actical hand, one that's in touch
with what's going. I'm getting further and further away from this century
and its claptrap. I don't believe in your enterprise; I don't respect it,
and I won't have anything to do with it. It would-choke me, that kind of
thing."

"That's all right," said Fulkerson. He esteemed a man who was not going
to let himself go cheap. "Or if it isn't, we can make it. You and March
will pull together first-rate. I don't care how much ideal you put into
the thing; the more the better. I can look after the other end of the
schooner myself."

"You don't understand me," said Beaton. "I'm not trying to get a rise out
of you. I'm in earnest. What you want is some man who can have patience
with mediocrity putting on the style of genius, and with genius turning
mediocrity on his hands. I haven't any luck with men; I don't get on with
them; I'm not popular." Beaton recognized the fact with the satisfaction
which it somehow always brings to human pride.

"So much the better!" Fulkerson was ready for him at this point. "I don't
want you to work the old-established racket the reputations. When I want
them I'll go to them with a pocketful of rocks--knock-down argument. But
my idea is to deal with the volunteer material. Look at the way the
periodicals are carried on now! Names! names! names! In a country that's
just boiling over with literary and artistic ability of every kind the
new fellows have no chance. The editors all engage their material. I
don't believe there are fifty volunteer contributions printed in a year
in all the New York magazines. It's all wrong; it's suicidal. 'Every
Other Week' is going back to the good old anonymous system, the only fair
system. It's worked well in literature, and it will work well in art."

"It won't work well in art," said Beaton. "There you have a totally
different set of conditions. What you'll get by inviting volunteer
illustrations will be a lot of amateur trash. And how are you going to
submit your literature for illustration? It can't be done. At any rate, I
won't undertake to do it."

"We'll get up a School of Illustration," said Fulkerson, with cynical
security. "You can read the things and explain 'em, and your pupils can
make their sketches under your eye. They wouldn't be much further out
than most illustrations are if they never knew what they were
illustrating. You might select from what comes in and make up a sort of
pictorial variations to the litera