VI

CASH FOR NAMES

The air was charged with a burden of mystery and moment when the three who strove together in rooms near Union Square joined the man who did something in an editorial way at the latter's office, and proceeded with him to the Grand Union restaurant.

"We have a tale to unfold that will make your hair curl," said Perner, as they stepped out on the lighted street. "Van has had an inspiration. Premiums are not in it with this!"

"By gad, no!" agreed Livingstone. "It's the greatest thing yet!"

"Good!" shouted Barrifield, above the crash of the street. "Good!"

Van Dorn modestly remained silent. Perner made an effort to keep up the conversation, but the roar of the cobble made results unsatisfactory and difficult. It was a good mile to the Grand Union, but Barrifield explained sotto voce as they entered that it was the only place for steamed soft clams in town. Soft clams appealed to Perner, and any lingering doubts he may have had of Barrifield's ability as business manager disappeared at this statement. Livingstone, who was not quite so tall as the others, had kept up with some difficulty, and was puffing a little as they seated themselves at a table in one corner.

"I know now what it means to start a paper," he observed reflectively. "It means first to walk a good ways and then eat something. That's what we've been doing ever since we started."

"Better eat while we've got a chance," said Van Dorn. "If the 'Whole Family' fails we'll walk without eating."

"We can afford to eat on Van's new scheme," said Perner. "It's worth it."

Barrifield laughed comfortably.

"What is your scheme?" he asked, seeing that Perner was waiting anxiously to unload.

"Wait," interrupted Van Dorn. "Here's the waiter. Let's give the order, and then we'll have a couple of hours to talk while he's catching the clams."

Perner subsided, and each seized a bill of fare, which was studied with stern solemnity for some moments. Dinner was a matter of perhaps more respectful consideration with these rather prosperous bohemians than even the new paper, which they still regarded, and possibly with some reason, as a sort of farce, or than the Muses, whom they were inclined to woo somewhat cavalierly.

"I should think two portions of clams would be enough," suggested Van Dorn, at length; "then we can have something solid in the way of meat and things."

Perner protested.

"Oh, pshaw, Van! I want a full portion myself, and Barry wants one, too; don't you, Barry?"

Barrifield, who had come from a coast where pie and clams are the natural heritage, suggested that, as the portions here were something less than a peck each, they might compromise on three. This Perner reluctantly agreed to, and the usual extra sirloin with mushrooms was added. Pie was then selected by Perner and Barrifield, and various delicacies by the others.

"A large pot of coffee," concluded Van Dorn.

"Ale with the clams," suggested Livingstone. The others nodded.

"Martinis first," interrupted Perner. Then to the waiter, "Four Martinis—and don't be all night getting them here."

"Rochefort, and Panetela cigars with the coffee," supplemented Barrifield.

"Cigarettes for me," corrected Livingstone, "Turkish Sultanas, small package, gold tips."

There was a note of gold in the atmosphere. The order was not prodigal, but there was an unstinted go-as-you-please manner about it which made the waiter bow and vanish hastily. Barrifield turned to Perner.

"Now," he said, "what's your great scheme?"

Perner had already drawn a folded type-written sheet from his inside coat pocket.

"It's Van's idea," he said, with becoming modesty. "I may have elaborated it some and put it into words, that's all. But it's simply tremendous! Premiums have been done. Cameras and watches have been given with twelve papers of bluing or needles, but this thing has never been done by anybody—at least, not in this form."

"That's right!" said Livingstone.

"No, sir, old man; I don't believe it has," confessed Van Dorn, with some reluctance at doing justice to his own conception.

Barrifield looked from one to the other with large expectancy in his eyes.

"Let's hear it," he said anxiously.

Perner unfolded the paper and glanced at the tables about them to see that no one was listening. Then he began to read in a low, earnest voice:

"CASH PAID FOR NAMES!

"TWENTY-FIVE CENTS FOR EACH!

"The proprietors of the 'Whole Family,' the greatest and most magnificent weekly paper ever published, make to the whole English-speaking world the following unheard-of offer.

"I got that style of eloquence from Frisby's advertisements," Perner paused to explain. "It catches 'em, you know." The others nodded. Perner continued:

"To any one, old or young, in any part of the globe, who will send us a list of twenty names of men or women, boys or girls, likely to be interested in the most beautiful, the most superb, illustrated family weekly ever published, we will send our marvelous paper, the 'Whole Family,' for four consecutive weeks free of charge, and we will pay the sender

"TWENTY-FIVE CENTS IN CASH FOR EACH NAME

"added to our subscription-books on or before November 1, 1897. Remember, there is no canvassing! You select twenty good names and send them to us by letter or postal card. We do the rest. If you pick names of twenty good people we will get twenty subscribers, and you will get

"FIVE DOLLARS IN CASH FOR FIVE MINUTES' WORK,

"besides our matchless paper free for one month! Remember! Five dollars for twenty names—no more!"

Perner finished reading and looked steadily at Barrifield, as did Van Dorn and Livingstone. Barrifield was reflecting deeply with closed eyes.

"They send in the names of twenty people," he meditated; "we mail sample copies to them, and pay the sender twenty-five cents for each one that subscribes. We don't pay till they subscribe, do we?"

"Why, no, of course not!" Perner was slightly annoyed that Barrifield did not catch the scheme instantly, though it had taken him and Van Dorn two full days to become entirely clear on it themselves. "You see," he continued, "we'll send sample copies to each of these names for two weeks. The sender of the names will also be getting his sample copies, and knowing that twenty-five cents is to come from every subscriber, he'll talk up the paper among others. He'll be an agent without knowing it. The unpleasant feature of soliciting subscribers will be all done away with. He'll pick the best names, of course, in the first place—people that he knows are dead sure to take the paper. We'll get up a paper they can't help taking. He'll get five dollars in cash, and we'll get twenty subscribers to the 'Whole Family.'"

"Twenty-one," corrected Van Dorn. "The sender of the names will subscribe, of course—he'll have to, as an example to the others."

"Perny's going to send him a special confidential circular," put in Livingstone, "thanking him for his interest and calling him 'Dear Friend.'"

"And a hundred thousand people will send lists," said Perner. "A hundred thousand lists with twenty names to the list will be two million names. Every one of them will subscribe—every one of them! But say they don't—say, to be on the safe side, that only ten of them subscribe before November 1; say that only five of them do. There's one half-million subscribers to start with—one half-million subscribers on the first day of November, when we mail our first regular subscription issue! What do you think of that?"

It was just the sort of scheme to appeal to Barrifield. As the fascination of it dawned upon him he regarded wonderingly each of the conspirators in turn.

"I think," he said at last, with slow emphasis and gravity, "I think it simply tre-mendous!"

Van Dorn's eyes glistened, and Livingstone leaned forward as if to speak. Perner could scarcely keep his seat.

"Wait, then," he said jubilantly, "wait till you hear the rest of it! That's only the beginning. Listen to this!"

"'Sh!" cautioned Van Dorn, glancing at the tables near them, some of whose occupants seemed attracted by the evident excitement of their neighbors. Perner had drawn forth a second paper, and lowered his voice almost to a whisper.

"This," he said, "is the second chapter and contains the climax. The one I just read will appear in outside papers before our first issue is out. This will appear in our own sample copies, and is what will clench and make subscribers of every name that comes. Listen!

"CASH PAID FOR NAMES!

"POTS OF GOLD! POTS OF GOLD! NO WORK!

"Any boy or girl, man or woman, in any part of the world, who shall become a subscriber to the 'Whole Family'—the greatest, cheapest, and most beautiful weekly paper ever published—may send, with his or her subscription price of one dollar, a list of twenty names of those most likely to be interested in this marvelous home paper, and receive

"TWENTY-FIVE CENTS IN CASH FOR EACH AND EVERY NAME

"added to our subscription list before December 1 of the present year. By selecting the best names before they are taken by others, and subscribing now, you are certain to get your money back and a snug sum for Christmas besides! Don't wait a moment! Select sure winners and send them to us with the small subscription price of a dollar! You get five for one in return, and the most glorious paper ever printed besides!"

Perner paused and looked straight at Barrifield. The big blond dreamer was regarding them in a dazed way.

"That means," he said at last, huskily, "another list of names with each of our half-million or million subscriptions, and then—"

"And then," said Van Dorn, unable to hold in another second, "sample copies and the same inducements to the new names for another month, and the same to the names these send for still another month, and so on until we have the whole English-reading world on our subscription list, and there are no more names to send, except as people are born and grow up. There are fifteen million English-speaking families in the United States, not to mention Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa, and we'll have them all in a year! In a year! Every one of them!"

"In a year!" said Perner. "We'll have them in six months! Less! Why," he continued excitedly, "even starting with but a single unit and doubling, you get a million with twenty multiplications, and starting, as we will, with half a million or more names to begin with, and getting twenty new names for each on the next round, and so continuing, we'd have—allowing that only one fourth of them subscribe—we'd have fifty million subscribers—if there were that many in the universe—in three rounds! Six months! Why, in less than a month people will be scratching the world with garden-rakes to find anybody that isn't already a subscriber, and even in China and the interior of Africa the 'Whole Family' will have become the great civilizer and diffuser of the English tongue."

Livingstone's face flushed and paled by turns, and his eyes sparkled.

"By gad, yes!" he said. "By gad!"

It was the last word. In the contemplation of this stupendous proposition no one could utter another syllable.

The Martinis came on just then, and went down with a hot sizzle. Barrifield was first to recover his voice. He was slow and deliberate again, though still gasping a little, perhaps from the cocktail.

"Of course you know, fellows," he said, with an air of profound reflection, "that this plan is going to take a little more money. It involves sending out a large number of sample copies, and there'll be some little clerk hire and postage to pay before the money comes in. It won't be much extra, of course,—a few hundred dollars, perhaps,—but we must be prompt paying our help. And then, we want to have a bank-account. Frisby's scheme didn't call for any outlay, you see, until the money began to come, and Frisby started without a dollar. He didn't—"

"Yes, I know," interrupted Perner; "but Frisby's scheme was new then, and might not work so well now. We've got another and a better one than Frisby or anybody else ever had before. Even if it does take a little more money at the start, any one of us can earn more in a week than it takes to pay all the clerks we'll need."

"Why, yes," said Livingstone; "and we'll do most of the paper ourselves, so we'll save that."

"We've got a great combination, boys," said Barrifield—"great!"

In the brief lull that followed this statement, which so fully expressed the feeling of all present, Perner took occasion to go somewhat into detail.

"In the first place," he said, "we're going to be flooded with names. We'll have our paper all made up and start the presses running at the rate of a hundred thousand a day the week before our advertising appears—not sooner than that, because we want money to be coming in as soon as possible after the papers are printed."

Perner paused to appreciate the admiring glances of the others. His ten years' business experience was crystallizing itself into a beautiful system.

"We'll have our clerks," he continued, "all ready with the books—a book for each State—to enter the names as soon as the answers begin to come. We must have one distributing clerk with a little post-office arrangement to assort the letters and cards into States and give them to the others. These will enter them and turn them over to another set of clerks, who will address wrappers from the letters and cards themselves. Then the wrappers will go to another set of clerks, who will wrap the papers and mail them."

The admiration for Perner grew. It seemed simplicity itself.

"One hundred thousand a day," he continued, "will give us two million papers in about three weeks. That'll be the first round of the first issue. Before those are half out we will be getting subscriptions like hot cakes, and we'll have to double our force to handle them. But subscriptions mean money, and with twenty or thirty thousand dollars a day coming in, we'll have money to double them up with."

"If the subscriptions don't come it will double us up," laughed Van Dorn.

As for Barrifield, he seemed stupefied. He had started the wind, but the cyclone it had grown to was whirling him along faster than he could follow; also the memory of Frisby and Bibles still clung to him somewhat, despite this new and startling method of taking fortune by storm. He started to speak, but Perner, who had taken on fuel enough for a long run, was too quick for him.

"When the first round of the first issue has been going out one day," he said with conviction, "those subscriptions will begin to come. Each subscription will bring twenty new names, and that'll mean another round of the first issue, and the checking off in the books of the people that have subscribed, showing just who sent them and what he is entitled to in cash."

"We'll send it to him in a check," said Van Dorn. "Checks always look well."

"Then," continued Perner, "when these new names begin to come, we'll commence on the third round of the first issue to the names they send, and so on to a fourth and even a fifth. We must send as many rounds of the first issue as possible, for it contains the first chapters of our serials."

"That's so!" interjected Livingstone, "it does!"

"Of course, our first and second issues," Perner went on, "will have to be dated ahead, because we'll start on them about the 1st of October. But the third issue can come in in regular place, and by the time we get to the third round of the first issue, and the second round of the second issue, and the first round of the third issue, we'll have all the names in this country; and by the second round of the third issue they will all be on our subscription books, and we'll have—even counting that only one out of four families subscribe—we'll have four million subscribers, and at least three million dollars in the bank to get out the paper with for a year, to say nothing of the advertisements, which will bring in on a circulation like that at least twelve thousand dollars a page, or, allowing three pages, about one million eight hundred thousand dollars a year in round numbers."

The clams had come and gone, and the meat had been served. Barrifield made a feeble attempt to do the honors, and Livingstone shaped his lips as if to speak. Neither effort was successful. The four sat silent, looking far beyond the fear of penury and the dreams of avarice into a land where mountains were banked with jewels and all the rivers ran gold. Indeed, the face of Livingstone seemed glorified by a sort of ecstasy. The revulsion fell first upon Van Dorn, and wakened in him that spirit of the ludicrous which was never far distant from any of them.

"It's all right, of course," he began with assumed gravity. "We're certain to be millionaires when we get to going, but what I want to know is whether, in the meantime, we can stand off the printer."

The others laughed.

"You see, I know printers," continued Van Dorn. "I had a cousin who was a printer, and I've seen fellows try to stand him off. He nearly always had his sleeves rolled up, and when a man came to stand him off, he used to walk back to the sink, with the fellow following and talking; and my cousin would wash his hands under the tap while he listened, and then wipe them on the towel that hung over it. You never saw a printer's towel, did you? Well, it isn't a very cheerful thing, and my cousin was just about as cheerful as it was. He'd stand there and listen, and wipe and listen, and not say anything, while the fellow'd talk and talk and look at that towel that hadn't been washed since the shop opened. Then he'd look at my cousin and say some of the things over again in a discouraged sort of a way, and commence to miss connection and slip cogs, and pretty soon he'd sneak off, and my cousin would give one more wipe on the paleozoic towel, and then walk back and say a few things to the press-boys that would knock chunks out of the imposing-stone. Now, what I want to know is if we can go to that fellow with his sleeves rolled up and get the second round of the first issue or the first round of any old issue without the money down."

Van Dorn's remarks slackened the tension somewhat, and after considerable banter all around, Perner explained that they would only want accommodation on a hundred thousand copies or so of the first round of the first issue for a few days until subscriptions began to flow in. Frisby, he reminded them, had found no difficulty in getting a million copies without a dollar, and Perner felt sure that, with the present competition, almost any of the big printing-houses would hug their knees, as Barry had put it, to get the work. There would be some small bills for stationery and composition right at the start, perhaps some for the engraving. These they would discount and settle on presentation.

"We'll have to pay our advertising man's salary, too," he said, "and with this scheme we want to get a good, energetic man and start him out soliciting at the earliest possible moment. He can get enough contracts on the basis of even a million circulation to pay for all the rounds of the first issue, and we can use those contracts as a basis of credit, too, if we have to."

This remark created a visible sensation and a fresh regard for Perner's business experience and energy, which was gradually becoming the backbone of the whole enterprise. Barrifield meantime had pulled himself together and was smoking with his usual deliberation.

"Boys," he said, "we've got the biggest thing on earth. We could win either way, hands down—either with premiums or cash for names. But we want to be certain—certain! We don't want any possibility of failure. And to make assurance doubly sure, I am in favor of using both."

This made something of a sensation. Perner showed combative tendencies.

"We can't afford it, Barry," he said with conviction. "We are already giving twenty-five cents out of our dollar to the fellow who sends the names, and if we give even fifty cents more for a premium we'll have only twenty-five cents left."

Barrifield leaned back and closed his eyes.

"We could afford it," he said, "if we didn't have five cents left. Counting even only a million and a half a year return from the advertising, we could, by producing the papers in such quantity, still pay all expenses and have a hundred thousand or so apiece left at the end of the year. It isn't a good plan to try to make too much the first year. It invites competition. I believe in going moderately and being sure—don't you, fellows?" turning to Van Dorn and Livingstone.

Van Dorn looked over at Perner anxiously.

"I shouldn't wonder if Barry was right, old man," he said in a conciliatory tone.

"We don't have to pay for premiums, you know, until we have money coming in to do it with," added Barrifield.

"That's so," said Livingstone,—"that's so! We'll have both! Suppose we go now, fellows," he added, rather anxiously; "I've got a letter to write."

"Stony's always got a letter to write," commented Van Dorn.

The others nodded, but said nothing.

They arose from the table in vast friendship with each other. The repast had been bountiful. In after days it was referred to as the great dinner.

Also—sometimes—as the last dinner.