"Now, let's think about that a little, Witla," he said quietly. "It's a flattering offer. You'd be foolish if you didn't give itcareful consideration. Do you know anything about the organization of that place over there?"
"No," replied Eugene, "nothing except what I learned by casually going over it with Mr. Colfax."
"Do you know much about Colfax as a man?"
"Very little. I've only met him twice. He's forceful, dramatic, a man with lots of ideas. I understand he's very rich, three or four millions, someone told me."
Kalvin's hand moved indifferently. "Do you like him?"
"Well, I can't say yet absolutely whether I do or don't. He interests me a lot. He's wonderfully dynamic. I'm sure I'm favorably impressed with him."
"And he wants to give you charge eventually of all the magazines and books, the publishing end?"
"So he says," said Eugene.
"I'd go a little slow if I were saddling myself with that responsibility. I'd want to be sure that I knew all about it. You want to remember, Witla, that running one department under the direction and with the sympathetic assistance and consideration of someone over you is very different from running four or five departments on your own responsibility and with no one over you except someone who wants intelligent guidance from you. Colfax, as I understand him, isn't a publisher, either by tendency or training or education. He's a financier. He'll want you, if you take that position, to tell him how it shall be done. Now, unless you know a great deal about the publishing business, you have a difficult task in that. I don't want to appear to be throwing cold water on your natural ambition to get up in the world. You're entitled to go higher if you can. No one in your circle of acquaintances would wish you more luck than I will if you decide to go. I want you to think carefully of what you are doing. Where you are here you are perfectly safe, or as nearly safe as any man is who behaves himself and maintains his natural force and energy can be. It's only natural that you should expect more money in the face of this offer, and I shall be perfectly willing to give it to you. I intended, as you possibly expected, to do somewhat better for you by January. I'll say now that if you want to stay here you can have fourteen thousand now and possibly sixteen thousand in a year or a year and a half from now. I don't want to overload this department with what I consider an undue salary. I think sixteen thousand dollars, when it is paid, will be high for the work that is done here, but you're a good man and I'm perfectly willing to pay it to you.
The thing for you to do is to make up your mind whether this proposition which I now make you is safer and more in accord with your desires than the one Mr. Colfax makes you. With him your eighteen thousand begins at once. With me sixteen thousand is a year away, anyhow. With him you have promise of an outlook which is much more glittering than any you can reasonably hope for here, but you want to remember that the difficulties will be, of course, proportionately greater. You know something about me by now. You still—and don't think I want to do him any injustice; I don't—have to learn about Mr. Colfax. Now, I'd advise you to think carefully before you act. Study the situation over there before you accept it. The United Magazines Corporation is a great concern. I have no doubt that under Mr. Colfax's management it has a brilliant future in store for it. He is an able man. If you finally decide to go, come and tell me and there will be no hard feelings one way or the other. If you decide to stay, the new salary arrangement goes into effect at once. As a matter of fact, I might as well have Mr. Fredericks credit that up to you so that you can say that you have drawn that sum here. It won't do you any harm. Then we can run along as before. I know it isn't good business as a rule to try and keep a man who has been poisoned by a bigger offer, and because I know that is the reason why I am only offering you fourteen thousand dollars this year. I want to be sure that you are sure that you want to stay. See?"
He smiled.
Eugene arose. "I see," he said. "You are one of the best men I have ever known, Mr. Kalvin. You have constantly treated me with more consideration than I ever expected to receive anywhere. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to work for you. If I stay, it will be because I want to because I value your friendship."
"Well," said Kalvin quietly, "that's very nice, I'm sure, and I appreciate it. But don't let your friendship for me or your sense of gratitude stop you from doing something you think you ought to do. Go ahead if you feel like it. I won't feel the least bit angry with you. I'll feel sorry, but that's neither here nor there. Life is a constant condition of readjustment, and every good business man knows it."
He took Eugene's extended hand.
"Good luck," he said, "whatever you do"—his favorite expression.
The upshot of Eugene's final speculation was that he accepted the offer of the United Magazines Corporation and left Mr. Kalvin. Colfax had written one day to his house asking him what he thought he would do about it. The more he had turned it over in his mind, the more it had grown in attraction. The Colfax company was erecting a tremendous building, eighteen stories high, in the heart of the middle business district in New York near Union Square, to house all their departments. Colfax had said at the time Eugene took dinner with him that the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth floors would be devoted to the editorial, publication, circulation, art, and advertising departments. He had asked Eugene what he had thought would be a good floor arrangement, and the latter, with his usual facility for scheming such things, had scratched on a piece of paper a tentative layout for the various departments. He had put the editorial and art departments on the topmost floor, giving the publisher, whoever he might eventually prove to be, a commanding position in a central room on the western side of the building which overlooked all the city between the Square and Hudson River, and showed that magnificent body of water as a panorama for the eye to feast upon. He had put the advertising and some overflow editorial rooms on the seventeenth floor, and the circulation with its attendant mailing and cabinet record rooms on the sixteenth. The publisher's and editor's rooms he laid out after an old Flemish scheme he had long had in mind, in which green, dark blue, blood-red and black walnut shades contrasted richly with the flood of light which would be available.
"You might as well do this thing right if you do it at all," he had said to Colfax. "Nearly all the editorial offices I have ever seen have been the flimsiest makeshifts. A rich-looking editorial, art and advertising department would help your company a great deal. It has advertising value."
He recalled as he spoke Summerfield's theory that a look of prosperity was about the most valuable asset a house could have.
Colfax agreed with him, and said when the time came that he wished Eugene would do him the favor to come and look the thing over. "I have two good architects on the job," he explained,"but I would rather trust your ideas as to how those rooms should be laid out."
When he was considering this final call for a decision he was thinking how this floor would look—how rich it would be. Eventually, if he succeeded, his office would be the most sumptuous thing in it. He would be the most conspicuous figure in the great, new building, apart from Colfax himself.
Thoughts of this kind, which ought to have had but very little share in any commercial speculation, were nevertheless uppermost in Eugene's mind; for he was not a business man—he was primarily an artist, and for all his floundering round in the commercial world he remained an artist still. His sense of his coming dignity and standing before the world was almost greater than his sense of the terrifying responsibility which it involved. Colfax was a hard man, he knew, harder even than Summerfield, for he talked less and acted more; but this did not sink into Eugene's consciousness sufficiently to worry him. He fancied he was a strong man, able to hold his own anywhere.
Angela was really not very much opposed to the change, though her natural conservatism made her worry and hesitate to approve. It was a great step forward if Eugene succeeded, but if he failed it would be such a loss.
"Colfax has so much faith in me," he told her. "He's convinced that I can do it, and faith like that is a great help. I'd like to try it, anyhow. It can't do me any harm. If I think I can't handle the publishing proposition I'll stick to the advertising end."
"All right," said Angela, "but I scarcely know what to advise. They've been so nice to you over here."
"I'll try it," said Eugene determinedly. "Nothing venture, nothing have," and he informed Kalvin the same day.
The latter looked at him solemnly, his keen gray eyes contemplating the situation from all points of view. "Well, Eugene," he said, "you're shouldering a great responsibility. It's difficult. Think carefully of everything that you do. I'm sorry to see you go. Good-bye."
He had the feeling that Eugene was making a mistake—that he would do better to rest a while where he was; but persuasion was useless. It would only give Eugene the notion that he was more important than he was—make matters more difficult in the future.
Kalvin had heard a number of things concerning Colfax recently, and he fancied that Eugene might find it hard to deal with him later. The general impression was that he was subjectto sudden likes and dislikes which did not bear the test of time. He was said to be scarcely human enough to be the effective head of a great working corporation.
The truth was that this general opinion was quite correct. Colfax was as hard as steel but of a smiling and delightful presence to those he fancied. Vanity was really his other name, and ambition with him knew no bounds. He hoped to make a tremendous success of his life, to be looked up to as an imposing financier, and he wantedmen—only strong men about him. Eugene seemed to Colfax to be a strong man, and the day he finally communicated with him saying that he thought that he would accept his offer but that he wished to talk to him further, Colfax threw his hat up in the air, slapped his side partner White on the back, and exclaimed: "Whee! Florrie! There's a trick I've scored for this corporation. There's a man, unless I am greatly mistaken, will do something here. He's young but he's all right. He's got the looks on you and me, Florrie, but we can stand that, can't we?"
White eyed him, with a show of joy and satisfaction which was purely simulated. He had seen many editors and many advertising men in his time. To his judgment they were nearly all lightweights, men who were easily satisfied with the little toy wherewith he or anyone might decide to gratify their vanity. This was probably another case in point, but if a real publisher were coming in here it would not be so well with him. He might attempt to crowd in on his authority or at least divide it with him. That did not appeal to his personal vanity. It really put a stumbling block in his path, for he hoped to rule here some day alone. Why was it that Colfax was so eager to have the authority in this house divided? Was it because he was somewhat afraid of him? He thought so, and he was exceedingly close to the truth when he thought so.
"Florrie's a good lieutenant," Colfax said to himself, "but he needs to be counterbalanced here by someone who will represent the refinements and that intellectual superiority which the world respects."
He wanted this refinement and intellectual superiority to be popular with the public, and to produce results in the shape of increased circulation for his magazines and books. These two would then act as checks each to the other, thus preventing the house from becoming overweighted in either direction. Then he could drive this team as a grand master—the man who had selected both, whose ideas they represented, and whose judgmentthey respected. The world of finance and trade would know they were nothing without him.
What Eugene thought and what White thought of this prospective situation was that the other would naturally be the minor figure, and that he under Colfax would be the shining light. Eugene was convinced that the house without proper artistic and intellectual dominance was nothing. White was convinced that without sane commercial management it was a failure and that this was the thing to look to. Money could buy brains.
Colfax introduced Eugene to White on the morning he arrived to take charge, for on the previous occasions when he had been there White was absent. The two looked at each other and immediately suspended judgment, for both were able men. Eugene saw White as an interesting type—tall, leathery, swaggering, a back-street bully evolved into the semblance of a gentleman. White saw in Eugene a nervous, refined, semi-emotional literary and artistic type who had, however, a curious versatility and virility not common among those whom he had previously encountered. He was exceedingly forceful but not poised. That he could eventually undermine him if he could not dominate him he did not doubt. Still he was coming in with the backing of Colfax and a great reputation, and it might not be easy. Eugene made him feel nervous. He wondered as he looked at him whether Colfax would really make him general literary, artistic and advertising administrator, or whether he would remain simply advertising manager as he now entered. Colfax had not accepted Eugene for more than that.
"Here he is, Florrie," Colfax had said of Eugene, in introducing him to White. "This is the man I've been talking about. Witla—Mr. White. White—Mr. Witla. You two want to get together for the good of this house in the future. What do you think of each other?"
Eugene had previously noted the peculiarity of this rowdy, rah! rah! attitude on the part of Colfax. He seemed to have no sense of the conventions of social address and conference at any time.
"Now, by God," Colfax exclaimed, striking his right fist against his left palm, "unless I am greatly mistaken, this house is going to begin to move! I'm not positive that I have the man I want, but I think I have. White, let's stroll around and introduce him."
White swaggered to the office door.
"Sure," he said quietly. "An exceptional man," he said to himself.
Colfax was almost beside himself with satisfaction, for he was subject to emotional flushes which, however, related to self-aggrandizement only. He walked with a great stride (little as he was), which was his wont when he was feeling particularly satisfied. He talked in a loud voice, for he wanted everyone to know that he, Hiram Colfax, was about and as forceful as the lord of so great an institution should be. He could yell and scream something like a woman in a paroxysm of rage when he was thwarted or irritated. Eugene did not know that as yet.
"Here's one of the printing floors," he said to Eugene, throwing open a door which revealed a room full of thundering presses of giant size. "Where's Dodson, boy? Where's Dodson? Tell him to come here. He's foreman of our printing department," he added, turning to Eugene, as the printer's devil, who had been working at a press, scurried away to find his master. "I told you, I guess, that we have thirty of these presses. There are four more floors just like this."
"So you did," replied Eugene. "It certainly is a great concern. I can see that the possibilities of a thing like this are almost limitless."
"Limitless—I should say! It depends on what you can do with this," and he tapped Eugene's forehead. "If you do your part right, and he does his"—turning to White—"there won't be any limit to what this house can do. That remains to be seen."
Just then Dodson came bustling up, a shrewd, keen henchman of White's, and looked at Eugene curiously.
"Dodson, Mr. Witla, the new advertising manager. He's going to try to help pay for all this wasteful presswork you're doing. Witla, Mr. Dodson, manager of the printing department."
The two men shook hands. Eugene felt in a way as though he were talking to an underling, and did not pay very definite attention to him. Dodson resented his attitude somewhat, but gave no sign. His loyalty was to White, and he felt himself perfectly safe under that man's supervision.
The next visit was to the composing room where a vast army of men were working away at type racks and linotype machines. A short, fat, ink-streaked foreman in a green striped apron that looked as though it might have been made of bed ticking came forward to greet them ingratiatingly. He was plainly nervousat their presence, and withdrew his hand when Eugene offered to take it.
"It's too dirty," he said. "I'll take the will for the deed, Mr. Witla."
More explanations and laudations of the extent of the business followed.
Then came the circulation department with its head, a tall dark man who looked solemnly at Eugene, uncertain as to what place he was to have in the organization and uncertain as to what attitude he should ultimately have to take. White was "butting into his affairs," as he told his wife, and he did not know where it would end. He had heard rumors to the effect that there was to be a new man soon who was to have great authority over various departments. Was this he?
There came next the editors of the various magazines, who viewed this triumphal procession with more or less contempt, for to them both Colfax and White were raw, uncouth upstarts blazoning their material superiority in loud-mouthed phrases. Colfax talked too loud and was too vainglorious. White was too hard, bitter and unreasoning. They hated them both with a secret hate but there was no escaping their domination. The need of living salaries held all in obsequious subjection.
"Here's Mr. Marchwood," Colfax said inconsiderately of the editor of theInternational Review. "He thinks he's making a wonderful publication of that, but we don't know whether he is yet or not."
Eugene winced for Marchwood. He was so calm, so refined, so professional.
"I suppose we can only go by the circulation department," he replied simply, attracted by Eugene's sympathetic smile.
"That's all! That's all!" exclaimed Colfax.
"That is probably true," said Eugene, "but a good thing ought to be as easily circulated as a poor one. At least it's worth trying."
Mr. Marchwood smiled. It was a bit of intellectual kindness in a world of cruel comment.
"It's a great institution," said Eugene finally, on reaching the president's office again. "I'll begin now and see what I can do."
"Good luck, my boy. Good luck!" said Colfax loudly. "I'm laying great stress on what you're going to do, you know."
"Don't lean too hard," returned Eugene. "Remember, I'm just one in a great organization."
"I know, I know, butthe oneis all I need up there—the one, see?"
"Yes, yes," laughed Eugene, "cheer up. We'll be able to do a little something, I'm sure."
"A great man, that," Colfax declared to White as he went away. "The real stuff in that fellow, no flinching there you notice. He knows how to think. Now, Florrie, unless I miss my guess you and I are going to get somewhere with this thing."
White smiled gloomily, almost cynically. He was not so sure. Eugene was pretty good, but he was obviously too independent, too artistic, to be really stable and dependable. He would never run to him for advice, but he would probably make mistakes. He might lose his head. What must he do to offset this new invasion of authority? Discredit him? Certainly. But he needn't worry about that. Eugene would do something. He would make mistakes of some kind. He felt sure of it. He was almost positive of it.
The opening days of this their second return to New York were a period of great joy to Angela. Unlike that first time when she was returning after seven months of loneliness and unhappiness to a sick husband and a gloomy outlook, she was now looking forward to what, in spite of her previous doubts, was a glorious career of dignity, prosperity and abundance. Eugene was such an important man now. His career was so well marked and in a way almost certified. They had a good bit of money in the bank. Their investments in stocks, on which they obtained a uniform rate of interest of about seven per cent., aggregated $30,000. They had two lots, two hundred by two hundred, in Montclair, which were said to be slowly increasing in value and which Eugene now estimated to be worth about six thousand. He was talking about investing what additional money he might save in stocks bearing better interest or some sound commercial venture. When the proper time came, a little later, he might even abandon the publishing field entirely and renew his interest in art. He was certainly getting near the possibility of this.
The place which they selected for their residence in New York was in a new and very sumptuous studio apartment building on Riverside Drive near Seventy-ninth Street, where Eugene had long fancied he would like to live. This famous thoroughfare and show place with its restricted park atmosphere, its magnificent and commanding view of the lordly Hudson, its wondrous woods of color and magnificent sunsets had long taken his eye. When he had first come to New York it had been his delight to stroll here watching the stream of fashionable equipages pour out towards Grant's Tomb and return. He had sat on a park bench many an afternoon at this very spot or farther up, and watched the gay company of horsemen and horsewomen riding cheerfully by, nodding to their social acquaintances, speaking to the park keepers and road scavengers in a condescending and superior way, taking their leisure in a comfortable fashion and looking idly at the river. It seemed a wonderful world to him at that time. Only millionaires could afford to live there, he thought—so ignorant was he of the financial tricks of the world. These handsomely garbed men in riding coats and breeches; the chic looking girls in stiff black hats, trailingblack riding skirts, yellow gloved, and sporting short whips which looked more like dainty canes than anything else, took his fancy greatly. It was his idea at that time that this was almost the apex of social glory—to be permitted to ride here of an afternoon.
Since then he had come a long way and learned a great deal, but he still fancied this street as one of the few perfect expressions of the elegance and luxury of metropolitan life, and he wanted to live on it. Angela was given authority, after discussion, to see what she could find in the way of an apartment of say nine or eleven rooms with two baths or more, which should not cost more than three thousand or three thousand five hundred. As a matter of fact, a very handsome apartment of nine rooms and two baths including a studio room eighteen feet high, forty feet long and twenty-two feet wide was found at the now, to them, comparatively moderate sum of three thousand two hundred. The chambers were beautifully finished in old English oak carved and stained after a very pleasing fifteenth century model, and the walls were left to the discretion of the incoming tenant. Whatever was desired in the way of tapestries, silks or other wall furnishing would be supplied.
Eugene chose green-brown tapestries representing old Rhine Castles for his studio, and blue and brown silks for his wall furnishings elsewhere. He now realized a long cherished dream of having the great wooden cross of brown stained oak, ornamented with a figure of the bleeding Christ, which he set in a dark shaded corner behind two immense wax candles set in tall heavy bronze candlesticks, the size of small bed posts. These when lighted in an otherwise darkened room and flickering ruefully, cast a peculiar spell of beauty over the gay throngs which sometimes assembled here. A grand piano in old English oak occupied one corner, a magnificent music cabinet in French burnt woodwork, stood near by. There were a number of carved and fluted high back chairs, a carved easel with one of his best pictures displayed, a black marble pedestal bearing a yellow stained marble bust of Nero, with his lascivious, degenerate face, scowling grimly at the world, and two gold plated candelabra of eleven branches each hung upon the north wall.
Two wide, tall windows with storm sashes, which reached from the floor to the ceiling, commanded the West view of the Hudson. Outside one was a small stone balcony wide enough to accommodate four chairs, which gave a beautiful, cool view of the drive. It was shielded by an awning in summer and was nine storeys above the ground. Over the water of the more orless peaceful stream were the stacks and outlines of a great factory, and in the roadstead lay boats always, war vessels, tramp freighters, sail boats, and up and down passed the endless traffic of small craft always so pleasant to look upon in fair or foul weather. It was a beautiful apartment, beautifully finished in which most of their furniture, brought from Philadelphia, fitted admirably. It was here that at last they settled down to enjoy the fruit of that long struggle and comparative victory which brought them so near their much desired goal—an indestructible and unchangeable competence which no winds of ill fortune could readily destroy.
Eugene was quite beside himself with joy and satisfaction at thus finding himself and Angela eventually surrounded by those tokens of luxury, comfort and distinction which had so long haunted his brain. Most of us go through life with the furniture of our prospective castle well outlined in mind, but with never the privilege of seeing it realized. We have our pictures, our hangings, our servitors well and ably selected. Eugene's were real at last.
The affairs of the United Magazines Corporation, so far as the advertising, commercial and manufacturing ends at least were concerned, were not in such an unfortunate condition by any means as to preclude their being quickly restored by tact, good business judgment and hard work. Since the accession to power of Florence White in the commercial and financial ends, things in that quarter at least had slowly begun to take a turn for the better. Although he had no judgment whatsoever as to what constituted a timely article, an important book or a saleable art feature, he had that peculiar intuition for right methods of manufacture, right buying and right selling of stock, right handling of labor from the cost and efficiency point of view, which made him a power to be reckoned with. He knew a good manufacturing man to employ at sight. He knew where books could be sold and how. He knew how to buy paper in large quantities and at the cheapest rates, and how to print and manufacture at a cost which was as low as could possibly be figured. All waste was eliminated. He used his machines to their utmost capacity, via a series of schedules which saved an immense amount of waste and demanded the least possible help. He was constantly having trouble with the labor unions on this score, for they objected to a policy which cut out duplication of effort and so eliminated their men. He was an iron master, however, coarse, brutal, foul when dealing with them, and they feared and respected him.
In the advertising end of the business things had been going rather badly, for the reason that the magazines for which this department was supposed to get business had not been doing so well editorially. They were out of touch with the times to a certain extent—not in advance of the feelings and emotions of the period, and so the public was beginning to be inclined to look elsewhere for its mental pabulum. They had had great circulation and great prestige. That was when they were younger, and the original publishers and editors in their prime. Since then days of weariness, indifference and confusion had ensued. Only with the accession of Colfax to power had hope begun to return. As has been said, he was looking for strong men in every quarter of this field, but in particular he was looking for one man who would tell him how to govern themafter he had them. Who was to dream out the things which would interest the public in each particular magazine proposition? Who was to draw great and successful authors to the book end of the house? Who was to inspire the men who were directing the various departments with the spirit which would bring public interest and success? Eugene might be the man eventually he hoped, but how soon? He was anxious to hurry his progress now that he had him.
It was not long after Eugene was seated in his advertising managerial chair that he saw how things lay. His men, when he gathered them in conference, complained that they were fighting against falling circulations.
"You can talk all you want, Mr. Witla," said one of his men gloomily, "but circulation and circulation only is the answer. They have to keep up the magazines here. All these manufacturers know when they get results. We go out and get new business all the time, but we don't keep it. We can't keep it. The magazines don't bring results. What are you going to do about that?"
"I'll tell you what we are going to do," replied Eugene calmly, "we're going to key up the magazines. I understand that a number of changes are coming in that direction. They are doing better already. The manufacturing department, for one thing, is in splendid shape. I know that. In a short time the editorial departments will be. I want you people to put up, at this time, the best fight you know how under the conditions as they are. I'm not going to make any changes here if I can help it. I'm going to show you how it can be done—each one separately. I want you to believe that we have the greatest organization in the world, and it can be made to sweep everything before it. Take a look at Mr. Colfax. Do you think he is ever going to fail? We may, but he won't."
The men liked Eugene's manner and confidence. They liked his faith in them, and it was not more than ten days before he had won their confidence completely. He took home to the hotel where he and Angela were stopping temporarily all the magazines, and examined them carefully. He took home a number of the latest books issued, and asked Angela to read them. He tried to think just what it was each magazine should represent, and who and where was the man who would give to each its proper life and vigor. At once, for the adventure magazine, he thought of a man whom he had met years before who had since been making a good deal of a success editing a Sunday newspaper magazine supplement, Jack Bezenah. Hehad started out to be a radical writer, but had tamed down and become a most efficient newspaper man. Eugene had met him several times in the last few years and each time had been impressed by the force and subtlety of his judgment of life. Once he had said to him, "Jack, you ought to be editing a magazine of your own."
"I will be, I will be," returned that worthy. Now as he looked at this particular proposition Bezenah stuck in his mind as the man who should be employed. He had seen the present editor, but he seemed to have no force at all.
The weekly needed a man like Townsend Miller—where would he find him? The present man's ideas were interesting but not sufficiently general in their appeal. Eugene went about among the various editors looking at them, ostensibly making their acquaintance, but he was not satisfied with any one of them.
He waited to see that his own department was not needing any vast effort on his part before he said to Colfax one day:
"Things are not right with your editorial department. I've looked into my particular job to see that there is nothing so radically behindhand there but what it can be remedied, but your magazines are not right. I wish, aside from salary proposition entirely, that you would let me begin to make a few changes. You haven't the right sort of people upstairs. I'll try not to move too fast, but you couldn't be worse off than you are now in some instances."
"I know it!" said Colfax. "I know it! What do you suggest?"
"Simply better men, that's all," replied Eugene. "Better men with newer ideas. It may cost you a little more money at present, but it will bring you more back in the long run."
"You're right! You're right!" insisted Colfax enthusiastically. "I've been waiting for someone whose judgment I thought was worth two whoops to come and tell me that for a long time. So far as I'm concerned you can take charge right now! The salary that I promised you goes with it. I want to tell you something, though! I want to tell you something! You're going in there now with full authority, but don't you fall or stub your toe or get sick or make any mistakes. If you do, God help you! if you do, I'll eat you alive! I'm a good employer, Witla. I'll pay any price for good men, within reason, but if I think I'm being done, or made a fool of, or a man is making a mistake, then there's no mercy in me—not a single bit. I'm a plain, everyday blank, blank, blank" (and heused a term so foul that it would not bear repetition in print), "and that's all there is to me. Now we understand each other."
Eugene looked at the man in astonishment. There was a hard, cold gleam in his blue eyes which he had seen there before. His presence was electric—his look demoniac.
"I've had a remark somewhat of that nature made to me before," commented Eugene. He was thinking of Summerfield's "the coal shute for yours." He had hardly expected to hear so cold and definite a proposition laid down so soon after his entry upon his new duties, but here it was, and he had to face it. He was sorry for the moment that he had ever left Kalvin.
"I'm not at all afraid of responsibility," replied Eugene grimly. "I'm not going to fall down or stub my toe or make any mistakes if I can help it. And if I do I won't complain to you."
"Well, I'm only telling you," said Colfax, smiling and good-natured again. The cold light was gone. "And I mean it in the best way in the world. I'll back you up with all power and authority, but if you fail, God help you; I can't."
He went back to his desk and Eugene went upstairs. He felt as though the red cap of a cardinal had been put upon his head, and at the same time an axe suspended over him. He would have to think carefully of what he was doing from now on. He would have to go slow, but he would have to go. All power had been given him—all authority. He could go upstairs now and discharge everybody in the place. Colfax would back him up, but he would have to replace them. And that quickly and effectively. It was a trying hour, notable but grim.
His first move was to send for Bezenah. He had not seen him for some time, but his stationery which he now had headed "The United Magazines Corporation," and in one corner "Office of the Managing Publisher," brought him fast enough. It was a daring thing to do in a way thus to style himself managing publisher, when so many able men were concerned in the work, but this fact did not disturb him. He was bound and determined to begin, and this stationery—the mere engraving of it—was as good a way as any of serving notice that he was in the saddle. The news flew like wild fire about the building, for there were many in his office, even his private stenographer, to carry the news. All the editors and assistants wondered what it could mean, but they asked no questions, except amongthemselves. No general announcement had been made. On the same stationery he sent for Adolph Morgenbau, who had exhibited marked skill at Summerfield's as his assistant, and who had since become art editor ofThe Sphere, a magazine of rising importance. He thought that Morgenbau might now be fitted to handle the art work under him, and he was not mistaken. Morgenbau had developed into a man of considerable force and intelligence, and was only too glad to be connected with Eugene again. He also talked with various advertising men, artists and writers as to just who were the most live editorial men in the field at that time, and these he wrote to, asking if they would come to see him. One by one they came, for the fact that he had come to New York to take charge not only of the advertising but the editorial ends of the United Magazines Corporation spread rapidly over the city. All those interested in art, writing, editing and advertising heard of it. Those who had known something of him in the past could scarcely believe their ears. Where did he get the skill?
Eugene stated to Colfax that he deemed it advisable that a general announcement be made to the staff that he was in charge. "I have been looking about," he said, "and I think I know what I want to do."
The various editors, art directors, advertising men and book workers were called to the main office and Colfax announced that he wished to make a statement which affected all those present. "Mr. Witla here will be in charge of all the publishing ends of this business from now on. I am withdrawing from any say in the matter, for I am satisfied that I do not know as much about it as he does. I want you all to look to him for advice and counsel just as you have to me in the past. Mr. White will continue in charge of the manufacturing and distributing end of the business. Mr. White and Mr. Witla will work together. That's all I have to say."
The company departed, and once more Eugene returned to his office. He decided at once to find an advertising man who could work under him and run that branch of the business as well as he would. He spent some time looking for this man, and finally found him working for the Hays-Rickert Company, a man whom he had known something of in the past as an exceptional worker. He was a strong, forceful individual of thirty-two, Carter Hayes by name, who was very anxious to succeed in his chosen work, and who saw a great opportunity here. He did not like Eugene so very well—he thought that he was over-estimated—but he decided to work for him. Thelatter put him in at ten thousand a year and then turned his attention to his new duties completely.
The editorial and publishing world was entirely new to Eugene from the executive side. He did not understand it as well as he did the art and advertising worlds, and because it was in a way comparatively new and strange to him he made a number of initial mistakes. His first was in concluding that all the men about him were more or less weak and inefficient, principally because the magazines were weak, when, as a matter of fact, there were a number of excellent men whom conditions had repressed, and who were only waiting for some slight recognition to be of great value. In the next place, he was not clear as to the exact policies to be followed in the case of each publication, and he was not inclined to listen humbly to those who could tell him. His best plan would have been to have gone exceedingly slow, watching the men who were in charge, getting their theories and supplementing their efforts with genial suggestions. Instead he decided on sweeping changes and not long after he had been in charge he began to make them. Marchwood, the editor of theReview, was removed, as was Gailer of theWeekly. The editorship of theAdventure Story Magazinewas given to Bezenah.
In any organization of this kind, however, great improvements cannot be effected in a moment, and weeks and months must elapse before any noticeable change can be shown. Instead of throwing the burden of responsibility on each of his assistants and leaving it there, making occasional criticisms, Eugene undertook to work with each and all of them, endeavoring to direct the policy intimately in each particular case. It was not easy, and to him at times it was confusing. He had a great deal to learn. Still he did have helpful ideas in a score of directions daily and these told. The magazines were improved. The first issues which were affected by his judgment and those of his men were inspected closely by Colfax and White. The latter was particularly anxious to see what improvement had been made, and while he could not judge well himself, he had the means of getting opinions. Nearly all these were favorable, much to his disappointment, for he hoped to find things to criticize.
Colfax, who had been watching Eugene's determined air, the energy with which he went about his work and the manner in which he freely accepted responsibility, came to admire him even more than he had before. He liked him socially—his companionship after business hours—and began to invite him up to the house to dinner. Unlike Kalvin, on most of these occasionshe did not take Angela into consideration, for having met her he was not so very much impressed with her. She was nice, but not of the same coruscating quality as her husband. Mrs. Colfax expressed a derogatory opinion, and this also made it difficult. He sincerely wished that Eugene were single.
Time passed. As Eugene worked more and more with the various propositions which this situation involved, he became more and more at his ease. Those who have ever held an executive position of any importance know how easy it is, given a certain degree of talent, to attract men and women of ability and force according to that talent. Like seeks like and those who are looking for advancement in their world according to their talents naturally drift to those who are more highly placed and who are much like themselves. Advertising men, artists, circulation men, editors, book critics, authors and all those who were sufficiently in his vein to understand or appreciate him sought him out, and by degrees he was compelled to learn to refer all applicants to the heads of departments. He was compelled to learn to rely to a certain degree on his men, and having learned this he was inclined to go to the other extreme and rely too much. In the case of Carter Hayes, in the advertising department, he was particularly impressed with the man's efficiency, and rested on him heavily for all the details of that work, merely inspecting his programs of procedure and advising him in difficult situations. The latter appreciated this, for he was egotistic to the roots, but it did not develop a sense of loyalty in him. He saw in Eugene a man who had risen by some fluke of fortune, and who was really not an advertising man at heart. He hoped some day that circumstances would bring it about that he could be advertising manager in fact, dealing directly with Colfax and White, whom, because of their greater financial interest in the business, he considered Eugene's superiors, and whom he proposed to court. There were others in the other departments who felt the same way.
The one great difficulty with Eugene was that he had no great power of commanding the loyalty of his assistants. He had the power of inspiring them—of giving them ideas which would be helpful to themselves—but these they used, as a rule, merely to further their own interests, to cause them to advance to a point where they deemed themselves beyond him. Because in his manner he was not hard, distant, bitter, he was considered, as a rule, rather easy. The men whom he employed, and he had talent for picking men of very exceptional ability, sometimesmuch greater than his own in their particular specialties, looked upon him not so much as a superior after a time, as someone who was in their path and to whose shoes they might properly aspire. He seemed so good natured about the whole work—so easy going. Now and then he took the trouble to tell a man that he was getting too officious, but in the main he did not care much. Things were going smoothly, the magazines were improving, the advertising and circulation departments were showing marked gains, and altogether his life seemed to have blossomed out into comparative perfection. There were storms and daily difficulties, but they were not serious. Colfax advised with him genially when he was in doubt, and White pretended a friendship which he did not feel.
The trouble with this situation was that it involved more power, comfort, ease and luxury than Eugene had ever experienced before, and made him a sort of oriental potentate not only among his large company of assistants but in his own home. Angela, who had been watching his career all these years with curiosity, began to conceive of him at last as a genius in every respect—destined to some great pre-eminence, in art or finance or the publishing world or all three. She did not relax her attitude in regard to his conduct, being more convinced than ever that to achieve the dizzy eminence to which he was now so rapidly ascending, he must be more circumspect than ever. People were watching him so closely now. They were so obsequious to him, but still so dangerous. A man in his position must be so careful how he dressed, talked, walked.
"Don't make so much fuss," he used to say to her. "For heaven's sake, let me alone!" This merely produced more quarrels, for Angela was determined to regulate him in spite of his wishes and in his best interests.
Grave men and women in various walks of life—art, literature, philanthropy, trade, began to seek him out, because in the first place he had an understanding mind and because in the next place, which was much more important, he had something to give. There are always those in all walks of life who are seeking something through those avenues which a successful person represents, whatever they may be, and these together with those others who are always intensely eager to bask in the reflected glory of a rising luminary, make a retinue for every successful man. Eugene had his retinue, men and women of his own station or beneath it, who would eagerly shake his hand with an "Oh, yes, indeed. Managing Publisher of the United Magazines Corporation! Oh, yes, yes!" Women particularly were prone to smile, showing him even white teeth and regretting that all good looking and successful men were married.
In July following his coming from Philadelphia the United Magazines Corporation moved into its new building, and then he was installed into the most imposing office of his career. A subtle assistant, wishing to ingratiate the staff in Eugene's good graces, suggested that a collection be taken up for flowers.His room, which was done in white, blue and gold with rose wood furniture, to set it apart from the prevailing decorative scheme and so make it more impressive, was scattered with great bouquets of roses, sweet peas and pinks, in beautiful and ornate vases of different colors, countries and schools. His great rosewood flat-topped desk, covered with a thick, plate glass through which the polished wood shone brightly, was decorated with flowers. On the morning of his entry he held an impromptu reception, on which occasion he was visited by Colfax and White, who after going to look at their new rooms, came to his. A general reception which followed some three weeks later, and in which the successful representatives of various walks of life in the metropolis took part, drew to the building a great crowd, artists, writers, editors, publishers, authors and advertising men who saw him in all his glory. On this occasion, Eugene, with White and Colfax did the receiving. He was admired at a distance by striplings who wondered how he had ever accomplished such great results. His rise had been so meteoric. It seemed so impossible that a man who had started as an artist should change and become a dominant factor in literature and art from a publishing point of view.
In his own home his surroundings were equally showy; he was as much a figure as he was in his office. When he was alone with Angela, which was not so often, for naturally they did a great deal of entertaining, he was a figure even to her. Long ago she had come to think of him as someone who would some day dominate in the art world; but to see him an imposing factor in the city's commercial life, its principal publishers' representative, having a valet and an automobile, riding freely in cabs, lunching at the most exclusive restaurants and clubs, and associating constantly with someone who was of importance, was a different matter.
She was no longer so sure of herself with him, not so certain of her power to control him. They quarreled over little things, but she was not so ready to begin these quarrels. He seemed changed now and deeper still. She was afraid, even yet, that he might make a mistake and lose it all, that the forces of ill will, envy and jealousy which were everywhere apparent in life, and which blow about so easily like gusts of wind, would work him harm. Eugene was apparently at ease, though he was troubled at times for his own safety, when he thought of it, for he had no stock in the company, and was as beholden to Colfax as any hall boy, but he did not see how he could easily be dispensed with. He wasmaking good.
Colfax was friendly to him. He was surprised at times to see how badly the manufacturing arrangements could go awry, affecting his dates of issue, but White invariably had a good excuse. Colfax took him to his house in the country, his lodge in the mountains, on short yachting and fishing trips, for he liked to talk to him, but he rarely if ever invited Angela. He did not seem to think it was necessary to do this, and Eugene was afraid to impress the slight upon his attention, much as he dreaded the thoughts which Angela must be thinking. It was Eugene here and Eugene there, with constant calls of "where are you, old man?" from Colfax, who appeared not to want to be away from him.
"Well, old man," he would say, looking him over much as one might a blood horse or a pedigree dog, "you're getting on. This new job agrees with you. You didn't look like that when you came to me," and he would feel the latest suit Eugene might be wearing, or comment on some pin or tie he had on, or tell him that his shoes were not as good as he could really get, if he wanted to be perfect in dress. Colfax was for grooming his new prize much as one might groom a blood horse, and he was always telling Eugene little details of social life, the right things to do, the right places to be seen, the right places to go, as though Eugene knew little or nothing.
"Now when we go down to Mrs. Savage's Friday afternoon, you get a Truxton Portmanteau. Have you seen them? Well, there's the thing. Got a London coat? Well, you ought to have one. Those servants down there go through your things and they size you up accordingly. Nothing less than two dollars each goes, and five dollars to the butler, remember that."
He assumed and insisted after a fashion which Eugene resented quite as much as he did his persistent ignoring of Angela, but he did not dare comment on it. He could see that Colfax was variable, that he could hate as well as love, and that he rarely took any intermediate ground. Eugene was his favorite now.
"I'll send my car around for you at two Friday," he would say, as though Eugene did not keep a car, when he was planning one of his week-end excursions. "You be ready."
At two, on that day, Colfax's big blue touring car would come speeding up to the entrance of the apartment house and Eugene's valet would carry down his bags, golf sticks, tennis racket and the various paraphernalia that go with a week-end's entertainment, and off the car would roll. At times Angela would be left behind, at times taken, when Eugene could arrange it;but he found that he had to be tactful and accede to Colfax's indifference mostly. Eugene would always explain to her how it was. He was sorry for her in a way, and yet he felt there was some justice in the distinction. She was not exactly suited to that topmost world in which he was now beginning to move. These people were colder, sharper, shrewder, than Angela. They had more of that intense sophistication of manner and experience than she could achieve. As a matter of fact, Angela had as much grace and more than many of the four hundred, but she did lack that quickness of wit or that shallow self-sufficiency and assurance which are the almost invariable traits of those who shine as members of the smart set. Eugene was able to assume this manner whether he felt it or not.
"Oh, that's all right," she would say, "as long as you're doing it for business reasons."
She resented it nevertheless, bitterly, for it seemed such an uncalled for slur. Colfax had no compunctions in adjusting his companionship to suit his moods. He thought Eugene was well suited to this high life. He thought Angela was not. He made the distinction roughly and went his way.
It was in this manner that Eugene learned a curious fact about the social world, and that was that frequently in these highest circles a man would be received where his wife would not and vice versa, and that nothing very much was thought of it, if it could be managed.
"Oh, is that Birkwood," he heard a young swell once remark, concerning an individual in Philadelphia. "Why do they let him in? His wife is charming, but he won't do," and once in New York he heard a daughter ask her mother, of a certain wife who was announced—her husband being at the same table—"who invited her?"
"I'm sure I don't know," replied her mother; "I didn't. She must have come of her own accord."
"She certainly has her nerve with her," replied the daughter—and when the wife entered Eugene could see why. She was not good looking and not harmoniously and tastefully dressed. It gave Eugene a shock, but in a way he could understand. There were no such grounds of complaint against Angela. She was attractive and shapely. Her one weakness was that she lacked the blasé social air. It was too bad, he thought.
In his own home and circle, however, he thought to make up for this by a series of entertainments which grew more and more elaborate as time went on. At first when he came back from Philadelphia it consisted of a few people in to dinner,old friends, for he was not quite sure of himself and did not know how many would come to share his new honors with him. Eugene had never got over his love for those he had known in his youth. He was not snobbish. It was true that now he was taking naturally to prosperous people, but the little ones, the old-time ones, he liked for old lang syne's sake as well as for themselves. Many came to borrow money, for he had associated with many ne'er do wells in his time, but many more were attracted by his fame.
Eugene knew intimately and pleasantly most of the artistic and intellectual figures of his day. In his home and at his table there appeared artists, publishers, grand opera stars, actors and playwrights. His large salary, for one thing, his beautiful apartment and its location, his magnificent office and his friendly manner all conspired to assist him. It was his self-conscious boast that he had not changed. He liked nice people, simple people, natural people he said, for these were the really great ones, but he could not see how far he had come in class selection. Now he naturally gravitated to the wealthy, the reputed, the beautiful, the strong and able, for no others interested him. He hardly saw them. If he did it was to pity or give alms.
It is difficult to indicate to those who have never come out of poverty into luxury, or out of comparative uncouthness into refinement, the veil or spell which the latter comes eventually to cast over the inexperienced mind, coloring the world anew. Life is apparently striving, constantly, to perfect its illusions and to create spells. There are, as a matter of fact, nothing but these outside that ultimate substance or principle which underlies it all. To those who have come out of inharmony, harmony is a spell, and to those who have come out of poverty, luxury is a dream of delight. Eugene, being primarily a lover of beauty, keenly responsive to all those subtleties of perfection and arrangement which ingenuity can devise, was taken vastly by the nature of this greater world into which, step by step apparently, he was almost insensibly passing. Each new fact which met his eye or soothed his sensibilities was quickly adjusted to all that had gone before. It seemed to him as though all his life he had naturally belonged to this perfect world of which country houses, city mansions, city and country clubs, expensive hotels and inns, cars, resorts, beautiful women, affected manners, subtlety of appreciation and perfection of appointment generally were the inherent concomitants. This was the true heaven—that material and spiritual perfection on earth, of which the world was dreaming and to which, out of toil, disorder, shabbyideas, mixed opinions, non-understanding and all the ill to which the flesh is heir, it was constantly aspiring.
Here was no sickness, no weariness apparently, no ill health or untoward circumstances. All the troubles, disorders and imperfections of existence were here carefully swept aside and one saw only the niceness, the health and strength of being. He was more and more impressed as he came farther and farther along in the scale of comfort, with the force and eagerness with which life seems to minister to the luxury-love of the human mind. He learned of so many, to him, lovely things, large, wellkept, magnificent country places, scenes of exquisite beauty where country clubs, hotels, seaside resorts of all descriptions had been placed. He found sport, amusement, exercise, to be tremendously well organized and that there were thousands of people who were practically devoting their lives to this. Such a state of social ease was not for him yet, but he could sit at the pleasures, so amply spread, between his hours of work and dream of the time to come when possibly he might do nothing at all. Yachting, motoring, golfing, fishing, hunting, riding, playing tennis and polo, there were experts in all these fields he found. Card playing, dancing, dining, lounging, these seemed to occupy many people's days constantly. He could only look in upon it all as upon a passing show, but that was better than nothing. It was more than he had ever done before. He was beginning to see clearly how the world was organized, how far were its reaches of wealth, its depths of poverty. From the lowest beggar to the topmost scene—what a distance!
Angela scarcely kept pace with him in all these mental peregrinations. It was true that now she went to the best dressmakers only, bought charming hats, the most expensive shoes, rode in cabs and her husband's auto, but she did not feel about it as he did. It seemed very much like a dream to her—like something that had come so suddenly and so exuberantly that it could not be permanent. There was running in her mind all the time that Eugene was neither a publisher, nor an editor, nor a financier at heart, but an artist and that an artist he would remain. He might attain great fame and make much money out of his adopted profession, but some day in all likelihood he would leave it and return to art. He seemed to be making sound investments—at least, they seemed sound to her, and their stocks and bank accounts, principally convertible stocks, seemed a safe enough margin for the future to guarantee peace of mind, but they were not saving so much, after all. It was costing them something over eight thousand dollars a year to live, and theirexpenses were constantly growing larger rather than smaller. Eugene appeared to become more and more extravagant.
"I think we are doing too much entertaining," Angela had once protested, but he waived the complaint aside. "I can't do what I'm doing and not entertain. It's building me up. People in our position have to." He threw open the doors finally to really remarkable crowds and most of the cleverest people in all walks of life—the really exceptionally clever—came to eat his meals, to drink his wines, to envy his comfort and wish they were in his shoes.
During all this time Eugene and Angela instead of growing closer together, were really growing farther and farther apart. She had never either forgotten or utterly forgiven that one terrific lapse, and she had never believed that Eugene was utterly cured of his hedonistic tendencies. Crowds of beautiful women came to Angela's teas, lunches and their joint evening parties and receptions. Under Eugene's direction they got together interesting programmes, for it was no trouble now for him to command musical, theatrical, literary and artistic talent. He knew men and women who could make rapid charcoal or crayon sketches of people, could do feats in legerdemain, and character representation, could sing, dance, play, recite and tell humorous stories in a droll and off-hand way. He insisted that only exceptionally beautiful women be invited, for he did not care to look at the homely ones, and curiously he found dozens, who were not only extremely beautiful, but singers, dancers, composers, authors, actors and playwrights in the bargain. Nearly all of them were brilliant conversationalists and they helped to entertain themselves—made their own entertainment, in fact. His table very frequently was a glittering spectacle. One of his "Stunts" as he called it was to bundle fifteen or twenty people into three or four automobiles after they had lingered in his rooms until three o'clock in the morning and motor out to some out-of-town inn for breakfast and "to see the sun rise." A small matter like a bill for $75.00 for auto hire or thirty-five dollars for a crowd for breakfast did not trouble him. It was a glorious sensation to draw forth his purse and remove four or five or six yellow backed ten dollar bills, knowing that it made little real difference. More money was coming to him from the same source. He could send down to the cashier at any time and draw from five hundred to a thousand dollars. He always had from one hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars in his purse in denominations of five, ten and twenty dollar bills. He carried a small check book and most frequently paid by check. Heliked to assume that he was known and frequently imposed this assumption on others.
"Eugene Witla! Eugene Witla! George! he's a nice fellow,"—or "it's remarkable how he has come up, isn't it?" "I was at the Witlas' the other night. Did you ever see such a beautiful apartment? It's perfect! That view!"
People commented on the interesting people he entertained, the clever people you met there, the beautiful women, the beautiful view. "And Mrs. Witla is so charming."
But down at the bottom of all this talk there was also much envy and disparagement and never much enthusiasm for the personality of Mrs. Witla. She was not as brilliant as Eugene—or rather the comment was divided. Those who liked clever people, show, wit, brilliance, ease, liked Eugene and not Angela quite so much. Those who liked sedateness, solidity, sincerity, the commoner virtues of faithfulness and effort, admired Angela. All saw that she was a faithful handmaiden to her husband, that she adored the ground he walked on.
"Such a nice little woman—so homelike. It's curious that he should have married her, though, isn't it? They are so different. And yet they appear to have lots of things in common, too. It's strange—isn't it?"