March and Beaton remained alone together for a moment, and March said: "I
hope you will think it worth while to take hold with us, Mr. Beaton. Mr.
Fulkerson puts it in his own way, of course; but we really want to make a
nice thing of the magazine." He had that timidity of the elder in the
presence of the younger man which the younger, preoccupied with his own
timidity in the presence of the elder, cannot imagine. Besides, March was
aware of the gulf that divided him as a literary man from Beaton as an
artist, and he only ventured to feel his way toward sympathy with him.
"We want to make it good; we want to make it high. Fulkerson is right
about aiming to please the women, but of course he caricatures the way of
going about it."
For answer, Beaton flung out, "I can't go in for a thing I don't
understand the plan of."
March took it for granted that he had wounded some exposed sensibility
of Beaton's. He continued still more deferentially: "Mr. Fulkerson's
notion--I must say the notion is his, evolved from his syndicate
experience--is that we shall do best in fiction to confine ourselves to
short stories, and make each number complete in itself. He found that the
most successful things he could furnish his newspapers were short
stories; we Americans are supposed to excel in writing them; and most
people begin with them in fiction; and it's Mr. Fulkerson's idea to work
unknown talent, as he says, and so he thinks he can not only get them
easily, but can gradually form a school of short-story writers. I can't
say I follow him altogether, but I respect his experience. We shall not
despise translations of short stories, but otherwise the matter will all
be original, and, of course, it won't all be short stories. We shall use
sketches of travel, and essays, and little dramatic studies, and bits of
biography and history; but all very light, and always short enough to be
completed in a single number. Mr. Fulkerson believes in pictures, and
most of the things would be capable of illustration."
"I see," said Beaton.
"I don't know but this is the whole affair," said March, beginning to
stiffen a little at the young man's reticence.
"I understand. Thank you for taking the trouble to explain.
Good-morning." Beaton bowed himself off, without offering to shake hands.
Fulkerson came in after a while from the outer office, and Mr. Dryfoos
followed him. "Well, what do you think of our art editor?"
"Is he our art editor?" asked March. "I wasn't quite certain when he
left."
"Did he take the books?"
"Yes, he took the books."
"I guess he's all right, then." Fulkerson added, in concession to the
umbrage he detected in March.
"Beaton has his times of being the greatest ass in the solar system, but
he usually takes it out in personal conduct. When it comes to work, he's
a regular horse."
"He appears to have compromised for the present by being a perfect mule,"
said March.
"Well, he's in a transition state," Fulkerson allowed. "He's the man for
us. He really understands what we want. You'll see; he'll catch on. That
lurid glare of his will wear off in the course of time. He's really a
good fellow when you take him off his guard; and he's full of ideas. He's
spread out over a good deal of ground at present, and so he's pretty
thin; but come to gather him up into a lump, there's a good deal of
substance to him. Yes, there is. He's a first-rate critic, and he's a
nice fellow with the other artists. They laugh at his universality, but
they all like him. He's the best kind of a teacher when he condescends to
it; and he's just the man to deal with our volunteer work. Yes, sir, he's
a prize. Well, I must go now."
Fulkerson went out of the street door, and then came quickly back.
"By-the-bye, March, I saw that old dynamiter of yours round at Beaton's
room yesterday."
"What old dynamiter of mine?"
"That old one-handed Dutchman--friend of your youth--the one we saw at
Maroni's--"
"Oh-Lindau!" said March, with a vague pang of self reproach for having
thought of Lindau so little after the first flood of his tender feeling
toward him was past.
"Yes, our versatile friend was modelling him as Judas Iscariot. Lindau
makes a first-rate Judas, and Beaton has got a big thing in that head if
he works the religious people right. But what I was thinking of was
this--it struck me just as I was going out of the door: Didn't you tell
me Lindau knew forty or fifty, different languages?"
"Four or five, yes."
"Well, we won't quarrel about the number. The question is, Why not work
him in the field of foreign literature? You can't go over all their
reviews and magazines, and he could do the smelling for you, if you could
trust his nose. Would he know a good thing?"
"I think he would," said March, on whom the scope of Fulkerson's
suggestion gradually opened. "He used to have good taste, and he must
know the ground. Why, it's a capital idea, Fulkerson! Lindau wrote very
fair English, and he could translate, with a little revision."
"And he would probably work cheap. Well, hadn't you better see him about
it? I guess it 'll be quite a windfall for him."
"Yes, it will. I'll look him up. Thank you for the suggestion,
Fulkerson."
"Oh, don't mention it! I don't mind doing 'Every Other Week' a good turn
now and then when it comes in my way." Fulkerson went out again, and this
time March was finally left with Mr. Dryfoos.
"Mrs. March was very sorry not to be at home when your sisters called the
other day. She wished me to ask if they had any afternoon in particular.
There was none on your mother's card."
"No, sir," said the young man, with a flush of embarrassment that seemed
habitual with him. "She has no day. She's at home almost every day. She
hardly ever goes out."
"Might we come some evening?" March asked. "We should be very glad to do
that, if she would excuse the informality. Then I could come with Mrs.
March."
"Mother isn't very formal," said the young man. "She would be very glad
to see you."
"Then we'll come some night this week, if you will let us. When do you
expect your father back?"
"Not much before Christmas. He's trying to settle up some things at
Moffitt."
"And what do you think of our art editor?" asked March, with a smile, for
the change of subject.
"Oh, I don't know much about such things," said the young man, with
another of his embarrassed flushes. "Mr. Fulkerson seems to feel sure
that he is the one for us."
"Mr. Fulkerson seemed to think that I was the one for you, too," said
March; and he laughed. "That's what makes me doubt his infallibility. But
he couldn't do worse with Mr. Beaton."
Mr. Dryfoos reddened and looked down, as if unable or unwilling to cope
with the difficulty of making a polite protest against March's
self-depreciation. He said, after a moment: "It's new business to all of
us except Mr. Fulkerson. But I think it will succeed. I think we can do
some good in it."
March asked rather absently, "Some good?" Then he added: "Oh yes; I think
we can. What do you mean by good? Improve the public taste? Elevate the
standard of literature? Give young authors and artists a chance?"
This was the only good that had ever been in March's mind, except the
good that was to come in a material way from his success, to himself and
to his family.
"I don't know," said the young man; and he looked down in a shamefaced
fashion. He lifted his head and looked into March's face. "I suppose I
was thinking that some time we might help along. If we were to have those
sketches of yours about life in every part of New York--"
March's authorial vanity was tickled. "Fulkerson has been talking to you
about them? He seemed to think they would be a card. He believes that
there's no subject so fascinating to the general average of people
throughout the country as life in New York City; and he liked my notion
of doing these things." March hoped that Dryfoos would answer that
Fulkerson was perfectly enthusiastic about his notion; but he did not
need this stimulus, and, at any rate, he went on without it. "The fact
is, it's something that struck my fancy the moment I came here; I found
myself intensely interested in the place, and I began to make notes,
consciously and unconsciously, at once. Yes, I believe I can get
something quite attractive out of it. I don't in the least know what it
will be yet, except that it will be very desultory; and I couldn't at all
say when I can get at it. If we postpone the first number till February I
might get a little paper into that. Yes, I think it might be a good thing
for us," March said, with modest self-appreciation.
"If you can make the comfortable people understand how the uncomfortable
people live, it will be a very good thing, Mr. March. Sometimes it seems
to me that the only trouble is that we don't know one another well
enough; and that the first thing is to do this." The young fellow spoke
with the seriousness in which the beauty of his face resided. Whenever he
laughed his face looked weak, even silly. It seemed to be a sense of this
that made him hang his head or turn it away at such times.
"That's true," said March, from the surface only. "And then, those phases
of low life are immensely picturesque. Of course, we must try to get the
contrasts of luxury for the sake of the full effect. That won't be so
easy. You can't penetrate to the dinner-party of a millionaire under the
wing of a detective as you could to a carouse in Mulberry Street, or to
his children's nursery with a philanthropist as you can to a street-boy's
lodging-house." March laughed, and again the young man turned his head
away. "Still, something can be done in that way by tact and patience."