Perkins of Portland by Ellis Parker Butler

BEFORE my friend Perkins became famous throughout the advertising world, -- and what part of the world does not advertise, -- he was at one time a soliciting agent for a company that controlled the "patent insides" of a thousand or more small Western newspapers. Later, my friend Perkins startled America by his renowned advertising campaign for Pratt's hats; and, instead of being plain Mr. Perkins of Chicago, he blossomed into Perkins of Portland. Still later, when he put Perkins's Patent Porous Plaster on the market, he became great; became Perkins the Great, in fact; and now advertisers, agents, publishers, and the world in general, bow down and worship him.

But I love to turn at times from the blaze of his present glory to those far-off days when he was still a struggling amateur, just as we like to read of Napoleon's early history, tracing in the small beginnings of their lives the little rivulets of genius that later overwhelmed the world, and caused the universe to pause in stupefaction.