Then the happy owner somehow loses his job, and his new automobile, with its two signals, electric lighter and radio set, is returned to its real owner, the finance company which gave him the easy terms.

That's the trouble! They don't sell him trash, but really fine things. In recent years the production of objects of mass consumption has reached perfection in America. Well, now, how can you restrain yourself and refrain from buying a new vacuum cleaner in spite of the fact that the old one is good enough to use for another ten years?

Not long ago in New York a new method of advertising was begun.

Into the apartment of a New Yorker who has been through the mill and knows all the ropes enters a man and says :

"Hello. I am a chef. I want to cook a good nourishing dinner for you and your guests—with my groceries."

Noticing a sardonic smile on the face of the New Yorker, the newcomer adds hastily :

"It will not cost you a single cent. I make only two conditions. In the first place, the dinner must be cooked in my pots, which I will bring with me, and, in the second place, you must invite no fewer than seven ladies to the dinner."

On the appointed day the chef comes with his pots and prepares a palatable dinner. Toward the end of the banquet he solemnly appears in the dining-room, asks whether the guests are satisfied with the dinner, and writes down the addresses of the women present. Everybody is delighted with the dinner. The chef modestly tells them that a dinner like that can be cooked by any housewife, if she will only use his special pots. The entire company goes into the kitchen and examines the pots. Every one of them is divided into three sections. They have some kind of special bottom which presumably aids the preservation of vitamins. However, there is very little untruth here. The pots are really good, and the conditions of purchase are easy. The next day the chef goes to the various addresses and closes his deals. The enchanted housewives purchase full sets of pots. Again—deferred payments. The pots are actually better than the old. But it is no easier to live. On the contrary, it is harder, because there are additional debts.

No! Electric signs and newspaper advertisements are merely the preparatory work.

Every year in America an interesting event occurs. A building company, having united with the society of architects and electric firms, builds a house. It is something like Mr. Ripley's house. But there, in addition to the electric novelties, everything is a novelty—the architecture, the building materials, the furniture, even the yard. Having built this house, the entrepreneurs, consolidating on a commercial basis, announce a national competition for the description of this house. Any citizen of the United States is free to describe this house, in verse or in prose. The author of the best description receives the best-described house as his premium. This event does not fail to arouse tremendous interest. The last time the house was received by a poor sixteen-year-old girl. The newspapers were glad to print her biography and portrait. She was offered a job in the advertising department of a large enterprise—but the girl is, of course, beside the point. The point is that, carried away by her startling happiness, the readers were carried away at the same time with projects for perfecting their own lives. In the evenings fathers of families put on their spectacles and, pencil in hand, calculated that the purchase of such a house on very easy terms was not such a terrible thing at all: the first payment would come to so many dollars, and then ...

Leaving the hospitable Mr. Ripley, we thanked him and in farewell we asked:

"Now you have lost several hours because of us. You knew very well that we would not buy a refrigerator or a stove, didn't you?"

"But maybe some day you will write about my little house," replied the grey-haired, pink-cheeked gentleman. " Good publicity is never wasted."

14 America Cannot Be Caught Napping

WHEN WE had driven thirty miles away from Schenectady, Mrs. Adams said to her husband:

"It's getting cold; put on your hat."

Mr. Adams fidgeted for some time, rose a little and searched his seat with his hands. Then, groaning, he bent over and began to look under his feet. Finally he turned to us.

"Gentlemen," he said, in a tearful voice, "will you look and see whether my hat is back there?"

There was no hat.

Mrs. Adams drew up to the side. We got out of the machine and began to search systematically. We examined the baggage rack, we opened all the suitcases. Mr. Adams even slapped his pockets. The hat had disappeared.

"And yet," remarked Mr. Adams, "I remember quite distinctly that I had a hat."

"Do you really remember it?" asked his wife with a smile that made Mr. Adams quake. "What an excellent memory!"

"It is quite incomprehensible!" muttered Mr. Adams. "An excellent hat. . ."

"You forgot your hat in Schenectady!" exclaimed his wife.

"But, Becky, Becky, don't talk like that—forgot in Schenectady! Oh, no! It hurts me to hear you say that I forgot my hat in Schenectady."

"Well, then, where is it?"

"No. Becky, seriously, how can I tell you where it is?"

He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and began to mop his head with it.

"What is this?" asked Mrs. Adams.

"This is a handkerchief, Becky!"

"This is not a handkerchief. This is a napkin. Let me have it. That's just what it is—a napkin with the initials of the hotel. How did it get into your pocket? "

Mr. Adams squirmed. He stood beside the machine, the collar of his coat turned up, and impatiently stood first on one foot, then on the other. Drops of rain fell on his bald head.

We began to consider the newly arisen situation with some heat. We decided that we had seen the hat for the last time in the hotel restaurant. It lay on a chair beside Mr. Adams. During luncheon there was a great argument about the Italo-Abyssinian War.

"Evidently it was then that you shoved the napkin into your pocket instead of your handkerchief!" Mrs. Adams conjectured.

"Ach, Becky, you must not talk like that—put a napkin in my pocket! No, no, no!It is cruel of you to talk like that!"

"What shall we do, then? Go back to Schenectady to get your hat?"

"No, gentlemen," said Mr. Adams, who by this time had managed to recover from the shock, " that would be a silly thing to do—to return to Schenectady. Would it be a wise thing to do? My hat cost four dollars in 1930, plus cleaning in 1933, fifty cents: altogether, four dollars and fifty cents."

Mr. Adams took a pencil and a notebook out of his pocket and began to calculate.

"In its present condition my hat is worth no more than a dollar-fifty. It is sixty miles to Schenectady and back. Our car makes on an average of sixteen—well, let us say, fifteen—miles per gallon of petrol. Altogether we would have to spend four gallons at sixteen cents per gallon; total, sixty-four cents. Now we must take into consideration the amortization of the automobile, expenses for oil and grease. Seriously, it would be silly to return to Schenectady for my hat."

Mrs. Adams suggested that we return the napkin by mail, asking the management of the hotel to send the hat to General Delivery, say in Detroit, where we would be two days later.

While we were lunching at a small cafe in the next little town, which was either Springfield or Geneva, Mr. Adams went to the post office. He soon returned with the proud and independent air of a man who had fulfilled his duty.