The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-06-04
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KT 1cHoLsoN was one of the s7o7. M Every weekday he wore thick l ' soled shoes and his uniform of sray and tramped through the streets and climbed stairs until you would think he would drop from exhaustion. If he ever got weary he never complained. Every one along Park row and the up- per portion of Nassau street knew him as Nick. For more than twenty years he had been in the service of Uncle Sam. The government never had more faith ful postman. Nearly all of those twenty odd years he had been delivering letters to the men of the advertising district. He never was i'll, never was idle, never bad tempered. Why should not he be good-natured, cheerful, buoyant? He had reached the pinnacle of success of the postman. AS a veteran in the service he was getting s12oo a year. He had started as a young man as probationer and had a vivid recollection of his first promo- tion, when he was put on the regular force at $500 a year. Later there came a raise to $500, then to $900, then to slooo. then to $l10o and finally he had reached the limit of possbility-s12O0 year. on the way up he had accumulated family of fine proportions and had clothed. fed ana cared for them through some mar vicious financing.
 Al man cannot go to your office every morning, noon and afternoon year after year for more than twenty years without coming to know you pretty well and get ting to be known pretty we'll Nicholson knew every one in the advertising field, If was not because he was inquisitive. The knowledge came naturally. If let- ter was returned because the clerk to whom 1t was addressed had gone to work for another agency, the information was given to Nicholson along with the letter AI.o4 was likely to hear 1t. He was so genial, go corlpanionable, so kindly that every one liked him. He was 45 or maybe a little more, ripe enough anyhow Tor Os- Ter to get him, but he laughed about his gray hair, joked about the curl to his mustache and simply refused to be old fin manner. There were some advertising men who saw something more in Nichol- son than good nature. They liked to hear his comments on their work. He knew so much about advertising from his long association with advertising men that he had no hesitancy in expressing judg- ment Occasionally man working on some copy and stumped for a wd4d or phrase exactly fitting the idea he had to convey you'd hail the arrival of the post man with delight. "TIey Nick" he would exclalm, tell me what I ought to say here" Nick would be delighted to do so. He had a quick wit. fresh mind and fair faculty TOT turning neat stileHte. Many, many times with a timely sugges- tion he had cleared the fog that had both cred the tired mind of an ad writer. And no one was happier when the fog cleared than Nicholson.
 One of the men who saw more in Nicholson than good nature asked the letter carrier one day to help him out on the title for booklet
 "what Is it about?" asked the mail man.
 ''It's about corsets, and it isn't going to be much bigger than postage stamp"
 "'A Little Book (of course, it's for women)'," the postman suggested!
 "Fine!'' exclaimed the ad. man. And then he proceeded to carry out the idea, only he made the title little longer Just to make sure no one, no matter how denscs Saissed the point. So it was that when the book came out It had a corset picture in one corner and the title was "A Little Book Iof Corsets for Women (of course it's for women)." ]" \ Another ad. man. puzzled for catchy phrase for a particularly serviceable lot of clothing, got this from the post man,-S"You Wear Them Out, But You Never Wear Them Out "
 It delighted the good-natured post man to see his ideas adopted. Possibly, In the goodness of his heart, he would be scattering them about prodigally today but for some shrewd advertising man, who saw there was gold mine in