fr THE ^>s 



STYLISH STORE 



STEAMS UP 



SALES 



Better your store and boost your sales. The one thing surely follows 

 the other. It's not only logic; it's truth. Experience has proved time and 

 again that hetterment in appearance of a store is at once followed hy^ffk- 

 provement in profits. A good-looking store attracts people the same as a 

 pretty girl. 



NCE in a while — not often, 

 thank heaven — you hear a 

 man say, "I've got a 

 nice, steady trade. I 

 should worry about the 

 looks of my store. "Why 

 should I spend a lot of 

 money just for a little 

 style?" The man does 

 himself an injustice, no 

 doubt; he really does pay a lit- 

 tle attention to the appearance of 

 his store — he has it swept regularly, 

 the windows washed every so often, and 

 things kept more or less in order. But 

 so far as busying his brain about im- 

 provement, he is correct in his state- 

 ment, "he should worry," but does^n't. 



The Worth of Worry. 



Of course, as he says, or might say, 

 his cash register never gets rusty. But, 

 on the other hand, it will never wear 

 out with overuse. Its tempo is always 

 moderato. It doesn't play a funeral 

 march — at least, it hasn't yet. How- 

 ever, that joyful, jumpy tune, the 

 "Cash-Register Rag," is likewise out- 

 side its repertoire — and probably always 

 will be. 



It would pay him, 

 as it would pay many 

 others, who though 

 they have never put 

 them into words, en- 

 tertain similar senti- 

 ments, to worry a lit- 

 tle about looks. That 

 is, give some serious, 

 searching thought to 

 the subject of "My 

 Store; How It Looks 

 and How It Might 

 Look." 



You ask why? 

 Well, when you are 

 going along the 

 street, thinking about 

 how rotten business 

 is, or how much like 

 dishrags that last cut 

 of Killarneys looked, 

 or how you might 

 have bowled 200 the 

 night before if you 

 had only had three 

 more strikes, distrib- 

 uted properly; when, 

 I say, .you are thus 

 perambulating in a 

 meditative mood, and 

 something suddenly 

 catches your eye, 

 driving your thoughts 

 thitherward, what is 



that something? Is it a bum, a work- 

 man, an ordinary business man, or some 

 respectable representative of the modest 

 male? Is it a prim and proper school- 

 ma'am, or a plain and placid female 

 person of fifty? Counsel for the defense 

 will save the witness the bother of a re- 

 ply by answering for him, it is not. No, 

 it is some gaily clad little piece of 

 femininity, whose power of attraction 

 lies in her freshness — of youth, not of 

 manner — and her good looks. 



Now, don't be led away from the 

 point by this flow of figurative lan- 

 guage, but watch your step, and look 

 for the moral. It is just this, that good 

 looks are a powerful force of attrac- 

 tion, possibly second only to the force 

 of gravity. And there are some kinds 

 of gravity, a deacon 's, for instance, 

 that give way before the attraction of 

 •^ood looks. 



For this reason, the attraction of 

 good looks, the housewife patronizes 

 the new grocery instead of the old one. 

 Though it is only her imagination, she 

 looks for dust on the cans and pack- 

 ages from the old, dark store, and 

 seems to see brighter colors on the la- 



New Store and Conservatory o{ Pierce & G>.» Baltimore. 



bels of those from the new stor^. So, 

 though it, too, is perhaps only a figment 

 of her fancy, she thinks that the roses 

 from the old flower store are not quite 

 so fresh as those from the new store 

 up^ the street, or the carnations not 

 quite so bright as those in the windows 

 of the other place. 



Human Nature. 



Well, what of it, if it's only her 

 imagination? Just this, that most peo- 

 ple follow their feelings, whether they 

 be fancy or fact, rather than the most 

 logical conclusions reached through the 

 exercise of their reasoning powers. The 

 aforesaid housewife will agree with 

 you that, in regard to both the grocer's 

 and the florist's, she was led solely by 

 her imagination, because she knows both 

 places to be of the best. But she will 

 continue to trade at the n«w- stores; 

 your arguments, and her agreement 

 with them, to the contrary notwith- 

 standing. 



Convince Johnny, Jr., some night, 

 that there are no inhabitants, natural 

 or supernatural, in his dark bedroom, 

 put the Bible in one hand and the Lives 

 of the Saints in his 

 other, and start him 

 up the dark stairs 

 singing "Onward, 

 Christian Soldiers." 

 It is a safe bet that 

 he will never reach 

 the last line or' the 

 door of his bedroom. 

 "He saw some- 

 thing," despite your 

 arguments and his 

 belief in their sound- 

 ness. 



Most people "see 

 things," in a similar 

 way, though not the 

 same things. The 

 dust on the can from 

 the old grocery store 

 was as unreal as 

 Johnny's ghost, but 

 the reason for it was 

 the same — human na- 

 ture. 



The wise business 

 man uses arguments 

 when they are effec- 

 tive, but when they 

 are not, he knows 

 enough to make use 

 of just this quality 

 of human nature. It 

 is human nature to 

 J)refer n'ew"" things, 

 good looking things, 



