ADVERTISING: How the Mop Flops

Along Manhattan’s Madison Avenue, where no one ups periscope without first checking with the research boys, admen were passing around the latest gag:

The research director of a major agency was ordered to prepare a study about fleas. He put a flea on his desk and trained it to jump over his finger at his command. Then he pulled out two of the flea’s six legs. “Jump,” he ordered, and the flea still jumped. Two more legs came off. Again the flea jumped. Finally, he pulled off the last two. “Jump,” he commanded. The flea did not move. With that, the research director wrote his report: “When a flea loses all six legs, it becomes deaf.”