Kipling once, when sojourning in a far country, complained bitterly of the thoughtlessness of his friends at home in sending him a batch of magazines shorn (to save postage) of all the advertisements. Which shows that the most grown-up of artists may still have the heart of a child.

For my part, if I were forced to make choice between the advertising pages and the reading matter (so-called), I should in nine periodicals out of ten choose the former.

To the grown-up child the advertising section of the magazine takes the place of the Shop-Window of infancy through which, with bulging eyes and mouth agape, like some mazed minnow staring at the submerged Rhine-Gold, he once gazed at the tinsel treasure so bitterly beyond his penny’s reach.

And now, just as far out of reach as ever, in the display-window of the advertising page, the grown-up child gazes at the miraculous Motor-Car gliding, velvet shod, through palmy solitudes reflecting the rays of the setting sun with a splendor out-Solomoning Solomon.

Or the “Home Beautiful,” constructed throughout of selected materials of distinctive quality, and roofed with spark-proof shingles of the most refined pastel tints, “just the home you have dreamed about at a price that will dumfound you! Enclose this coupon with your order.”

Again it is the magical cabinet that brings into your very lap as it were the Galli-Curci, the Tetrazzini or any other “ini,” “owski” or “elli” it may please your fancy to pick from its golden perch in the operatic aviary.

And what a relief to turn from the magazine pictures of the slick-haired hero and the slinky heroine of fiction (perpetually vis-À-vis yet always looking past each other)—to turn from these to the very attractive, intelligent-looking girls of the advertising pages, girls exquisitely coiffed, gowned and silk-hosed and ever happily employed in some useful task: this one (in the Paquin “trottoir” of mouse-colored voile) joyously propelling a vacuum-cleaner, this (in the afternoon toilette of tricolette) mixing the ingredients for a custard pie in a forget-me-not-blue Wedgwood bowl, and this, not less lovely than either of her sisters, polishing a bathtub with some magic powder till it glistens like a Childs’ restaurant.

Now, any one of these dear girls, on her face alone—not to mention her graceful carriage and delicately moulded stockings—might without the least effort in the world have obtained a position as a Star in a Musical Comedy—with her picture in the Cosmopolitan or Vanity Fair at least once a fortnight—but she prefers the simple household task, the vacuum cleaner, the spotless oil-stove, the shining bathtub to the plaudits of the masses.

And this is only one of the many lessons that are to be learned from the advertising pages. Who can look at the busy little Dutch lady in the blue frock and white cap and apron, stick in hand, chasing the Demon Dirt in street cars, subway and elevated stations, billboards and electric signs, all over town, all over the continent for that matter—who can look at the determined back of that fierce little lady (no one has ever seen her face, save the Demon) without inwardly swearing that wherever Demon Dirt may show his face, whether it be on the stage, the picture screen or the printed page of fiction he will do unto him even as doth the Little Dutch Lady with the big stick—

Or is it a rolling pin?