16 





Miller: can get." Gold was running out rapidly then. 



"That wasn't what I wanted," he said. "I want 

 you to gather 100 empty Velvet cans for me." 



I said, "Where will I get those?" 



He said, "I guess you can go out to the dumps 

 and pick them up." These were tobacco cans, brilliant 

 in color, green and red. He took them back to China. 

 Because the war was on they couldn't get any chemicals 

 in China and they couldn't get any lacquer. By 

 vacuum suction they sucked this red and green lacquer 

 off the Velvet cans and transplanted it onto their 

 toys, so 400 a can was the price we received* That 

 meant $40 every two months; divided by him and me it 

 meant $10 a month to me. This is what saved our lives. 

 You can still find Velvet cans on the market. 



One day I had been working with newspapers and 

 had received an award from the Call Bulletin for the 

 finest slogan in the state of California — I think 

 it was quite a nice award — and I had been put on a 

 lot of publicity campaigns for almost everybody for 

 nothing. This newspaperman, Jack Galvin, came to me 



