Perkins of Portland: Perkins The Great
trucks soon began to arrive with the cases. They were piled on the walk twenty high, they were piled in the street, we piled our office full, and put some in the vacant room across the hall. There were over a thousand cases of sticky fly-paper. 

 We cut the sheets into thirds, and sprinkled a little cayenne pepper on the sticky side with a pepper-shaker, and then punched holes in them. Later we got a rubber stamp, and printed the directions for use on each; but we had no time for that then. When the boxes began to arrive, Perkins ran down and gathered in three newsboys, and constituted them our packing force. By the end of the week we had our orders all filled. 

 And our plasters stuck! None ever stuck better. They stuck forever. They wouldn't peel off, they wouldn't wash off, they wouldn't scrape off. When one wore off, it left the stickiness there; and the victim had to buy another to paste on top of the old one before he could put on a shirt. It was a huge success. 

 We changed our ad. to read: 

 “Perkins's Paper Porous Plaster Makes all pains and aches fly faster,”  

 and branched out into the magazines. We sent a to Europe, and now some of the crowned heads are wearing our plasters. You all remember Stoneley's account of meeting a tribe of natives in the wilds of Africa wearing nothing but Perkins's Paper Porous Plasters, and recall the celebrated words of Rodriguez Velos, second understudy to the Premier of Spain, “America is like Perkins's Paper Porous Plasters—a thing not to be sat on.”  

  

  

 Five months ago we completed our ten-story factory, and increased our capital stock to two millions; and those to whom we offered the trade-mark in our early days are green with regret. Perkins is abroad now in his private yacht. Queer old fellow, too, for he still insists on wearing the Go-lightly shoes and the Air-the-Hair hat, in spite of the fact that he hasn't enough hair left to make a miniature paint-brush. 

 I asked him before he left for his cruise when he was from,—Portland, Me., or Portland, Oreg.,—and he laughed. 

 “My dear boy,” he said, “it's all in the ad. 'Mr. Perkins of Portland' is a phrase to draw dollars. I'm from Chicago. Get a phrase built like a watch, press the button, and the babies cry for it.”  

 That's 
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