deal, he did not exactly trust him. The man was in a
way too brilliant, he thought. He was a little too airy and light on his
feet.

Under pretext of helping his work and directing his policy without
actually interfering so that it might eventually prove a failure, White
was constantly making suggestions. He made suggestions which he told
Colfax Eugene ought to try in the circulation department. He made
suggestions which he thought he might find advisable to try in the
advertising department. He had suggestions, gathered from Heaven knows
where, for the magazines and books, and these he invariably sent through
Colfax, taking good care, however, that the various department heads
knew from what source they had originally emanated. It was his plan to
speak to Hayes or Gillmore, who was in charge of circulation, or one of
the editors about some thought that was in his mind and then have that
same thought come as an order via Eugene. The latter was so anxious to
make good, so good-natured in his interpretation of suggestions, that it
did not occur to him, for a long time, that he was being played. The men
under him, however, realized that something was happening, for White was
hand and glove with Colfax, and the two were not always in accord with
Eugene. He was not quite as powerful as White, was the first impression,
and later the idea got about that Eugene and White did not agree
temperamentally and that White was the stronger and would win.

It is not possible to go into the long, slow multitudinous incidents and
details which go to make up office politics, but anyone who has ever
worked in a large or small organization anywhere will understand. Eugene
was not a politician. He knew nothing of the delicate art of
misrepresentation as it was practised by White and those who were of his
peculiarly subtle mental tendencies. White did not like Eugene, and he
proposed to have his power curbed. Some of Eugene's editors, after a
time, began to find it difficult to get things as they wanted them from
the printing department, and, when they complained, it was explained
that they were of a disorderly and quarrelsome disposition. Some of his
advertising men made mistakes in statement or presentation, and
curiously these errors almost invariably came to light. Eugene found
that his strong men were most quickly relieved of their difficulties if
they approached White, but if they came to him it was not quite so easy.
Instead of ignorin