'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're going to have variety in our title-pages, and we are going to