n't
tell about the effect of either style on the sales; but you'll spoil the
whole character of the cover if you use anything thicker than that
thickish paper."

"All right; very good; first-rate. The ayes have it. Paper it is. I don't
mind telling you that we had decided for that paper before you came in.
Mr. March wanted it, because he felt in his bones just the way you do
about it, and Mr. Dryfoos wanted it, because he's the counting-room
incarnate, and it's cheaper; and I 'wanted it, because I always like to
go with the majority. Now what do you think of that little design
itself?"

"The sketch?" Beaton pulled the book toward him again and looked at it
again. "Rather decorative. Drawing's not remarkable. Graceful; rather
nice." He pushed the book away again, and Fulkerson pulled it to his aide
of the table.

"Well, that's a piece of that amateur trash you despise so much. I went
to a painter I know-by-the-way, he was guilty of suggesting you for this
thing, but I told him I was ahead of him--and I got him to submit my idea
to one of his class, and that's the result. Well, now, there ain't
anything in this world that sells a book like a pretty cover, and we're
going to have a pretty cover for 'Every Other Week' every time. We've cut
loose from the old traditional quarto literary newspaper size, and we've
cut loose from the old two-column big page magazine size; we're going to
have a duodecimo page, clear black print, and paper that 'll make your
mouth water; and we're going to have a fresh illustration for the cover
of each number, and we ain't agoing to give the public any rest at all.
Sometimes we're going to have a delicate little landscape like this, and
sometimes we're going to have an indelicate little figure, or as much so
as the law will allow."

The young man leaning against the mantelpiece blushed a sort of protest.

March smiled and said, dryly, "Those are the numbers that Mr. Fulkerson
is going to edit himself."

"Exactly. And Mr. Beaton, here, is going to supply the floating females,
gracefully airing themselves against a sunset or something of that kind."
Beaton frowned in embarrassment, while Fulkerson went on philosophically;
"It's astonishing how you fellows can keep it up at this stage of the
proceedings; you can paint things that your harshest critic would be
ashamed to describe accurately; you're as free as the theatre. But that's
neither here nor there. What I'm after is the fact that we'r