He
unwrapped it in his customary enthusiastic manner, and set on my desk a
cigar box bound in the style he had selected for the binding of "The
Crimson Cord." It was then I spoke of the advisability of having
something to the book besides the cover and a boom.
"Perkins," I said, "don't you think it is about time we got hold of the
novel--the reading, the words?"
For a moment he seemed stunned. It was clear that he had quite forgotten
that book-buyers like to have a little reading matter in their books.
But he was only dismayed for a moment.
"Tut!" he cried presently. "All in good time! The novel is easy.
Anything will do. I'm no literary man. I don't read a book in a year.
You get the novel."
"But I don't read a book in five years!" I exclaimed. "I don't know
anything about books. I don't know where to get a novel."
"Advertise!" he exclaimed. "Advertise! You can get anything, from an
apron to an ancestor, if you advertise for it. Offer a prize--offer a
thousand dollars for the best novel. There must be thousands of novels
not in use."
Perkins was right. I advertised as he suggested and learned that there
were thousands of novels not in use. They came to us by basketfuls and
cartloads. We had novels of all kinds--historical and hysterical,
humorous and numerous, but particularly numerous.
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