CHAPTER I
PREFACE
BY ONE OF THE FIRM

It will be observed by the literary and commercial world that, in this transaction, the name of the really responsible party does not show on the title-page. I – George Robinson – am that party. When our Mr. Jones objected to the publication of these memoirs unless they appeared as coming from the firm itself, I at once gave way. I had no wish to offend the firm, and, perhaps, encounter a lawsuit for the empty honour of seeing my name advertised as that of an author. We had talked the matter over with our Mr. Brown, who, however, was at that time in affliction, and not able to offer much that was available. One thing he did say; "As we are partners," said Mr. Brown, "let's be partners to the end." "Well," said I, "if you say so, Mr. Brown, so it shall be." I never supposed that Mr. Brown would set the Thames on fire, and soon learnt that he was not the man to amass a fortune by British commerce. He was not made for the guild of Merchant Princes. But he was the senior member of our firm, and I always respected the old-fashioned doctrine of capital in the person of our Mr. Brown.

When Mr. Brown said, "Let's be partners to the end; it won't be for long, Mr. Robinson," I never said another word. "No," said I, "Mr. Brown; you're not what you was – and you're down a peg; I'm not the man to take advantage and go against your last wishes. Whether for long or whether for short, we'll pull through in the same boat to the end. It shall be put on the title-page – 'By One of the Firm.'" "God bless you, Mr. Robinson," said he; "God bless you."

And then Mr. Jones started another objection. The reader will soon realize that anything I do is sure to be wrong with Mr. Jones. It wouldn't be him else. He next declares that I can't write English, and that the book must be corrected, and put out by an editor? Now, when I inform the discerning British Public that every advertisement that has been posted by Brown, Jones, and Robinson, during the last three years has come from my own unaided pen, I think few will doubt my capacity to write the "Memoirs of Brown, Jones, and Robinson," without any editor whatsoever.

On this head I was determined to be firm. What! after preparing, and correcting, and publishing such thousands of advertisements in prose and verse and in every form of which the language is susceptible, to be told that I couldn't write English! It was Jones all over. If there is a party envious of the genius of another party in this sublunary world that party is our Mr. Jones.

But I was again softened by a touching appeal from our senior partner. Mr. Brown, though prosaic enough in his general ideas, was still sometimes given to the Muses; and now, with a melancholy and tender cadence, he quoted the following lines; —

 
"Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For 'tis their nature to.
But 'tis a shameful sight to see, when partners of one firm like we,
Fall out, and chide, and fight!"
 

So I gave in again.

It was then arranged that one of Smith and Elder's young men should look through the manuscript, and make any few alterations which the taste of the public might require. It might be that the sonorous, and, if I may so express myself, magniloquent phraseology in which I was accustomed to invite the attention of the nobility and gentry to our last importations was not suited for the purposes of light literature, such as this. "In fiction, Mr. Robinson, your own unaided talents would doubtless make you great," said to me the editor of this Magazine; "but if I may be allowed an opinion, I do think that in the delicate task of composing memoirs a little assistance may perhaps be not inexpedient."

This was prettily worded; so what with this, and what with our Mr. Brown's poetry, I gave way; but I reserved to myself the right of an epistolary preface in my own name. So here it is.

Ladies and Gentlemen, – I am not a bit ashamed of my part in the following transaction. I have done what little in me lay to further British commerce. British commerce is not now what it was. It is becoming open and free like everything else that is British; – open to the poor man as well as to the rich. That bugbear Capital is a crumbling old tower, and is pretty nigh brought to its last ruin. Credit is the polished shaft of the temple on which the new world of trade will be content to lean. That, I take it, is the one great doctrine of modern commerce. Credit, – credit, – credit. Get credit, and capital will follow. Doesn't the word speak for itself? Must not credit be respectable? And is not the word "respectable" the highest term of praise which can be applied to the British tradesman?

Credit is the polished shaft of the temple. But with what are you to polish it? The stone does not come from the quarry with its gloss on. Man's labour is necessary to give it that beauteous exterior. Then wherewith shall we polish credit? I answer the question at once. With the pumice-stone and sand-paper of advertisement.

Different great men have promulgated the different means by which they have sought to subjugate the world. "Audacity – audacity – audacity," was the lesson which one hero taught. "Agitate – agitate – agitate," was the counsel of a second. "Register – register – register," of a third. But I say – Advertise, advertise, advertise! And I say it again and again – Advertise, advertise, advertise! It is, or should be, the Shibboleth of British commerce. That it certainly will be so I, George Robinson, hereby venture to prophesy, feeling that on this subject something but little short of inspiration has touched my eager pen.

There are those, – men of the old school, who cannot rouse themselves to see and read the signs of the time, men who would have been in the last ranks, let them have lived when they would, – who object to it that it is untrue, – who say that advertisements do not keep the promises which they make. But what says the poet, – he whom we teach our children to read? What says the stern moralist to his wicked mother in the play? "Assume a virtue if you have it not?" and so say I. "Assume a virtue if you have it not." It would be a great trade virtue in a haberdasher to have forty thousand pairs of best hose lying ready for sale in his warehouse. Let him assume that virtue if he have it not. Is not this the way in which we all live, and the only way in which it is possible to live comfortably. A gentleman gives a dinner party. His lady, who has to work all day like a dray-horse and scold the servants besides, to get things into order, loses her temper. We all pretty well know what that means. Well; up to the moment when she has to show, she is as bitter a piece of goods as may be. But, nevertheless, she comes down all smiles, although she knows that at that moment the drunken cook is spoiling the fish. She assumes a virtue, though she has it not; and who will say she is not right?

Well; I say again and again to all young tradesmen; – Advertise, advertise, advertise; – and don't stop to think too much about capital. It is a bugbear. Capital is a bugbear; and it is talked about by those who have it, – and by some that have not so much of it neither, – for the sake of putting down competition, and keeping the market to themselves.

There's the same game going on all the world over; and it's the natural game for mankind to play at. They who's up a bit is all for keeping down them who is down; and they who is down is so very soft through being down, that they've not spirit to force themselves up. Now I saw that very early in life. There is always going on a battle between aristocracy and democracy. Aristocracy likes to keep itself to itself; and democracy is just of the same opinion, only wishes to become aristocracy first.

We of the people are not very fond of dukes; but we'd all like to be dukes well enough ourselves. Now there are dukes in trade as well as in society. Capitalists are our dukes; and as they don't like to have their heels trod upon any more than the other ones, why they are always preaching up capital. It is their star and garter, their coronet, their ermine, their robe of state, their cap of maintenance, their wand of office, their noli me tangere. But stars and garters, caps and wands, and all other noli me tangeres, are gammon to those who can see through them. And capital is gammon. Capital is a very nice thing if you can get it. It is the desirable result of trade. A tradesman looks to end with a capital. But it's gammon to say that he can't begin without it. You might as well say a man can't marry unless he has first got a family. Why, he marries that he may have a family. It's putting the cart before the horse.

It's my opinion that any man can be a duke if so be it's born to him. It requires neither wit nor industry, nor any pushing nor go-ahead whatsoever. A man may sit still in his arm-chair, half asleep half his time, and only half awake the other, and be as good a duke as need be. Well; it's just the same in trade. If a man is born to a dukedom there, if he begins with a large capital, why, I for one would not thank him to be successful. Any fool could do as much as that. He has only to keep on polishing his own star and garter, and there are lots of people to swear that there is no one like him.

But give me the man who can be a duke without being born to it. Give me the man who can go ahead in trade without capital; who can begin the world with a quick pair of hands, a quick brain to govern them, and can end with a capital.

Well, there you are; a young tradesman beginning the world without capital. Capital, though it's a bugbear, nevertheless it's a virtue. Therefore, as you haven't got it, you must assume it. That's credit. Credit I take to be the belief of other people in a thing that doesn't really exist. When you go into your friend Smith's house, and find Mrs. S. all smiles, you give her credit for the sweetest of tempers. Your friend S. knows better; but then you see she's had wit enough to obtain credit. When I draw a bill at three months, and get it done, I do the same thing. That's credit. Give me credit enough, and I don't care a brass button for capital. If I could have but one wish, I would never ask a fairy for a second or a third. Let me have but unreserved credit, and I'll beat any duke of either aristocracy.

To obtain credit the only certain method is to advertise. Advertise, advertise, advertise. That is, assume, assume, assume. Go on assuming your virtue. The more you haven't got it, the more you must assume it. The bitterer your own heart is about that drunken cook and that idle husband who will do nothing to assist you, the sweeter you must smile. Smile sweet enough, and all the world will believe you. Advertise long enough, and credit will come.

But there must be some nous in your advertisements; there must be a system, and there must be some wit in your system. It won't suffice now-a-days to stick up on a blank wall a simple placard to say that you have forty thousand best hose just new arrived. Any wooden-headed fellow can do as much as that. That might have served in the olden times that we hear of, twenty years since; but the game to be successful in these days must be played in another sort of fashion. There must be some finish about your advertisements, something new in your style, something that will startle in your manner. If a man can make himself a real master of this art, we may say that he has learnt his trade, whatever that trade may be. Let him know how to advertise, and the rest will follow.

It may be that I shouldn't boast; but yet I do boast that I have made some little progress in this business. If I haven't yet practised the art in all its perfections, nevertheless I flatter myself I have learned how to practise it. Regarding myself as something of a master of this art, and being actuated by purely philanthropic motives in my wish to make known my experience, I now put these memoirs before the public.

It will, of course, be urged against me that I have not been successful in what I have already attempted, and that our house has failed. This is true. I have not been successful. Our house has failed. But with whom has the fault been? Certainly not in my department.

The fact is, and in this my preface I will not keep the truth back from a discerning public, that no firm on earth, – or indeed elsewhere, – could be successful in which our Mr. Jones is one of the partners. There is an overweening vanity about that man which is quite upsetting. I confess I have been unable to stand it. Vanity is always allied to folly, and the relationship is very close in the person of our Mr. Jones. Of Mr. Brown I will never bring myself to say one disrespectful word. He is not now what he was once. From the bottom of my heart I pity his misfortunes. Think what it must be to be papa to a Goneril and a Regan, – without the Cordelia. I have always looked on Mrs. Jones as a regular Goneril; and as for the Regan, why it seems to me that Miss Brown is likely to be Miss Regan to the end of the chapter.

No; of Mr. Brown I will say nothing disrespectful; but he never was the man to be first partner in an advertising firm. That was our mistake. He had old-fashioned views about capital which were very burdensome. My mistake was this, – that in joining myself with Mr. Brown, I compromised my principles, and held out, as it were, a left hand to capital. He had not much, as will be seen; but he thought a deal of what he had got, and talked a deal of it too. This impeded my wings. This prevented me from soaring. One cannot touch pitch and not be defiled. I have been untrue to myself in having had any dealings on the basis of capital; and hence has it arisen that hitherto I have failed.

I make these confessions hoping that they may be serviceable to trade in general. A man cannot learn a great secret, and the full use of a great secret, all at once. My eyes are now open. I shall not again make so fatal a mistake. I am still young. I have now learned my lesson more thoroughly, and I yet anticipate success with some confidence.

Had Mr. Brown at once taken my advice, had his few thousand pounds been liberally expended in commencing a true system of advertising, we should have been, – I can hardly surmise where we should have been. He was for sticking altogether to the old system. Mr. Jones was for mixing the old and the new, for laying in stock and advertising as well, with a capital of 4,000l! What my opinion is of Mr. Jones I will not now say, but of Mr. Brown I will never utter one word of disparagement.

I have now expressed what few words I wish to say on my own bottom. As to what has been done in the following pages by the young man who has been employed to look over these memoirs and put them into shape, it is not for me to speak. It may be that I think they might have read more natural-like had no other cook had a finger in the pie. The facts, however, are facts still. These have not been cooked.

Ladies and gentlemen, you who have so long distinguished our firm by a liberal patronage, to you I now respectfully appeal, and in showing to you a new article I beg to assure you with perfect confidence that there is nothing equal to it at the price at present in the market. The supply on hand is immense, but as a sale of unprecedented rapidity is anticipated, may I respectfully solicit your early orders? If not approved of the article shall be changed.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We have the honour to subscribe ourselves,

With every respect,

Your most obedient humble servants,

Brown, Jones, and Robinson,

Per George Robinson.