The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-12-08
A sAPoNAcEous EXPERIENCE.
The Beautiful Strategy Resorted to b
Stranded Thespians.

The Beautiful Strategy Resorted to by
Stranded Thespians.
Snipkins was young chap who was
pretty badly stagestruck, and who on the
slightest provocation would organize a
dramatic company or minstrel troupe
and set out with promises to entertain
the villagers in the neighboring counties.
Once when the young manager had ven
tured considerable distance from home
with such dramatic company he found
himself in a little Illinois town utterly
unable to pay the man who had brought
him and his company in farm wagon
from the last village. The man was in
clined to make trouble, so the manager,
urged by necessity, invented a means of
raising the required two or three dollars.
He communicated his plan to one Of his
actors, whom we will call Jones.
According to the programme made
up, Snipkins cut a bar of ordinary laun-
dry soap into twenty-four little cakes,
each of which he wrapped IN a small
piece of cheap tinsel paper. These were
thrown into small satchel, and Jones,
taking an old guitar Zone of the stage
properties), went with the satchel to a
prominent corner, where he summoned
a crowd with singing and playing.
Then he opened the satchel and in
formed the people that he was there to
sell few cakes of soap warranted to re-
move grease spots from clothing
thing utterly new and cheap as dirt
only twenty-five cents for cake that
would last a year. He called up man
from the crowd, and with wet sponge
and some of this soap removed the dust
from grease spot on his black coat,
and made it look so bright that every
body thought he really had removed the
grease.
On the strength of this he sold nine
cakes of the soap and pocketed $2.25.
Then, when business seemed at an end,
he began to blow his personal horn. He
told the people that he was the most
popular and successful soap seller in the
universe; that he could sing more songs,
play more tunes, and sell more soap than
anybody else on earth. He talked so
loudly about his gifts that the people
were becoming disguised with him and
would soon have left him alone, but
Snipkins, who stood in the edge of the
crowd and helped the people sheer at the
soap seller, shouted:
"You are good deal stuck on your
self, anyway" EF
81 have right to be-" said Jones; II
can sell more soap than anybody"
There was some badinage in which
Snipkins had the crowd with him, and
so, of course, came out ahead. Then he
said to Jones:
81 never sold cake of soap in my
life, but I'll bet SO I can sell more in
the next fifteen minutes than you have
sold in the last half hour" --
Done" said Jones, and Snipkins
mounted the box.
"Now, gentlemen" said he politely,
and in strong contrast to Jones' cheeky
manner, 81 don't know whether this
soap is good for anything or not, but it
rests with you to say whether this fell
low shall be taught that he cannot i'm
pose upon intelligent people with his i'm
pudent braggardism."
In two minutes Snipkins had sold all
but three of the cakes-twelve to Jones'
nine.
Now" said Snipkins, holding up the
remaining three, 81 may as well sell the
fellow out SO you people won't be
troubled any more with him. Who'll
give fifty cents for the last three cakes?"
Jones protested that he could not af-
ford to sell it SO cheaply.
81 was to have fifteen minutes" said
land only five have passed;
and there was no stipulation about
price"
Unjust as this was, it tickled the
crowd, and the three cakes were sold i'm
mediately. Snipkins, who was rather a
jolly young fellow and good talker,
was by this time favorite, and it was
soon noised about that he was the star
actor of the company to play there that
night So the proceeds from the bar of
soap, which had cost ten cents, were
So. 10 immediate money, and the hall in
which the performance was given that
night held much larger audience than
would have been there had not this soap
episode made the star so popular
Washington Post.