"Now, you think this thing over, March, and let me know the last of next
week," said Fulkerson. He got up from the chair which he had been sitting
astride, with his face to its back, and tilting toward March on its
hind-legs, and came and rapped upon his table with his thin bamboo stick.
"What you want to do is to get out of the insurance business, anyway. You
acknowledge that yourself. You never liked it, and now it makes you sick;
in other words, it's killing you. You ain't an insurance man by nature.
You're a natural-born literary man, and you've been going against the
grain. Now, I offer you a chance to go with the grain. I don't say you're
going to make your everlasting fortune, but I'll give you a living
salary, and if the thing succeeds you'll share in its success. We'll all
share in its success. That's the beauty of it. I tell you, March, this is
the greatest idea that has been struck since"--Fulkerson stopped and
searched his mind for a fit image--"since the creation of man."
He put his leg up over the corner of March's table and gave himself a
sharp cut on the thigh, and leaned forward to get the full effect of his
words upon his listener.
March had his hands clasped together behind his head, and he took one of
them down long enough to put his inkstand and mucilage-bottle out of
Fulkerson's way. After many years' experiment of a mustache and whiskers,
he now wore his grizzled beard full, but cropped close; it gave him a
certain grimness, corrected by the gentleness of his eyes.
"Some people don't think much of the creation of man nowadays. Why stop
at that? Why not say since the morning stars sang together?"
"No, sir; no, sir! I don't want to claim too much, and I draw the line at
the creation of man. I'm satisfied with that. But if you want to ring the
morning stars into the prospectus all right; I won't go back on you."
"But I don't understand why you've set your mind on me," March said. "I
haven't had any magazine experience, you know that; and I haven't
seriously attempted to do anything in literature since I was married. I
gave up smoking and the Muse together. I suppose I could still manage a
cigar, but I don't believe I could--"
"Muse worth a cent." Fulkerson took the thought out of his mouth and put
it into his own words. "I know. Well, I don't want you to. I don't care
if you never write a line for the thing, though you needn't reject
anything of yours, if it happens to be good, on that account. And I don't
want much experience in my editor; rather not have it. You told me,
didn't you, that you used to do some newspaper work before you settled
down?"
"Yes; I thought my lines were permanently cast in those places once. It
was more an accident than anything else that I got into the insurance
business. I suppose I secretly hoped that if I made my living by
something utterly different, I could come more freshly to literature
proper in my leisure."
"I see; and you found the insurance business too many, for you. Well,
anyway, you've always had a hankering for the inkpots; and the fact that
you first gave me the idea of this thing shows that you've done more or
less thinking about magazines."
"Yes--less."
"Well, all right. Now don't you be troubled. I know what I want,
generally, speaking, and in this particular instance I want you. I might
get a man of more experience, but I should probably get a man of more
prejudice and self-conceit along with him, and a man with a following of
the literary hangers-on that are sure to get round an editor sooner or
later. I want to start fair, and I've found out in the syndicate business
all the men that are worth having. But they know me, and they don't know
you, and that's where we shall have the pull on them. They won't be able
to work the thing. Don't you be anxious about the experience. I've got
experience enough of my own to run a dozen editors. What I want is an
editor who has taste, and you've got it; and conscience, and you've got
it; and horse sense, and you've got that. And I like you because you're a
Western man, and I'm another. I do cotton to a Western man when I find
him off East here, holding his own with the best of 'em, and showing 'em
that he's just as much civilized as they are. We both know what it is to
have our bright home in the setting sun; heigh?"
"I think we Western men who've come East are apt to take ourselves a
little too objectively and to feel ourselves rather more representative
than we need," March remarked.