The Story of Ginger Cubes/Chapter 2

by Christopher Morley

Layout 4

II.

[A letter from the Proprietor of the Ginger Cubes to his Advertising Manager, who is ill in hospital.]

Dear Russell: I am glad to hear from Dr. Nichevo that you are doing well. He reports that in your delirium you had visions of nothing but full page insertions, so I realize that you must have been a very sick man. I am glad you are coming out of it. The Doctor says that a little quiet meditation on business problems will help to bring you back to "normalcy."

So you might think this over. I have just been telling the boys at our conference this morning that I want our advertising matter for the Ginger Cubes to be distinguished. I've been much impressed, for

"Some suggestive layouts that make my head spin."

 

instance, by those ads that Childs restaurants have been running for some time, in which they make use of historians, philosophers, poets, and what not, to introduce the topic of food. I am wondering whether, in your extensive reading, you have come across any literature in which Ginger or Cubes have been written about in a pleasing, sentimental strain? Miss Balboa thinks that Shakespeare said something about Ginger being "hot in the mouth," but I am a little afraid of that word hot. How about

These Cubes from the South
Are Warm in the Mouth

What I want you to do is tell me what the resources of literature 'are in the way of quotations about Ginger.

Some of the boys are much taken by a suggestion that has come in from the Gray Matter Advertising Agency, who somehow got wind of our plans. Mr. Gray, the Psychology Director of Gray Matter Agency, wants us to mark the cubes with little spots of white sugar, so that they look like dice. Here's the joker: he wants us to pack them in little boxes in which half the cubes will be marked as five-spots and half as deuces, using the slogan, They Always Turn Up Seven.

That seems to me a bit complicated, but I must admit that I'm rather struck by the idea of advertising the Cubes as Digestive Dice. I'm having the idea of marking them with sugar spots looked into, to see what it will cost. I visualize a subway poster showing the cubes tumbling out of a dice shaker, with the words Throw These for Good Health. Do you think that is too distinctly masculine an appeal? But think of getting this idea across to the lunching public, of always carrying a box of the Ginger Cubes in their vest pocket (we could have the box shaped like a little dice-shaker, hey?), they can use them to throw for who is to pay the check, and then eat them. Can you put that thought in twelve words?

What a pity that neither of us is married, and has no wife to fall back on for advice in this delicate matter. Miss Balboa, my new stenographer, thinks that women would not be attracted by this gambling note; she says that women are born Dutch-treaters, and do not fall for the idea of settling the lunch-check by mere chance. Please see what the hospital nurses think about this.

This man Gray, from the Gray Matter Agency, is a whirlwind. He has shot in some suggestive layouts for car-cards that make my head spin. These are some of his inspirations—

Digestive Dice

Mean Luck for the Liver

TRY GINGER CUBES

 

For a Chew in the Tubes

Choose Ginger Cubes

 

And he has doped out a map showing the whole digestive apparatus laid out like a subway system, and the Ginger Cubes keep traffic moving.

All this seems to me a bit too unconventional, although I confess I am amused by the originality. Tell me what your reaction is. I'm sending you some of the Cubes to distribute among the nurses.

Yours,

NICHOLAS RIBSTONE,

President The Ginger Cubes Corporation.

N.R./D.B.