He beamed upon me.

   "The cover of the book," he said quite calmly, "will be white—virgin, spotless white—with black lettering, and the cord in crimson. With each copy we will give a crimson silk cord for a book-mark. Each copy will be done up in a white box and tied with crimson cord."

   He closed his eyes and tilted his head upward.

   "A thick book," he said, "with deckel edges and pic

   tures by Christy. No, pictures by Pyle. Deep, mysterious pictures! Shadows and gloom! And wide, wide margins. And a gloomy foreword. One fifty per copy, at all booksellers."

   Perkins opened his eyes and set his hat straight with a quick motion of his hand. He arose and pulled on his gloves.

   "Where are you going?" I asked.

   "Contracts!" he said. "Contracts for advertising! We must boom 'The Crimson Cord.' We must boom her big!"

   He went out and closed the door. Presently, when I supposed him well on the way down town, he opened the door and inserted his head.

   "Gilt tops," he announced. "One million copies the first impression!"

   And then he was gone.

   A week later Chicago and the greater part of the United States was placarded with "The Crimson Cord." Perkins did his work thoroughly and well, and great was the interest in the mysterious title. It was an old dodge, but a good one. Nothing appeared on the advertisements but the mere title. No word as to what "The Crimson Cord" was. Perkins merely announced the words and left them to rankle in the reader's mind, and as a natural consequence each new advertisement served to excite new interest.

   When we made our contracts for magazine advertising—and we took a full page in every worthy magazine—the publishers were at a loss to classify the advertisement, and it sometimes appeared among the breakfast foods,

   and sometimes sandwiched in between the automobiles and the hot water heaters. Only one publication placed it among the books.

   But it was all good advertising, and Perkins was a busy man. He racked his inventive brain for new methods of placing the title before the public. In fact so busy was he at his labor of introducing the title that he quite forgot the book itself.

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