of the table. "It's about those funeral baked meats,
you know," Fulkerson explained, "and I was trying to give Mr. Dryfoos
some idea of what we wanted to do. That is, what I wanted to do," he
continued, turning from March to Dryfoos. "March, here, is opposed to
it, of course. He'd like to publish 'Every Other Week' on the sly;
keep it out of the papers, and off the newsstands; he's a modest Boston
petunia, and he shrinks from publicity; but I am not that kind of
herb myself, and I want all the publicity we can get--beg, borrow, or
steal--for this thing. I say that you can't work the sacred rites of
hospitality in a better cause, and what I propose is a little dinner for
the purpose of recognizing the hit we've made with this thing. My
idea was to strike you for the necessary funds, and do the thing on a
handsome scale. The term little dinner is a mere figure of speech. A
little dinner wouldn't make a big talk, and what we want is the big
talk, at present, if we don't lay up a cent. My notion was that pretty
soon after Lent, now, when everybody is feeling just right, we
should begin to send out our paragraphs, affirmative, negative, and
explanatory, and along about the first of May we should sit down about
a hundred strong, the most distinguished people in the country, and
solemnize our triumph. There it is in a nutshell. I might expand and I
might expound, but that's the sum and substance of it."

Fulkerson stopped, and ran his eyes eagerly over the faces of his
three listeners, one after the other. March was a little surprised when
Dryfoos turned to him, but that reference of the question seemed to give
Fulkerson particular pleasure: "What do you think, Mr. March?"

The editor leaned back in his chair. "I don't pretend to have Mr.
Fulkerson's genius for advertising; but it seems to me a little early
yet. We might celebrate later when we've got more to celebrate. At
present we're a pleasing novelty, rather than a fixed fact."

"Ah, you don't get the idea!" said Fulkerson. "What we want to do with
this dinner is to fix the fact."

"Am I going to come in anywhere?" the old man interrupted.

"You're going to come in at the head of the procession! We are going to
strike everything that is imaginative and romantic in the newspaper soul
with you and your history and your fancy for going in for this thing.
I can start you in a paragraph that will travel through all the
newspapers, from Maine to Texas and from Alaska to Fl