Which brings us to the plush photograph album. The plush
photograph album is a concrete example of what makes
business failure and success. More than that, its brief
history presents a complete characterization of Ferdinand
and Molly Brandeis.
Ten years before, Ferdinand Brandeis had bought a large bill
of Christmas fancy-goods--celluloid toilette sets, leather
collar boxes, velvet glove cases. Among the lot was a
photograph album in the shape of a huge acorn done in
lightning-struck plush. It was a hideous thing, and
expensive. It stood on a brass stand, and its leaves were
edged in gilt, and its color was a nauseous green and blue,
and it was altogether the sort of thing to grace the chill
and funereal best room in a Wisconsin farmhouse. Ferdinand
Brandeis marked it at six dollars and stood it up for the
Christmas trade. That had been ten years before. It was
too expensive; or too pretentious, or perhaps even too
horrible for the bucolic purse. At any rate, it had been
taken out, brushed, dusted, and placed on its stand every
holiday season for ten years.
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