Big Poker Site hazard of new fortunes 54

for? I dont want your letter." Beaton stopped biting his cigarette and looked at him. "Dont want my letter? Oh, very good!" he bristled up. He took his cigarette from his lips, and blew the smoke through his nostrils, and then looked at Fulkerson. "No; I dont want your letter; I want you." Beacon disdained to ask an explanation, but he internally lowered his crest, while he continued to look at Fulkerson without changing his defiant countenance. This suited Fulkerson well enough, and he went on with relish, "Im going out of the syndicate business, old man, and Im on a new thing." He put his leg over the back of a chair and rested his foot on its seat, and, with one hand in his pocket, he laid the scheme of Every Other Week before Beaton with the help of the other. The artist went about the room, meanwhile, with an effect of indifference which by no means offended Fulkerson. He took some water into his mouth from a tumbler, which he blew in a fine mist over the head of Judas before swathing it in a dirty cotton cloth; he washed his brushes and set his palette; he put up on his easel the picture he had blocked on the day before, and stared at it with a gloomy face; then he gathered the sheets of his unfinished letter together and slid them into a drawer of his writing-desk. By the time he had finished and turned again to Fulkerson, Fulkerson was saying: "I did think we could have the first number out by New-Years; but it will take longer than that--a month longer; but Im not sorry, for the holidays kill everything; and by February, or the middle of February, people will get their breath again and begin to look round and ask whats new. Then well reply in the language of Shakespeare and Milton, Every Other Week; and dont you forget it." He took down his leg and asked, "Got a pipe of baccy anywhere?" Beaton nodded at a clay stem sticking out of a Japanese vase of bronze on his mantel. "Theres yours," he said; and Fulkerson said, "Thanks," and filled the pipe and sat down and began to smoke tranquilly. Beaton saw that he would have to speak now. "And what do you want with me?" "You? Oh yes," Fulkerson humorously dramatized a return to himself from a pensive absence. "Want you for the art department." Beaton shook his head. "Im not your man, Fulkerson," he said, compassionately. "You want a more practical hand, one thats in touch with whats going. Im getting further and further away from this century and its claptrap. I dont believe in your enterprise; I dont respect it, and I wont have anything to do with it. It would-choke me, that kind of thing." "Thats all right," said Fulkerson. He esteemed a man who was not going to let himself go cheap. "Or if it isnt, we can make it. You and March will pull together first-rate. I dont care how much ideal you put into the thing; the more the better. I can look after the other end of the schooner myself." "You dont understand me," said Beaton. "Im not trying to get a rise out of you. Im in earnest. What you want is some man who can have patience with mediocrity putting on the style of genius, and with genius turning mediocrity on his hands. I havent any luck with men; I dont get on with them; Im not popular." Beaton recognized the fact with the satisfaction which it somehow always brings to human pride. "So much the better!" Fulkerson was ready for him at this point. "I dont want you to work the old-established racket the reputations. When I want them Ill go to them with a pocketful of rocks--knock-down argument. But my idea is to deal with the volunteer material. Look at the way the periodicals are carried on now! Names! names! names! In a country thats just boiling over with literary and artistic ability of every kind the new fellows have no chance. The editors all engage their material. I dont believe there are fifty volunteer contributions printed in a year in all the New York magazines. Its all wrong; its suicidal. Every Other Week is going back to the good old anonymous system, the only fair system. Its worked well in literature, and it will work well in art." "It wont work well in art," said Beaton. "There you have a totally different set of conditions.

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