household. The boy's heart gave a jump up into his throat. The old minister knew everything. The minister could even tell him what to write in his composition if he dared [188] but ask him. ”

“ He had a high estimation of his comrade’s abilities and pluck and rather fancied Perk might be a bit better than himself in some things connected with flying. No ace is such a complete master of his calling that he has no rival worthy of the name.
“Well, we’re down, seems like,” ventured Perk after taking a survey all around the wonderful little body of sparkling icy water where they had so miraculously dropped from near the clouds.
“That part is attended to, and sooner than I had figured,” stated Jack with a shrug of his shoulders that spoke volumes. ”