Page:The Science of Advertising (1910).djvu/10

6 where they had to begin suddenly to choose food and supplies for themselves. And with those advertisements I matched off half the remaining articles. Already, too, I had matched off a few of those articles twice.

I recalled then the rows of advertisements in the street cars opposite which these young people had been riding every day for years; and with the car cards which I remembered, I matched off all but one of the remaining cans, boxes, and jars upon the shelves and one of the cakes of soap over the sink. More labels now were matched off twice and a couple of them three times.

The other cake of soap, as I looked at it, reminded me suddenly of the billboards which surrounded a vacant lot a little way down the street and of others scattered all over the city. With the advertisements upon these boards I matched off that soap, the box which I had omitted before and a few of the other articles I had checked off already once or twice.

I opened the bin then and looked at the name stencilled upon the full flour sack. It fitted a very familiar magazine advertisement, a street car card whereto I and my friend had sat opposite half an hour a day morning and evening, and also a ten foot poster which he had had to pass a hundred times a month. I believe that at that very time, too, or just previously, the