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He had me write for them in my hand and give fictitious names, and
he threw away the dunning letters, of course, and said all of these
people calculated losses into what they charged. He sent away for
everything that was free-samples of food, soaps, medicine, the
literature of all causes, reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology
and publications of the Smithsonian Institute, the Bishop Museum in
Hawaii, the Congressional Record, laws, prospectuses, college cata–
logues, quack hygiene books, advice on bust-development, on get–
ting rid of pimples, on longevity and Coue-ism, pamphlets on Fletch–
erism, Yoga, spirit-rapping, anti-vivisection; he was on the mailing list
of the Henry George Institute and the Rudolf Steiner Foundation in
London, the Bar Association, the American Legion. He had to
be
in touch with everything. And all this material he kept; the overflow
went down to the basement. Bavatsky or I, or Lollie Fewter who
came in three days a week to do the ironing, carried it below. Some
of it, when it went out of print, he sold to bookstores or libraries,
and some he remailed to his clients with the Einhorn stamp on it,
for goodwill. He had much to do also with contests and entered every
competition he got wind of, suggesting names for new products, slo–
gans; he made up bright sayings and most embarrassing moments,
most delightful dreams, omens he should have heeded, telepathic
experiences and jingles.
When radio first appeared, I did rave,
And all my pennies I did save,
Even neglected to shave.
I'll take my dear Dynamic to the grave.
He won the
Evening American's
first prize of five dollars with
this, and one of my jobs was to see that what was sent out to con–
tests, anagrams on the names of Presidents or on the capitals of states,
or elephants composed of tiny numbers (making what sum?), that
these entries were neat, mounted right, inside ruled borders, ac–
companied by the necessary coupons, box-tops and labels. Further–
more, I had to do reference work for him in his study or at the
library downtown, one of his projects being to put out an edition
of Shakespeare indexed as the Gideon Bible was: Slack Business, Bad
Weather, Difficult Customers, Stuck with Big Inventory of Last
Year's Models, Woman, Marriage, Partners. One thousand and one
catchpenny deals, no order too big, no sum too small. And, all the
