284  SELLING  LATIN  AMERICA

are  great  consumers  of  canned  salmon,  and  our
Western  fisheries  supply  much  of  the  article.
One  firm  in  San  Francisco  had  a  brand  well
liked  and  very  famous  among  the  Celestials.
The  label  on  the  tin  showed  a  highly  colored
salmon  having  the  wrong  number  of  fins,  with
tail  elevated  in  the  act  of  leaping  over  a  waterfall ­
  down  stream,  while  the  background  was
filled  with  tropical  palms  and  cocoanut  trees.
The  trade  mark  was  simplicity  itself,  and  was
recognized  with  favor  all  over  the  Flowery
Kingdom.  Higher  education  however  completely ­
  removed  the  brand  from  the  map.
The  head  of  the  house  had  a  son  just  from
college,  who  had  been  recently  admitted  to
the  firm.  He  started  to  clean  up  things—to
be  100  per  cent,  efficient.  His  aesthetic  and
educated  eye  at  once  saw  that  the  label  on  the
brand  which  had  made  the  firm’s  fortune  was
a  living  lie.  Salmon  were  not  colored  like
the  rainbow;  leaped  up  stream  only;  had  less
fins  and  depressed  their  tails  when  doing  acrobatic ­
  feats.  And  horror  of  horrors—no
tropical  palms  or  cocoanut  trees  grew  in  the