His Character Could Go if the Customers Would Come.

Otago Witness, Issue 2013, 22 September 1892, Page 46

His Character Could Go if the Customers Would Come.

As he shot into the editorial arena he wiped his bald head with a gaudy silk handkerchief.

"I want to be attacked," he said, and he winked at the answers-to-corre*pondents editor.

••The mau who attacks people, and who sheds- the innocent gore of indignant readers who have had their names spplt wrong in the paper, can be found down that passage, second door on the left," said the mild younsj person who was inditing an answer to Julia B.s request for a recipe to remove freckles from her ear. " You misunderstand my meaning, young man," said the strauger as ho dived into the side pocket of his dust coat and produced a business card, on which was printed : B. H. PULKERHAM, dealer in Choice Teas, Unparalleled Coffee, Cheapest Sugars, and all Kinds of Family Groceries, Domestic and Imported, at the Great Continental Stoke and Home Supply Emporium, 93 High street. " Well, Mr Pulkerham, what can we do for you ? said the editor. "You see, mister, it's just this way," said the grocer, as he took a chair. "Business ain't what it ought to be, and ordinary advertising don't seem to draw trade worth a bad sixpence. Now, ever since Scheidelhoff, whe keeps the tea shop at the corner, was accused iv the papers of having two wives living, one iv prison and t'other presiding over an apple stall in the borough, the women flock to his shop, and he is doing a blazing business. Now I was just thinking that if one of you smart young men would just write up a column or so about me and say as how I had eloped with the two beautiful daughters of one of our leading residents — need not mention names, you know — and that my wife, for the sake of the family, has kept the horrid secret to herself, it might draw. I tell you, if you work it right, all of Schejdelhoff's customers will just pour round to my shop within a week, I'll go away fi6h-

ing for a few dayß to make tho thing look feasible like, and the sympathy that my wife will get and the trade she'll do will give my business a boom that will tide us over these dull times."

" You are not half as much of a fool as you look,'* said the editor. " Well, that's neither here nor there. You send up one of your young men to take the bearings of my place and to get some points as to my bad character from the neighbours. Give me a whole column ; don't spare me ; say that I keep my old grandmother chained in the cellar. Pile it on as thick as you have a mind to. A whole column, remember, on the first page, with big headlines. I will pay advertisement rates."