also help out
with the business management."

Perner brightened.

Barrifield rose to go.

"We can't get him any too quick, either," he added. "You've got your
hands about full. I can see that!"

In fact, Perner was beginning to look worn. It had been decided some
weeks previous that a time had arrived when one of them must devote
himself wholly to the affairs of the forthcoming publication, and as
Perner was to be editor as well as manager _pro tem._, besides having
but little cash to put in, as he had confessed in the beginning, he was
selected for the sacrifice. A stated salary was agreed upon, which
amount was to be applied each week on his stock subscription in lieu of
cash. How he was to live on the comfortable-looking, though intangible,
figure that he passed each Saturday to his credit on stock until such
times as returns began to assume definite form, he did not, with all his
business experience, pause to consider. He began at once the task of
shaping their more or less formless fancies, and the equally difficult
one of subsisting on the returns from certain labors already concluded
and disposed of to those periodicals here and there which, in some
unexplained manner, have assumed the privilege of holding matter to suit
their convenience and paying for it on publication. These checks
fluttered in now and then, and were as rare jewels found by the wayside.
He was still confident of success. If his enthusiasm and flesh had
waned the least bit, it was because realities hitherto unconsidered were
becoming daily more assertive and vigorous. Of these there were many.
From the moment of his return from breakfast--two hours earlier than he
had ever thought necessary in the old days--there were men and also
women waiting to see him. The fact of the "Whole Family" had become
known, even as the hunted stag becomes known to birds of prey in the far
empyrean, and solicitors of all kinds had begun to gather at the first
croaking note of rumor.

There were those who wished to advertise it upon illuminated cards set
in frames to be placed in country hotels and railway stations; there
were others who would announce it by a system of painted signs sown
broadcast on the fences; and still others who for a consideration would
display the good news upon dizzy mountain cliffs and the trees of the
mighty forest, where even the four-footed kingdoms might see and rejoice
at the glad tidings.

Of those who solicited for publicati