The «Genius» II

THE “GENIUS” II

tice. 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.

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CHAPTER XLI

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 thor-

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oughfare 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, trailing black 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

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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

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nine storeys above the ground. Over the water of the more or less 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.

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CHAPTER XLII

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

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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 them after 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.

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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. He

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had 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 pres-

ent, but it will bring you more back in the long run.”

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“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 he used 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 goodnatured again. The cold light was gone. “And I mean it in the

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