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Updated: May 23, 2025
Surtaine, glossy, grave, a figure to fill the eye roundly, sat at his glass-topped table facing his audience. Above him hung Old Lame-Boy, eternally hobbling amidst his fervid implications. Waving the newcomers to seats directly in front of him, the presiding genius lifted a benign hand for silence. "My friends," he said, in his unctuous, rolling voice, "I have an important announcement to make.
There ain't one of our advertising tricks, from Old Lame-Boy down to the money-back guarantee, that the others haven't crabbed. Take that 'People's Doctor' racket. Schwarzman copied it for his Marovian Mixture. Vollmer ran his 'Poor Man's Physician' copy six months, on Marsh-Weed. 'Poor Man's Doctor'! It's pretty dear treatment, I tell you." "Surely not," said Hal. "Sure is it!
And then in dominant presentment "What do you think of Old Lame-Boy?" asked Dr. Surtaine. "From an æsthetic point of view?" "Never mind the æsthetics of it. 'Handsome is as handsome does." "What has that faded beauty done, then?" "Carried many a thousand of our money to bank for us, Boyee. That's the ad. that made the business." "Did you design it?"
Old Lame-Boy, bearer of dollars to the bank, loomed up, a disturbing figure. Then, from a recess in his memory, there popped out the word "genteel." His father had characterized the Certina business as being, possibly, not sufficiently "genteel" for him. He caught at the saving suggestion. Doubtless that was the trouble.
He seated himself at his desk and proceeded to jot down, with apparent carelessness, but in broad, sweeping lines, a type lay-out, while his guest passed from advertisement to advertisement, in increasing admiration. Before Old Lame-Boy he paused, absolutely fascinated. "I thought that'd get you," exulted the host, who, between strokes of the creative pen had been watching him.
What's the worst thing about doctors' doses? They're nasty. The very thought of 'em would gag a cat. Tell people that here's a remedy better than the old medicine and pleasant to the taste, and they'll take to it like ducks to water. Certina is the first proprietary that ever tasted good. Next to Old Lame-Boy, it's my biggest idea." "Are we going into the mixing-room?" asked his son.
He's the best little worrier in the trade, Old Lame-Boy is. He just pesters folks into taking proper care of themselves. They get Certina, and we get their dollars. And they get their money's worth, too," he added as an afterthought for Hal's benefit, "for it's a mighty good thing to have your kidneys tonicked up at this time of year."
From the testimonial room they went to the art department where Dr. Surtaine had some suggestions to make as to bill-board designs. "You'll never get another puller like Old Lame-Boy," Hal heard the head designer say with a chuckle, and his father reply: "If I could I'd start another proprietary as big as Certina."
"I've seen it in the newspaper, but never connected it with you. Being out of the medical line I lost interest. Say, it's a wonder! Did it fetch 'em?" "Fetch 'em? It knocked 'em flat. That picture's the foundation of this business. Talk about suggestion in advertising! He's a regular hypnotist, Old Lame-Boy is. Plants the suggestion right in the small of your back, where we want it.
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