Big Poker Site hazard of new fortunes 6

dear boy! What are you giving me? Do I look like the sort of lunatic who would start a thing in the twilight of the nineteenth century without illustrations? Come off!" "Ah, that complicates it! I dont know anything about art." Marchs look of discouragement confessed the hold the scheme had taken upon him. "I dont want you to!" Fulkerson retorted. "Dont you suppose I shall have an art man?" "And will they--the artists--work at a reduced rate, too, like the writers, with the hopes of a share in the success?" "Of course they will! And if I want any particular man, for a card, Ill pay him big money besides. But I can get plenty of first-rate sketches on my own terms. Youll see! Theyll pour in!" "Look here, Fulkerson," said March, "youd better call this fortnightly of yours The Madness o f the Half-Moon; or Bedlam Broke Loose wouldnt be bad! Why do you throw away all your hard earnings on such a crazy venture? Dont do it!" The kindness which March had always felt, in spite of his wifes first misgivings and reservations, for the merry, hopeful, slangy, energetic little creature trembled in his voice. They had both formed a friendship for Fulkerson during the week they were together in Quebec. When he was not working the newspapers there, he went about with them over the familiar ground they were showing their children, and was simply grateful for the chance, as well as very entertaining about it all. The children liked him, too; when they got the clew to his intention, and found that he was not quite serious in many of the things he said, they thought he was great fun. They were always glad when their father brought him home on the occasion of Fulkersons visits to Boston; and Mrs. March, though of a charier hospitality, welcomed Fulkerson with a grateful sense of his admiration for her husband. He had a way of treating March with deference, as an older and abler man, and of qualifying the freedom he used toward every one with an implication that March tolerated it voluntarily, which she thought very sweet and even refined. "Ah, now youre talking like a man and a brother," said Fulkerson. "Why, March, old man, do you suppose Id come on here and try to talk you into this thing if I wasnt morally, if I wasnt perfectly, sure of success? There isnt any if or and about it. I know my ground, every inch; and I dont stand alone on it," he added, with a significance which did not escape March. "When youve made up your mind I can give you the proof; but Im not at liberty now to say anything more. I tell you its going to be a triumphal march from the word go, with coffee and lemonade for the procession along the whole line. All youve got to do is to fall in." He stretched out his hand to March. "You let me know as soon as you can." March deferred taking his hand till he could ask, "Where are you going?" "Parker House. Take the eleven for New York to-night." "I thought I might walk your way." March looked at his watch. "But I shouldnt have time. Goodbye!" He now let Fulkerson have his hand, and they exchanged a cordial pressure. Fulkerson started away at a quick, light pace. Half a block off he stopped, turned round, and, seeing March still standing where he had left him, he called back, joyously, "Ive got the name!" "What?" "Every Other Week." "It isnt bad." "Ta-ta!"
II.
All the way up to the South End March mentally prolonged his talk with Fulkerson, and at his door in Nankeen Square he closed the parley with a plump refusal to go to New York on any terms. His daughter Bella was lying in wait for him in the hall, and she threw her arms round his neck with the exuberance of her fourteen years and with something of the histrionic intention of her sex. He pressed on, with her clinging about him, to the library, and, in the glow of his decision against Fulkerson, kissed his wife, where she sat by the study lamp reading the Transcript through her first pair of eye-glasses: it was agreed in the family that she looked distinguished in them, or, at any rate, cultivated. She took them off to give him a glance of question, and their son Tom looked up from his book for a moment; he was in his last

Hazard Of New Fortunes page 5        Hazard Of New Fortunes page 7