smanaged it would never have come into my
hands at all. Why, Witla, I want to tell you one little fact in
connection with that organization which will illustrate everything else
which might be said in connection with it before I came here! They were
wasting twenty thousand dollars a year on ink alone. We were publishing
a hundred absolutely useless books that did not sell enough to pay for
the cost of printing, let alone the paper, plates, typework and cost of
distribution. I think it's safe to say we lost over a hundred thousand
dollars a year that way. The magazines were running down. They haven't
waked up sufficiently yet to suit me. But I'm looking for men. I'm
really looking for one man eventually who will take charge of all that
editorial and art work and make it into something exceptional. He wants
to be a man who can handle men. If I can get the right man I will even
include the advertising department, for that really belongs with the
literary and art sections. It depends on the man."

He looked significantly at Eugene, who sat there stroking his upper lip
with his hand.

"Well," he said thoughtfully, "that ought to make a very nice place for
someone. Who have you in mind?"

"No one as yet that I'm absolutely sure of. I have one man in mind who I
think might come to fill the position after he had had a look about the
organization and a chance to study its needs a little. It's a hard
position to hold. It requires a man with imagination, tact, judgment. He
would have to be a sort of vice-Colfax, for I can't give my attention
permanently to that business. I don't want to. I have bigger fish to
fry. But I want someone who will eventually be my other self in these
departments, who can get along with Florence White and the men under him
and hold his own in his own world. I want a sort of bi-partisan
commission down there--each man supreme in his own realm."

"It sounds interesting," said Eugene thoughtfully. "Who's your man?"

"As I say, he isn't quite ready yet, in my judgment, but he is near it,
and he's the right man! He's in this room now. You're the man I'm
thinking about, Witla."

"No," said Eugene quietly.

"Yes; you," replied Colfax.

"You flatter me," he said, with a deprecatory wave of his hand. "I'm not
so sure that he is."

"Oh, yes, he is, if he thinks he is!" replied Colfax emphatically.
"Opportunity doesn't knock in vain at a real man's door. At least, I
don't believe it will knock here and n