The advertising of these books keenly sharpened the publicity sense of the developing advertising director.  One book could best be advertised by the conventional means of the display advertisement; another, like Triumphant Democracy, was best served by sending out to the newspapers a “broadside” of pungent extracts; public curiosity in a story like The Lady, or the Tiger? was, of course, whetted by the publication of literary notes as to the real denouement the author had in mind in writing the story.  Whenever Mr. Stockton came into the office Bok pumped him dry as to his experiences with the story, such as when, at a dinner party, his hostess served an ice-cream lady and a tiger to the author, and the whole company watched which he chose.

“And which did you choose?” asked the advertising director.

“Et tu, Brute?” Stockton smilingly replied.  “Well, I’ll tell you.  I asked the butler to bring me another spoon, and then, with a spoon in each hand, I attacked both the lady and the tiger at the same time.”

Once, when Stockton was going to Boston by the night boat, every room was taken.  The ticket agent recognized the author, and promised to get him a desirable room if the author would tell which he had had in mind, the lady or the tiger.

“Produce the room,” answered Stockton.

The man did.  Stockton paid for it, and then said: 

“To tell you the truth, my friend, I don’t know.”

And that was the truth, as Mr. Stockton confessed to his friends.  The idea of the story had fascinated him; when he began it he purposed to give it a definite ending.  But when he reached the end he didn’t know himself which to produce out of the open door, the lady or the tiger, “and so,” he used to explain, “I made up my mind to leave it hanging in the air.”

When the stories of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Little Lord Fauntleroy were made into plays, Bok was given an opportunity for an entirely different kind of publicity.  Both plays were highly successful; they ran for weeks in succession, and each evening Bok had circulars of the books in every seat of the theatre; he had a table filled with the books in the foyer of each theatre; and he bombarded the newspapers with stories of Mr. Mansfield’s method of making the quick change from one character to the other in the dual role of the Stevenson play, and with anecdotes about the boy Tommy Russell in Mrs. Burnett’s play.  The sale of the books went merrily on, and kept pace with the success of the plays.  And it all sharpened the initiative of the young advertiser and developed his sense for publicity.

One day while waiting in the anteroom of a publishing house to see a member of the firm, he picked up a book and began to read it.  Since he had to wait for nearly an hour, he had read a large part of the volume when he was at last admitted to the private office.  When his business was finished, Bok asked the publisher why this book was not selling.