When Eugene called, Mr. Daniel C. Summerfield was in no great rush about
any particular matter, but he had decided in this case as he had in many
others that it was very important that anyone who wanted anything from
him should be made to wait. Eugene was made to wait a solid hour before
he was informed by an underling that he was very sorry but that other
matters had so detained Mr. Summerfield that it was now impossible for
him to see him at all this day, but that tomorrow at twelve he would be
glad to see him. Eugene was finally admitted on the morrow, however, and
then, at the first glance, Mr. Summerfield liked him. "A man of
intelligence," he thought, as he leaned back in his chair and stared at
him. "A man of force. Young still, wide-eyed, quick, clean looking.
Perhaps I have found someone in this man who will make a good art
director." He smiled, for Summerfield was always good-natured in his
opening relationships--usually so in all of them, and took most people
(his employees and prospective employees particularly) with an air of
superior but genial condescension.
"Sit down! Sit down!" he exclaimed cheerfully and Eugene did so, looking
about at the handsomely decorated walls, the floor which was laid with a
wide, soft, light brown rug, and the mahogany desk, flat-topped, glass
covered, on which lay handsome ornaments of silver, ivory and bronze.
This man looked so keen, so dynamic, like a polished Japanese carving,
hard and smooth.
"Now tell me all about yourself," began Summerfield. "Where do you come
from? Who are you? What have you done?"
"Hold! Hold!" said Eugene easily and tolerantly. "Not so fast. My
history isn't so much. The short and simple annals of the poor. I'll
tell you in two or three sentences."
Summerfield was a little taken back at this abruptness which was
generated by his own attitude; still he liked it. This was something new
to him. His applicant wasn't frightened or apparently even nervous so
far as he could judge. "He is droll," he thought, "sufficiently so--a
man who has seen a number of things evidently. He is easy in manner,
too, and kindly."
"Well," he said smilingly, for Eugene's slowness appealed to him. His
humor was something new in art directors. So far as he could recall, his
predecessors had never had any to speak of.
"Well, I'm an artist," said Eugene, "working on the _World_. Let's hope
that don't militate against me very much."
"It don't," said Summerfield.
"And I want to become an art director because I think I'd make a good
one."
"Why?" asked Summerfield, his even teeth showing amiably.
"Well, because I like to manage men, or I think I do. And they take to
me."
"You know that?"
"I do. In the next place I know too much about art to want to do the
little things that I'm doing. I can do bigger things."
"I like that also," applauded Summerfield. He was thinking that Eugene
was nice and good looking, a little pale and thin to be wholly forceful,
perhaps, he wasn't sure. His hair a little too long. His manner,
perhaps, a bit too deliberate. Still he was nice. Why did he wear a soft
hat? Why did artists always insist on wearing soft hats, most of them?
It was so ridiculous, so unbusinesslike.
"How much do you get?" he added, "if it's a fair question."
"Less than I'm worth," said Eugene. "Only fifty dollars. But I took it
as a sort of health cure. I had a nervous breakdown several years
ago--better now, as Mulvaney used to say--and I don't want to stay at
that. I'm an art director by temperament, or I think I am. Anyhow, here
I am."
"You mean," said Summerfield, "you never ran an art department before?"
"Never."
"Know anything about advertising?"
"I used to think so."
"How long ago was that?"
"When I worked on the Alexandria, Illinois, _Daily Appeal_."
Summerfield smiled. He couldn't help it.
"That's almost as important as the Wickham _Union_, I fancy. It sounds
as if it might have the same wide influence."
"Oh, much more, much more," returned Eugene quietly. "The Alexandria
_Appeal_ had the largest exclusively country circulation of any county
south of the Sangamon."
"I see! I see!" replied Summerfield good-humoredly. "It's all day with
the Wickham _Union_. Well, how was it you came to change your mind?"
"Well, I got a few years older for one thing," said Eugene. "And then I
decided that I was cut out to be the greatest living artist, and then I
came to New York, and in the excitement I almost lost the idea."
"I see."
"But I have it again, thank heaven, tied up back of the house, and here
I am."
"Well, Witla, to tell you the truth you don't look like a real live,
every day, sure-enough art director, but you might make good. You're not
quite art-y enough according to the standards that prevail around this
office. Still I might be willing to take one gosh-awful chance. I
suppose if I do I'll get stung as usual, but I've been stung so often
that I ought to be used to it by now. I feel sort of spotted at times
from the hornets I've hired in the past. But, be that as it may, what do
you think you could do with a real live art directorship if you had it?"
Eugene mused. This persiflage entertained him. He thought Summerfield
would hire him now that they were together.
"Oh, I'd draw my salary first and then I'd see that I had the proper
system of approach so that any one who came to see me would think I was
the King of England, and then I'd----"
"I was really busy yesterday," interpolated Summerfield apologetically.
"I'm satisfied of that," replied Eugene gaily. "And finally I might
condescend, if I were coaxed enough, to do a little work."
This speech at once irritated and amused Mr. Summerfield. He liked a man
of spirit. You could do something with someone who wasn't afraid, even
if he didn't know so much to begin with. And Eugene knew a good deal, he
fancied. Besides, his talk was precisely in his own sarcastic,
semi-humorous vein. Coming from Eugene it did not sound so hard as it
would have coming from himself, but it had his own gay, bantering
attitude of mind in it. He believed Eugene could make good. He wanted to
try him, instanter, anyhow.
"Well, I'll tell you what, Witla," he finally observed. "I don't know
whether you can run this thing or not--the probabilities are all against
you as I have said, but you seem to have some ideas or what might be
made some under my direction, and I think I'll give you a chance. Mind
you, I haven't much confidence. My personal likes usually prove very
fatal to me. Still, you're here, and I like your looks and I haven't
seen anyone else, and so----"
"Thanks," said Eugene.
"Don't thank me. You have a hard job ahead of you if I take you. It's no
child's play. You'd better come with me first and look over the place,"
and he led the way out into the great central room where, because it was
still noon time, there were few people working, but where one could see
just how imposing this business really was.
"Seventy-two stenographers, book-keepers, canvassers and writers and
trade-aid people at their desks," he observed with an easy wave of his
hand, and moved on into the art department, which was in another wing of
the building where a north and east light could be secured. "Here's
where you come in," he observed, throwing open the door where thirty-two
artists' desks and easels were ranged. Eugene was astonished.
"You don't employ that many, do you?" he asked interestedly. Most of the
men were out to lunch.
"From twenty to twenty-five all the time, sometimes more," he said.
"Some on the outside. It depends on the condition of business."
"And how much do you pay them, as a rule?"
"Well, that depends. I think I'll give you seventy-five dollars a week
to begin with, if we come to an understanding. If you make good I'll
make it a hundred dollars a week inside of three months. It all depends.
The others we don't pay so much. The business manager can tell you."
Eugene noticed the evasion. His eyes narrowed. Still there was a good
chance here. Seventy-five dollars was considerably better than fifty and
it might lead to more. He would be his own boss--a man of some
consequence. He could not help stiffening with pride a little as he
looked at the room which Summerfield pointed out to him as his own if he
came--a room where a large, highly polished oak desk was placed and
where some of the Summerfield Advertising Company's art products were
hung on the walls. There was a nice rug on the floor and some
leather-backed chairs.
"Here's where you will be if you come here," said Summerfield.
Eugene gazed round. Certainly life was looking up. How was he to get
this place? On what did it depend? His mind was running forward to
various improvements in his affairs, a better apartment for Angela,
better clothes for her, more entertainment for both of them, freedom
from worry over the future; for a little bank account would soon result
from a place like this.
"Do you do much business a year?" Eugene asked curiously.
"Oh, about two million dollars' worth."
"And you have to make drawings for every ad?"
"Exactly, not one but six or eight sometimes. It depends upon the
ability of the art director. If he does his work right I save money."
Eugene saw the point.
"What became of the other man?" he asked, noting the name of Older
Freeman on the door.
"Oh, he quit," said Summerville, "or rather he saw what was coming and
got out of the way. He was no good. He was too weak. He was turning out
work here which was a joke--some things had to be done over eight and
nine times."
Eugene discovered the wrath and difficulties and opposition which went
with this. Summerfield was a hard man, plainly. He might smile and joke
now, but anyone who took that chair would hear from him constantly. For
a moment Eugene felt as though he could not do it, as though he had
better not try it, and then he thought, "Why shouldn't I? It can't hurt
me. If worst comes to worst, I have my art to fall back on."
"Well, so it goes," he said. "If I don't make good, the door for mine, I
suppose?"
"No, no, nothing so easy," chuckled Summerfield; "the coal chute."
Eugene noticed that he champed his teeth like a nervous horse, and that
he seemed fairly to radiate waves of energy. For himself he winced the
least bit. This was a grim, fighting atmosphere he was coming into. He
would have to fight for his life here--no doubt of that.
"Now," said Summerfield, when they were strolling back to his own
office. "I'll tell you what you might do. I have two propositions, one
from the Sand Perfume Company and another from the American Crystal
Sugar Refining Company which may mean big contracts for me if I can
present them the right line of ideas for advertising. They want to
advertise. The Sand Company wants suggestions for bottles, labels, car
ads, newspaper ads, posters, and so on. The American Crystal Company
wants to sell its sugar in small packages, powdered, grained, cubed,
hexagoned. We want package forms, labels, posters ads, and so on for
that. It's a question of how much novelty, simplicity and force we can
put in the smallest possible space. Now I depend upon my art director to
tell me something about these things. I don't expect him to do
everything. I'm here and I'll help him. I have men in the trade aid
department out there who are wonders at making suggestions along this
line, but the art director is supposed to help. He's the man who is
supposed to have the taste and can execute the proposition in its last
form. Now suppose you take these two ideas and see what you can do with
them. Bring me some suggestions. If they suit me and I think you have
the right note, I'll hire you. If not, well then I won't, and no harm
done. Is that all right?"
"That's all right," said Eugene.
Mr. Summerfield handed him a bundle of papers, catalogues, prospectuses,
communications. "You can look these over if you want to. Take them along
and then bring them back."
Eugene rose.
"I'd like to have two or three days for this," he said. "It's a new
proposition to me. I think I can give you some ideas--I'm not sure.
Anyhow, I'd like to try."
"Go ahead! Go ahead!" said Summerfield, "the more the merrier. And I'll
see you any time you're ready. I have a man out there--Freeman's
assistant--who's running things for me temporarily. Here's luck," and he
waved his hand indifferently.
Eugene went out. Was there ever such a man, so hard, so cold, so
practical! It was a new note to him. He was simply astonished, largely
because he was inexperienced. He had not yet gone up against the
business world as those who try to do anything in a big way commercially
must. This man was getting on his nerves already, making him feel that
he had a tremendous problem before him, making him think that the quiet
realms of art were merely the backwaters of oblivion. Those who did
anything, who were out in the front row of effort, were fighters such as
this man was, raw products of the soil, ruthless, superior, indifferent.
If only he could be that way, he thought. If he could be strong,
defiant, commanding, what a thing it would be. Not to wince, not to
quail, but to stand up firm, square to the world and make people obey.
Oh, what a splendid vision of empire was here before him.