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 literature without any particular reference
to it. Well, I understand