The «Genius» II

THE “GENIUS” II

one spot in all the world in which he hoped to spend the remainder of his days.

At the time Eugene met him, he was planning Minetta Water on the shores of Gravesend Bay, which was the most ambitious of all his projects so far. He was being followed fi- nancially, by a certain number of Brooklyn politicians and financiers who had seen him succeed in small things, taking a profit of from three to four hundred per cent, out of ten, twenty and thirty acre flats, but for all his brilliance it had been slow work. He was now worth between three and four hundred thousand dollars and, for the first time in his life, was beginning to feel that freedom in financial matters which made him think that he could do almost anything. He had met all sorts of people, lawyers, bankers, doctors, merchants, the “easy classes” he called them, all with a little money to invest, and he had succeeded in luring hundreds of worth-while people into his projects. His great dreams had never really been realized, however, for he saw visions of a great warehouse and shipping system to be established on Jamaica Bay, out of which he was to make millions, if it ever came to pass, and also a magnificent summer resort of some kind, somewhere, which was not yet clearly evolved in his mind. His ads were scattered freely through the newspapers: his signs, or rather the signs of his towns, scattered broadcast over Long Island.

Eugene had met him first when he was working with the Summerfield Company, but he met him this time quite anew at the home of the W. W. Willebrand on the North Shore of Long Island near Hempstead. He had gone down there one Saturday afternoon at the invitation of Mrs. Willebrand, whom he had met at another house party and with whom he had danced.

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She had been pleased with his gay, vivacious manner and had asked him if he wouldn’t come. Winfield was here as a guest with his automobile.

“Oh, yes,” said Winfield pleasantly. “I recall you very well. You are now with the United Magazines Corporation, – I understand – someone was telling me – a most prosperous company, I believe. I know Mr. Colfax very well. I once spoke to Summerfield about you. A most astonishing fellow, that, tremendously able. You were doing that series of sugar plantation ads for them or having them done. I think I copied the spirit of those things in advertising Ruritania, as you may have noticed. Well, you certainly have improved your condition since then. I once tried to tell Summerfield that he had an exceptional man in you, but he would have nothing of it. He’s too much of an egoist. He doesn’t know how to work with a man on equal terms.”

Eugene smiled at the thought of Summerfield.

“An able man,” he said simply. “He did a great deal for me.”

Winfield liked that. He thought Eugene would criticize him. He liked Eugene’s genial manner and intelligent, expressive face. It occurred to him that when next he wanted to advertise one of his big development projects, he would go to Eugene or the man who had done the sugar plantation series of pictures and get him to give him the right idea for advertising.

Affinity is such a peculiar thing. It draws people so easily, apart from volition or consciousness. In a few moments Eugene and Winfield, sitting side by side on the veranda, looking at the greenwood before them, the long stretch of open

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sound, dotted with white sails and the dim, distant shore of Connecticut, were talking of real estate ventures in general, what land was worth, how speculations of this kind turned out, as a rule. Winfield was anxious to take Eugene seriously, for he felt drawn to him and Eugene studied Winfield’s pale face, his thin, immaculate hands, his suit of soft, gray cloth. He looked as able as his public reputation made him out to be – in fact, he looked better than anything he had ever done. Eugene had seen Ruritania and The Beeches. They did not impress him vastly as territorial improvements, but they were pretty, nevertheless. For middle-class people, they were quite the thing he thought.

“I should think it would be a pleasure to you to scheme out a new section,” he said to him once. “The idea of a virgin piece of land to be converted into streets and houses or a village appeals to me immensely. The idea of laying it out and sketching houses to fit certain positions, suits my temperament exactly. I wish sometimes I had been born an architect.”

“It is pleasant and if that were all it would be ideal,” returned Winfield. “The thing is more a matter of financing than anything else. You have to raise money for land and improvements. If you make exceptional improvements they are expensive. You really can’t expect to get much, if any, of your money back, until all your work is done. Then you have to wait. If you put up houses you can’t rent them, for the moment you rent them, you can’t sell them as new. When you make your improvements your taxes go up immediately. If you sell a piece of property to a man or woman who isn’t exactly in accord with your scheme, he or she may put up a house which destroys the value of a whole neighborhood for you. You can’t fix the de-

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tails of a design in a contract too closely. You can only specify the minimum price the house is to cost and the nature of the materials to be used. Some people’s idea of beauty will vary vastly from others. Taste in sections may change. A whole city like New York may suddenly decide that it wants to build west when you are figuring on its building east. So – well, all these things have to be taken into consideration.”

“That sounds logical enough,” said Eugene, “but wouldn’t the right sort of a scheme just naturally draw to itself the right sort of people, if it were presented in the right way? Don’t you fix the conditions by your own attitude?”

“You do, you do,” replied Winfield, easily. “If you give the matter sufficient care and attention it can be done. The pity is you can be too fine at times. I have seen attempts at perfection come to nothing. People with taste and tradition and money behind them are not moving into new additions and suburbs, as a rule. You are dealing with the new rich and fi- nancial beginners. Most people strain their resources to the breaking point to better their living conditions and they don’t always know. If they have the money, it doesn’t always follow that they have the taste to grasp what you are striving for, and if they have the taste they haven’t the money. They would do better if they could, but they can’t. A man in my position is like an artist and a teacher and a father confessor and financier and everything all rolled into one. When you start to be a real estate developer on a big scale you must be these things. I have had some successes and some notable failures. Winfield is one of the worst. It’s disgusting to me now.”

“I have always wished I could lay out a seaside resort or a suburb,” said Eugene dreamily. “I’ve never been to but one or

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