The Genius (55 page)

"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 it
careful 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 subject to 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 wanted
men
—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 judgment they 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 nervous at 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 the
International 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.