A hazard of new fortunes : a novel. --

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A HAZARD
OF NEW FORTUNES

a IRovel

BY

WILLIAM D. HOWELLS

AUTHOR OF "ANNIE KILBCTRN " "APRIL HOPES "
"modern ITALIAN POETS " ETC.

IN TWO VOLUMES

Vol. I.

NEW YORK

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1890

Copyright, 18S9, by William Dean Ho^klls.

Alt Tightt rtucrvtd.

Slercotvped hy David Doiifilan, Edinhnrgh.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

PART FIRST.

" Now, you think this thing over, March, and let
me know the last of next week," said Fulkerson.
He got up from the chair which he had been sitting
astride, Mith his face to its back, and tilting toward
March on its hind-legs, and came and rapped upon
his table with his thin bamboo stick. " What you
want to do is to get out of the insurance business,
anyway. You acknowledge that yourself. You
never liked it, and now it makes you sick ; in other
words, it 's killing you. You ain't an insurance man
by nature. You 're a natural-born literary man ;
and you've been going against the grain. Now, I
offer you a chance to go vAtli the grain. I don't say
you 're going to make your everlasting fortune, but
I'll give you a living salary, and if the thing suc-
ceeds you '11 share in its success. "We '11 all share in
its success. " That 's the beauty of it. I tell you,
Vol. I.— 1

2 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

March, this is the greatest idea that has been struck

since " Fulkerson stopped and searched his

mind for a fit image — " since the creation of man."

lie put liis leg up over the corner of March's
table and gave himself a sharp cut on the thigh, and
leaned forward to get the full effect of his words
upon his listener.

March had his hands clasped together behind his
head, and he took one of them down long enough
to put his inkstand and mucilage-bottle out of
Fulkerson's way. After many years' experiment of
a moustache and whiskers, he now wore his grizzled
beard full, but cropped close; it gave him a certain
grimncss, corrected by the gentleness of his eyes.

"Some people don't think much of the creation
(tf man, nowadays. Why stop at that 1 Why not
say since the morning stars sang together 1 "

"No, sir; no, sir! I don't "\vant to claim too
much, and I draw the line at the creation of man.
1 'm satisfied with that. But if you want to ring
the morning stars into the prospectus, all right; I
won't go back on you."

"But I don't understand why you've set your
mind on me," March said. "I haven't had any
magazine experience, you know that ; and T haven't
seriously attempted to do anything in literature
since I was married. I gave up smoking and the
ISIuse together. I suppose I could still manage a
cigar, but I don't believe I could "

"Muse Avorth a cent." Fulkerson took the
thought out of his mouth and put it into his own

A HAZARD OF NEW FOETUXES. 3

words. " I know. Well, I don't want you to.
I don't care if you never write a line for the tiling,
though you needn't reject anything of yours, if it
happens to be good, on that account. And I don't
want much experience in my editor ; rather not
have it. You told me, didn't you, that you used
to do some newspaper work before you settled
down?"

" Yes ; I thought my lines were permanently cast
in those places once. It was more an accident than
anything else that I got into the insurance business.
I suppose I secretly hoped that if I made my living
by something utterly different, I could come more
freshly to literature proper in my leisure."

" I see ; and you found the insurance business
too many for you. Well, anyway, you've always
had a hankering for the inkpots ; and the fact that
you first gave me the idea of this thing shows
that you've done more or less thinking about
magazines."

*' Yes— less."

" Well, all right. Now don't you be troubled.
I know what I want, generally speaking, and in
this particular instance I want i/ou. I might get
a man of more experience, but I should probably
get a man of more prejudice and self-conceit along
with him, and a man with a following of the literary
hangers - on that are sure to get round an editor
sooner or later. I want to start fair ; and I've
found out in the syndicate business all the men that
are worth having. But they know me, and they

4 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

tlon't know you, and that 's mIici'C ■\ve shall have the
pull on them. They Avon't be ahlc to work the
thing. Don't you be anxious about the experience.
I 've got experience enough of my own to run a
dozen editors. What I want is an editor who has
taste, and you 've got it ; and conscience, and you 'vc
got it ; and horse-sense, and you 've got that. And
I like you because you 're a Western man, and I 'm
another. I do cotton to a Western man -when I
find him off East here, holding* his own with the
best of 'em, and showing 'em that he 's just as mucli-
civilised as they are. We both know Avhat it is to
have our bright home in the setting sun ; heigh 1 "

"I think we Western men Avho 've come East are
apt to take ourselves a little too objectively, and to
feel ourselves rather more representative than we
need," March remarked.

Fulkerson was delighted. " You 've hit it ! We
do ! We are ! "

" And as for holding my own, I 'm not very proud
of Avhat I 've done in that way ; it 's been very little
to hold. But I know what you mean, Fulkerson,
and I 've felt the same thing myself ; it warmed me
toward you Avhen we first met. I can't help suffus-
ing a little to any man when I hear that he Avas
born on the other side of the Allcghanics. It's per-
fectly stupid. I despise the same tiling when I see
it in Boston people."

Fulkerson pulled first one of his blond Avhiskers
and then the other, and twisted the end of each into
a point, which he left to untwine itself. He fixed

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 5

March with his little eyes, which had a curious
innocence in their cunning, and tapped the desk im-
mediately in front of him. " What I like about you
is that you 're broad in your sympathies. The first
time I saw you, that night on the Quebec boat, I said
to myself, ' There 's a man I want to know. There 's
a human being.' I Avas a little afraid of Mrs.
March and the children, but I felt at home with
you — thoroughly domesticated — before I passed a
word Avith you ; and when you spoke first, and
opened up with a joke over that fellow's tableful of
light literature and Indian moccasins and birch-bark
toy canoes and stereoscopic views, I knew that we
were brothers — spiritual twins. I recognised the
Western style of fun, and I thought, when you said
you were from Boston, that it was some of the same.
But I see now that it 's being a cold fact, as far as
the last fifteen or twenty years count, is just so
much gain. You know both sections, and you can
make this thing go, from ocean to ocean."

"We might ring that into the prospectus, too,"
March suggested, with a smile. " You might call
the thing From Sea to Sea. By the way, what are
you going to call it 1 "

" I haven't decided j-et ; that 's one of the things
I wanted to talk with you about. I had thought of
The Syndicate; but it sounds kind of dry, and it
don't seem to cover the ground exactly. I should
like something that would express the co-operative
character of the thing ; but I don't know as I can
get it."

6 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

"Might call it The Mulual."

" Tiiey 'd think it was an insurance paper. No,
that won't do. But IVIutual comes pretty near the
idea. If wc could get something like that, it would
pique curiosity ; and then if we could get paragraphs
afloat explaining that tlie contributors were to be
paid according to the sales, it would be a first-
rate ad."

He bent a wide, anxious, inquiring smile upon
March, who suggested lazily, "You might call it
T/te llound-Bobin. That would express the central
idea of irresponsibility. As I understand, every-
body is to share the profits and be exempt from the
losses. Or, if I 'm wrong, and the reverse is true,
you might call it The Army of Martyrs. Come, that
sounds attractive, Fulkerson ! Or what do you
think of The Fifth Wheel 1 That would forestall the
criticism that there are too many literary periodicals
already. Or, if you want to put forward the idea of
complete independence, you could call it The Free
Lance ; or "

" Or The Hog on Ice— either stand up or fall down,
you know," Fulkerson broke in coarsely. "But
we '11 leave the name of the magazine till we get the
editor. I see the poison 's beginning to Avork in
you, March ; and if I had time, I 'd leave the
result to time. But I haven't. I 've got to know
inside of the next week. To come down to business
with you, March, I shan't start this thing unless I
can get you to take hold of it."

lie seemed to expect some acknowledgment, ami

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 7

March said, " Well, that 's very nice of yon,
Fulkerson."

"No, sir; no, sir! I've alwa3's liked you, and
wanted you, ever since we met that first night. I
had this thing inchoately in my mind then, Avhen
I was telling you about the newspaper syndicate
business — beautiful vision of a lot of literary fellows
breaking loose from the bondage of publishers, and
playing it alone "

" You might call it The Lone Hand ; that would
be attractive," March interrupted. " The whole
West would know what you meant,"

Fulkerson was talking seriously, and ]March was
listening seriously ; but they both broke off and
laughed. Fulkerson got down off the table, and
made some turns about the room. It was growing
late ; the October sun had left the top of the tall
windows ; it was still clear day, but it would soon
be twilight ; they had been talking a long time.
Fulkerson came and stood with his little feet wide
apart, and bent his little lean, square face on March :
" See here ! How much do you get out of this thing
here, anyway 1 "

" The insurance business 1 " March hesitated a
moment, and then said, with a certain effort of re-
serve, "At present about three thousand." He
looked up at Fulkerson with a glance, as if he
had a mind to enlarge upon the fact, and then
dropped his eyes without saying more.

Whether Fulkerson had not thought it so much
or not, he said, "AVell, I'll give you thirty-five

8 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

hundred. Come ! And your chances in the suc-
cess."

" We won't count the chances in the success.
And I don't believe thirty-five lumdred woukl go
any further in New York than three thousand in
Boston."

" But you don't live on three thousand here ] "

" No ; my wife has a little propert3\"

" "Well, she won't lose the income if you go to
New York. I suppose you pay six or seven hundred
a year for your house here. You can get plenty
of flats in New York for the same money ; and I
understand you can get all sorts of provisions for
less than you pay now — three or four cents on the
pound. Come ! "

This was by no means the first talk they had harl
about the matter; every three or four months during
the past two years the syndicate man had dropped
in upon March to air the scheme and to get his im-
pressions of it. This had happened so often that it
had come to be a sort of joke between them. But
now Fulkerson clearly meant business, and March
had a struggle to maintain himself in a firm poise of
refusal.

" I dare say it Avouldn't— or it needn't — cost so
very much more, but I don't Avant to go to New
York; or my wife doesn't. It's the same thing."

" A good deal samer," Fulkerson admitted.

March did not quite like his candour, and he went
on with dignity. " It 's very natural she shouldn't.
She has always lived in Boston ; she 's attached to

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES, 9

the place. Xow, if you were going to start The
Fifth Wheel in Boston "

Fulkerson slowly and sadly shook his head, but
decidedly, " "Wouldn't do. You might as Avell say
St. Louis or Cincinnati. There 's only one city that
belongs to the whole country, and that's Xew
York."

" Yes, I know," sighed March ; " and Boston be-
longs to the Bostonians ; but they like you to make
yourself at home while you 're visiting."

" If you '11 agree to make phrases like that, right
along, and get them into The Round-Lohbi some-
how, I'll say four thousand," saiil Fulkerson. "You
think it over now, i\Iarch. You kdh it over with
Mrs. March ; I know you will, anyway ; and I
might as well make a virtue of advising you to
do it. Tell her I advised you to do it, and you
let me know before next Saturday what you've
decided."

March shut down the rolling top of his desk in
the corner of the room, and walked Fulkerson out
before him. It was so late that the last of the chore-
women who Avashed down the marble halls and stairs
of the great building had wrung out her floor-cloth
and departed, leaving spotless stone and a clean
damp smell in the darkening corridors behind her.

" Couldn't offer you such swell quarters in New
York, March," Fulkerson said as he went tack-tack-
ing down the steps with his small boot-heels. "But
I 've got my eye on a little house round in "West
Eleventh Street, that I 'm going to fit up for my
1*

10 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

bachelor's hall in the third story, and adapt for The
Lone Hand in the first and second, if this thing goes
through ; and I guess Ave '11 be pretty comfortable.
It's right on the Sand Strip- — no malaria of any
kind."

" I don't know that I 'm going to share its salu-
brity with you yet," ]\Iarch sighed in an obvious
travail which gave Fulkerson hopes.

"Oh yes, you are," he coaxed. "Now, you talk
it over with your wife. You give her a fair, unpre-
judiced chance at the thing on its merits, and I 'm
very much mistaken in Mrs. March if she doesn't
tell you to go in and win. "We 're bound to Avin ! "

They stood on the outside steps of the vast edifice
beetling like a granite crag above them, with the
stone groups of an allegory of life-insurance fore-
.shortened in the bas-relief overhead. March ab-
sently lifted his eyes to it. It was suddenly strange
after so many years' familiarity, and so was the well-
known street in its Saturday-evening solitude. He
asked himself, Avith prophetic homesickness, if it
Avere an omen of Avhat Avas to be. But he only said
musingly, " A fortnightly. You knoAV that didn't
work in England. The Forinigldhj is published once
a month now."

" It Avorks in France," Fulkerson retorted. " The
Fievue des Deux Mondes is still published twice a
month. I guess avc can make it work in America —
Avith illustrations."

" Going to have illustrations 1 "

" My dear boy ! What are you giving me ? Do

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 11

I look like the sort of lunatic who would start a
thing in the twilight of the nineteenth century uith-
out illustrations ? Come off ! "

" Ah, that complicates it ! I don't know anything
about art." March's look of discouragement con-
fessed the hold the scheme had taken upon him.

*' I don't want you to ! " Fulkerson retorted.
" Don't you suppose I shall have an art man 1 "

" And will they — the artists — work at a reduced
rate too, like the writers, with the hopes of a share
in the success 1 "

" Of course they will ! And if I want any par-
ticular man, for a card, I'll pay him big money
besides. But I can get plenty of first-rate sketches
on my own terms. You '11 see ! They '11 pour in ! "

"Look here, Fulkerson," said March, "you'd
better call this fortnightly of yours The Madness of
the Half-Moon ; or Bedlam Broke Loose wouldn't be
bad ! Why do you throw away all your hard earn-
ings on such a crazy venture 1 Don't do it ! " The
kindness which March had always felt, in spite of
his wife's 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,

12 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

and found that lie 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 Fulkerson's visits to
Boston ; and Mrs. March, though of a charier hospi-
tality, 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 you're talking like a man and a
brother " said Fulkerson. "Why, March, old
man, do you sui)pose I 'd come on here and try to
talk you into this thing if I wasn't morally, if I
wasn't perfectly, sure of success ? There isn't any
if or and about it. I know my ground, every inch ;
and I don't stand alone on it," he added, with a
significance which did not escape March. " When
you've made up your mind, I can give you the
proof ; but I 'm not at liberty now to say anything
more. I tell you it 's going to be a triumphal march
from the word go, with coffee and lemonade for the
procession along the whole line. All you 've got to
do is to fall in." He stretched out his hand to
March. " You let me know as soon as you con."

March deferred taking his hand till he could ask,
" "Where are you going ? "

" Parker House. Take the half-past ten for New
York to ni"ht."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 13

"I thought I might walk your way." March
looked at his Avatch. " But I shouldn't have time.
Good-bye ! '

He now let Fulkerson have his hand, and they
exchanged a cordial pressure. Fulkerson started
off at a quick, light pace. Half a block aNvay he
stopped, turned round, and seeing March still stand-
ing where he had left him, he called back joyously,
" I 've got the name ! "

" What ? "

" Every OtJier TFeeL"

" It isn't bad."

" Tata ! "

II.

All the way up to the South End March pro-
longed 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 Avas lying in wait for him in the hall,
and she threw her arms round his neck Avith the
exuberance of her fourteen years, and with some-
thing 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 Avas in his last year at the
high-school, and was preparing for Harvard.

"I didn't get away from the office till half-past
five," March explained to his Avife's glance, "and
then I AA^alked. I suppose dinner 's Avaiting. I 'm
sorry, but I Avon't do it any more."

At table he tried to be gay Avith Bella, avIio

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 15

babbled at him with a voluble pertness, which her
brother had often advised her parents to check in
her, unless they wanted her to be universally
despised.

" Papa,"slie shouted, at last, "you 're not listening !"

As soon as possible his wife told the children they
might be excused. Then she asked, " What is it,
Basil 1 "

" What is what 1 " he retorted, with a specious
brightness that did not avail.

" What is on your mind 1 "

" How do you know there 's anything 1 "

" Your kissing me so when you came in, for one
thin^."

"Don't I always kiss you when I come in ] "

" Not now. I suppose it isn't necessary any more.
Cela va sans haiscr."

" Yes, I guess it 's so ; we get along withoutthe
symbolism now." He stojiped, but she knew that
he had not finished.

" Is it about your business 1 Have they done
anything more."

" No ; I 'm still in the dark. I don't know
whether they mean to supplant me, or whether they
ever did. But I Avasn't thinking about that. Ful-
kerson has been to see me again."

" Fulkersou 1 " She brightened at the name, and
March smiled too. " Why didn't you bring him to
dinner 1 "

" I wanted to talk with you. Then you do like
him 1 "

16 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" What has that got to do with it, Basil ? "

" Nothing ! nothing ! That is, he was boring
away about that schcn^ic of his again. He 's got it
into definite shape at last."

" What shape 1 "

March outlined it for her, and his wife seized
its main features with the intuitive sense of affairs
which makes women such good business-men, when
they will let it.

" It sounds perfectly craz}-,"' she said finally.
" But it mayn't be. The only thing I didn't like
about Mr. Fulkerson was his always wanting to
chance things. But what have you got to do with
it?"

" What have I got to do with it ? ' March toyed
with the delay the question gave him ; then he said,
with a sort of deprecatory laugh, " It seems that
Fulkerson has had his eye on me ever since we met
that night on the Quebec boat. I opened up pretty
freely to him, as you do to a man you never expect
to see again, and when I found he was in that news-
paper syndicate business, I told him about my early
literary ambitions "

" You can't say that / ever discouraged them,
Basil," his wife put in. "I should have been will-
ing, any time, to give up everything for them."

" Well, he says that I first suggested this brilliant
idea to him. Perhaps I did; I don't remember.
When he told me about his supplying literature
to newspapers for simultaneous publication, he says
I asked, 'Why not apply the principle of co-opora-

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 17

tion to a magazine, and run it in the interest of the
contributors 1 ' and that set him to thinking, and ho
thought out his plan of a periodical, ■which should
pay authors and artists a low price outright for their
work, and give them a chance of the profits in the
way of a percentage. After all, it isn't so very dif-
ferent from the chances an author takes when he
publishes a book. And Fulkerson thinks that the
novelty of the thing would pique public curiosity,
if it didn't arouse public sympathy. And the long
and short of it is, Isabel, that he wants me to help
edit it."

'* To edit it 1 " His wife caught her breath, and
she took a little time to realise the fact, while she
stared hard at her husband to make sure he was not
joking.

" Yes. He says he owes it all to me ; that I in-
vented the idea — the germ — the microbe."

His Avife had now realised the fact, at least in a
degree that excluded trifling with it. " That is very
honourable of Mr. Fulkerson ; and if he owes it to
you, it was the least he could do." Having recog-
nised her husband's claim to the honour done him,
she began to kindle with a sense of the honour
itself, and the value of the opportunity. "It's a
very high compliment to yov, Basil ; a renj high
compliment. And you could give up this wretched
insurance business that you 've always hated so, and
that 's making you so unhappy now that you think
they 're going to take it from you. Give it up, and
take Mr. Fulkcrson's offer ! It 's a perfect ipter-

18 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

position, coming just at this time ! Why, do it !
Mercy!" she suddenly arrested herself, "he -wouldn't
expect yoiL to get along on the possible profits 1 "
Her face expressed the awfulness of the notion,

March smiled reassuringly, and waited to give
himself the pleasure of the sensation he meant to
give her. " If I '11 make striking phrases for it and
edit it too, he '11 give me four thousand dollars."

He leaned back in his chair, and stuck his hands
deep into his pockets, and watched his wife's face,
luminous with the emotions that flashed througii
her mind — doubt, joy, anxiety.

" Basil ! You don't mean it ! Why, ialx it !
Take it instantly ! Oh, what a thing to happen !
Oh, Avhat luck ! But you deserve it, if you first
suggested it. What an escape, what a triumph over
all those hateful insurance people ! 0 Basil, I 'm
afraid he '11 change his mind ! You ought to have
accepted on the spot. Y^ou might have hioivn I
would approve, and you coultl so easily have taken
it back if I didn't. Telegraph him noAv ! Eun right
out Avith the despatch ! Or we can send Tom ! "

In these imperatives of Mrs. March's there Avas
always much of the conditional. She meant that
he should do Avhat she said, if it AA'ere entirely right ;
and .she never meant to be considered as having
urged him.

" And suppose his enterprise Avent Avrong ? " her
husband suggested.

"It Avon't ^0 wrong. Hasn't he made a success
of his syndicate ? "

" He says so — yes."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 19

" Very well, then, it stands to reason that he '11
succeed in this, too. He wouldn't undertake it if
he didn't know it would succeed ; he must have
capital."

"It will take a great deal to get such a thing
going ; and even if he 's got an Angel behind
liim "

She caught at the word : " An Angel 'i "

" It 's what the theatrical people call a financial
Ijacker. He dropped a hint of something of that
kind."

" Of course, he 's got an Angel," said his wife,
promptly adopting the word. " And even if he
hadn't, still, Basil, I should be willing to have you
risk it. The risk isn't so great, is it? AVc
shouldn't be ruined if it failed altogether, With
our stocks we have two thousand a year, anyway,
and we could pinch through on that till you got
into some other business afterward, especially if
we 'd saved something out of your salary while it
lasted. Basil, I want you to try it ! I know it will
give you a new lease of life to have a congenial
occupation." March laughed, but his Avife persisted.
" I 'm all for your trying it, Basil ; indeed I am.
If it 's an experiment, you caia give it up."

" It can give me up, too."

" Oh, nonsense ! I guess there 's not much fear of
that. Now, I want you to telegraph Mr. Fulkerson,
so that he '11 find the despatch waiting for him
when he gets to New York. I '11 take the whole
responsibility, Basil, and I '11 risk all the conse-
quences."

III.

March's face had sobered more and more as she
followed one hopeful burst with another, and now
it expressed a positive pain. But he forced a smile,
and said : " There 's a little condition attached.
Where did you suppose it was to be published ?"

" Why, in Boston, of course. Where else should
it be published 1 "

She looked at him for the intention of his question
so searchingly that he quite gave up the attempt to
be gay about it. " ISTo," he said gravely, "it's to
be published in New York."

She fell back in her chair. "In New Yorki"
She leaned forward over the table toward him, as if
to make sure that she heard aright, and said, with
all the keen reproach that he could have expected,
'■ In New York, Basil ! Oh, how could you have let
me go on ] "

He had a sufficiently rueful face in owning, " I
oughtn't to have done it, but I got started wrong.
I couldn't help putting the best foot forward at first
— or as long as the Avliole thing was in the air. I
didn't know that you Avould take so much to the
general enterprise, or else I should have mentioned

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 21

the New York condition at once ; but of course that
puts an end to it."

" Oh, of course," she assented sadly. " "We
couldn't go to New York."

" No, I know that," he said ; and with this a per-
verse desire to tempt her to the impossibility aAvokc
in him, though he was really quite cold about the
affair himself now. " Fulkerson thought we could
get a nice flat in Ncav York for about what the
interest and taxes came to here, and provisions are
cheaper. But I should rather not experiment at my
time of life. If I could have been caught younger,
I might- have been inured to New Y'ork, but I don't
believe I could stand it now."

" How I hate to have you talk that way, Basil !
Y'ou are 3'oung enough to try anything — anywhere ;
but you know I don't like New York. I don't
approve of it. It 's so bir/, and so hideous ! Of
course I shouldn't mind that ; but I 've always lived
in Boston, and the children were born and have all
their friendships and associations here." She added,
with the helplessness that discredited her good-sense
and did her injustice, " I have just got them both
into the Friday afternoon class at Papanti's, and you
know how difficult that is."

March could not fail to take advantage of an occa-
sion like this. " Well, that alone ought to settle it.
Under the circumstances it would be flying in the
face of Providence to leave Boston. The mere fact
of a brilliant opening like that ofl'ered me on The
Microhe, and the halcyon future which Fulkerson

22 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

promises if we '11 come to Ngav York, is .is dust in
the balance against the advantages of the Friday
afternoon class,"

" Basil," she appealed solemnly, " have I ever in-
terfered with your career 1"

" I never had any for you to interfere ■with, my
dear."

" Basil ! Haven't I always had faith in yon 1
And don't j'ou suppose that if I thought it would
really be for your advancement, I would go to New
York or anywhere with you 1"

" No, my dear, I don't," he teased. " If it would
]»e for my salvation, yes, perhaps ; but not short of
that ; and I should have to prove by a cloud of wit-
nesses that it would. I don't blame you. I wasn't
born in Boston, but I understand how you feel.
And really, my dear," he added, without irony, " I
never seriously thought of asking you to go to New
York. I was dazzled by Fulkerson's ofler, I '11 own
that; but his choice of me as editor sapped my con-
fidence in him."

"I don't like to hear you say that, Basil," she en-
treated.

" Well, of course there were mitigating circum-
stances. I could see that Fulkerson meant to keep
the whip-hand himself, and that was reassuring.
And besides, if the Reciprocity Life should happen
not to Avant my services any longer, it wouldn't be
quite like giving up a certainty ; though, as a matter
of business, I let Fulkerson get that impression ; I
felt rather sneaking to do it. But, if the worst

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES, 23

comes to the worst, I can look about for something
to do in Boston ; and, anyhoAV, people don't starve
on two thousand a year, though it 's convenient to
have five. The fact is, I'm too old to change so
radically. If you don't like my saying that, then
you are, Isabel, and so are the children. I 've no
right to take tliem from the home Ave 've made, and
to change the whole course of their lives, unless I
can assure them of something, and I can't assure
them of anything. Boston is big enough for us, and
it 's certainly prettier than Ncav York. I always feel
a little proud of hailing from Boston ; my pleasure
in the jjlace mounts the further I get away from it.
But I do appreciate it, my dear, I 've no more desire
to leave it than you have. You may be sure that if
you don't want to take the children out of the
Friday afternoon class, I don't want to leave my
library here, and all the ways I 've got set in. We '11
keep on. Very likely the company won't supplant
me, and if it does, and Watkins gets the place,
he '11 give me a subordinate position of some sort.
Cheer up, Isabel ! I have put Satan and his angel,
Fulkerson, behind me, and it 's all right. Let 's go
in to the children."

He came round the table to Isabel, where she sat
in a growing distraction, and lifted her by the waist
from her chair.

She sighed deeply. " Shall Ave tell the children
about it ? "

" No. What 's the use, now ? "

"There Avouldu't beany," she assented. When

24 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

they entered the family room, where the boy and
girl sat on either side of the lamp working out the
lessons for Monday which they had left over from
the day before, she asked, " Children, how would
you like to live in New York 1 "

Bella made haste to get in her word first. "And
give up the Friday afternoon class 1 " she wailed.

Tom growled from his book, without lifting his
eyes, "I shouldn't Avant to go to Columbia. They
haven't got any dormitories, and you have to board
round anywhere. Are you going to New York ? "
He now deigned to look up at his father.

" No, Tom. You and Bella have decided me
against it. Your perspective shows the affair in
its true proportions. I had an offer to go to New
York, but I 've refused it."

IV.

March's irony fell harmless from the children's
preoccupation Avitli their own affairs, but he knew
that his wife felt it, and this added to the bitterness
which prompted it. He blamed her for letting her
provincial narrowness prevent his accepting Fulker-
son's offer rpiitc as much as if he had otherwise
entirely wished to accept it. His world, like most
worlds, had been superficially a disappointment. He
was no richer than at the beginning, though in
niarr3'ing he had given up some tastes, some prefer-
ences, some aspirations, in the hope of indulging
them later, with larger means and larger leisure.
His wife had not urged him to do it; in fact, her
pride, as she said, was in his fitness for the life ho
had renounced ; but she had acquiesced, and they
had been very happy together. That is to say, they
made up their quarrels or ignored them.

They often accused each other of being selfish
and indifferent, but she knew that he would always
sacrifice himself for her and the children ; and he,
on his part, with many gibes and mockeries, wholly
trusted in her. They had grown practically tolerant
of each other's disagreeable traits ; and the danger
Vol. I.— 2

26 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

that really threatened them was that they should
grow too -well satisfied with themselves, if not with
each other. They were not sentimental, they were
rather matter-of-fact in their motives ; but they
had both a sort of humorous fondness for senti-
mentality. They liked to play with the romantic,
from the safe vantage-ground of their real practi-
cality, and to divine the poetry of the commonplace.
Their peculiar point of view separated them from
most other people, Avith whom their means of self-
comparison were not so good since their marriage as
before. Then they had travelled and seen much of
the world, and they had formed tastes which they
had not always been able to indulge, but of which
they felt that the possession reflected distinction on
them. It enabled them to look down upon those
Avho were without such tastes ; but they were not
ill-natured, and so they did not look down so much
with contempt as with amusement. In their un-
fashionable neighbourhood they had the fame of
being not exclusive precisely, but very much wrapt
up in themselves and their children.

]\Irs. March was reputed to be very cultivated,
and Mr. ]\Iarch even more so, among the simpler
folk around them. Their house had some good
pictures, which her aunt had brought home from
Europe in more affluent days, and it abounded in
books on which he spent more than he ought.
They had Ijeautified it in every way, and had un-
consciously taken credit to themselves for it. They
felt, with a glow almost of virtue, how perfectly it

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 27

fitted their lives and their children's, and they
believed that someho^y it expressed their characters
— that it was like them. They went out very little ;
she remained shut up in its refinement, working the
good of her own ; and he went to his business, and
hurried back to forget it, and dream his dream of
intellectual achievement in the flattering atmosphere
of her sympathy. He could not conceal from him-
self that his divided life was somewhat like Charles
Lamb's, and there were times when, as he had cx-
l>resscd to Fulkerson, he believed that its division
was favourable to the freshness of his interest in
literature. It certainly kept it a high jirivilege, a
sacred refuge. Noav and then he wrote something,
and got it printed after long delays, and when they
met on the St. Lawrence, Fulkerson had some of
^March's verses in his pocket-book, which he had
cut out of a stray newspaper and carried about for
years, because they j^leased his fancy so much ; they
formed an immediate bond of union between the
men when their authorship was traced and owned,
and this gave a jiretty colour of romance to their
acquaintance. But for the most part, !March was
satisfied to read. He was proud of reading criti-
cally, and he kept in the current of literary interests
and controversies. It all seemed to him, and to his
wife at second-hand, very meritorious ; he could not
help contrasting his life and its inner elegance with
that of other men who had no such resources. He
thought that he was not arrogant about it, because
he di<i full justice to the good qualities of those

28 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

other people ; he congratulated himself upon the
democratic instincts ■which enabled him to do this ;
and neither he nor his wife supposed that they were
selfish persons. On the contrary, they -were A'ery
sympathetic 3 there was no good cause that they did
not wish well ; they had a generous scorn of all
kinds of narrow-heartedness ; if it had ever come
into their way to sacrifice themselves for others,
they thought they would have done so, but they
never asked why it had not come in their Avaj-.
They were very gentle and kind, even when most
elusive ; and they taught their children to loathe all
manner of social cruelty. March was of so watchful
a conscience in some respects that he denied liimself
the pensive pleasure of lapsing into the melancholy
of unfulfilled aspirations ; but he did not see that if
he had abandoned them, it had been for what he
held dearer; generally he felt as if he had turned
from them ■with a high altruistic aim. The practical
expression of his life was that it was enough to
provide well for his family ; • to have cultivated
tastes, and to gratify them to the extent of his
means ; to be rather distinguished, even in the
simplification of his desires. He believed, and his
wife believed, that if the time ever came when he
really wished to make a sacrifice to the fulfilment of
the aspirations so long postponed, she Avould be
ready to join with lieart and hand.

When he went to her room from his library,
where she left him the whole evening with the
children, he found her before the glass thoughtfully

A HAZARD OF NEW FOIITUNES. 29

removing the first dismantling pin from Iicr Lack
hair.

" I can't lielp feeling," she grieved into the mirror,
" that it 's I ■who keep you from accepting that oiTer.
I know it is ! I could go West with you, or into a
new country — anywhere ; but New York terrifies
me. I don't like New York, I never did ; it dis-
heartens and distracts me ; I can't find myself in it ;
I shouldn't know how to shop, I know I 'm foolish
and naxTOW and provincial, ' she went on ; " but I
could never have any inner quiet in New Yoik ; I
couldn't live in the spirit there. I suppose people
do. It can't be that all those millions "

"Oh, not so bad as that!" March interposed,
laughing. " There aren't quite two."

"I thought there were faur or five. Well, no
matter. You see what I am, Basil. I 'm terribly
limited. I couldn't make my sympathies go round
two million people ; I should be wretched. I sup-
pose I 'm standing in the way of your highest
interest, but I can't help it. We took each other
for better or Avorse, and you must try to bear with
me " She broke off and began to cry.

''Sbjyitl" shouted March. "I tell you I never
cared anything for Fulkerson's scheme or enter-
tained it seriously, and I shouldn't, if he 'd pro-
posed to carry it out in Boston." This was not
quite true ; but in the retrospect it seemed suffi-
ciently so for the purposes of argument. "Don't
say another word about it. The thing 's over now,
and I don't want to think of it any more. We

30 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

couldn't change its nature if we talked all night.
But I want you to understand that it isn't your
limitations that arc in the Avay. It 's mine. I
shouldn't have the courage to take such a place ;
I don't think I'm fit for it; and that's the long
and short of it."

"Oh, you don't know how it hurts me to have you
say that, Basil."

The next morning, as they sat together at break-
fast, without the children, whom they let lie late on
Sunday, l^Frs. March said to her husband, silent over
his fish-balls and baked beans : " We will go to New
York. I 've decided it."

" Well, it takes two to decide that," March re-
torted. '• We are not going to New York."

" Yes, we are. I 've thought it out. Now, listen."

" Oh, I 'm willing to listen," he consented airily.

" You 'vc always wanted to get out of the insur-
ance business, and now with that fear of being
turned out which you have, you mustn't neglect
this offer, I suppose it has its risks, but it's a,
risk keeping on as we are ; and perhaps you will
make a great success of it. I do want j-ou to trj',
Basil. If I could once feel that you had fairly seen
what you could do in literature, I should die happy."

" Not immediately after, I hope," he suggested,
taking the second cup of coffee she had been pour-
ing out for him. "And Boston ] "

"Wc needn't make a complete break. We can
keep this place for the present, anyway ; we could

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 31

let it for the winter, and come back in tlie summer
next 3-ear. It would Le change enough from New
York."

" Fulkerson and I hadn't got as far as to talk of a
vacation."

" No matter. The children and I could come.
And if you didn't like New York, or the enterprise
failed, you could get into something in Boston
again ; and we have enough to live on till you did.
Yes, Basil, I 'm going."

" I can see by the way your chin trembles that
nothing could stop you. You may go to New York
if you wish, Isabel, but I shall stay here."

" Be serious, Basil. I 'm in earnest."

" Serious ? If I were any more serious I should
shed tears. Come, my dear, I know what you mean,
and if I had my heart set on this thing — Fulkerson
always calls it ' this thing ' — I would cheerfully
accept any sacrifice you could make to it. But I 'd
rather not offer you up on a shrine I don't feel any
particular faith in. I 'm very comfortable where I
am ; that is, I know just Avhere the pinch comes, and
if it comes harder, wh)', I 've got used to bearing that
kind of pinch. I 'm too old to change pinches."

"Now, that does decide me."

"It decides me, too."

"I Avill take all the responsibility, Basil," she
pleaded.

" Oh yes ; but you '11 hand it back to me as soon
as you've carried your point with it. There's
nothing mean about you, Isabel, Avhcre responsibility

32 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

is concerned. No ; if I do tliis tiling — Fulkerson
again ! I can't get away from ' tin's thing ' ; it 's
ominons — I must do it because I want to do it, and
not because you wish that you wanted me to do it.
I understand your position, Isabel, and that you 're
really acting from a generous imjiulso, but there's
nothing so precarious at our time of life as a generous
iini)ulse. When ^ve Avcre younger we could stand
it ; we could give way to it and take the consequences.
But now we can't bear it. We must act from cold
reason even in the ardour of self-sacrifice."

'■'Oh, as if you did that ! " his wife retorted.

"Is that any cause why you shouldn't'?" She
could not say that it was, and he Avent on trium-
phantly : "No, I won't take you aAvay from the
only safe place on the planet, and plunge you into
the most perilous, and then have you say in your
revulsion of feeling that you were all against it from
the first, and you gave Avay because you saw I had
my heart set on it." He supposed he "was treating
the matter humorously, but in this sort of banter
between husband and wife there is always much
more than the joking. March had seen some pretty
feminine inconsistencies and trepidations which once
charmed him in his wife hardenhig into traits of
middle-age, which were very like those of less
interesting older Avomen. The sight moved him
with a kind of pathos, but he felt the result hinder-
ing and vexatious.

She now retorted that if he did not choose to take
her at her word he need not, but that whatever he

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 33

did she should have nothing to reproach herself with ;
and, at least, he could not say that she had trapped
him into anything.

" What do you mean by trapping 1 " he demanded.

" I don't know what you call it," she answered ;
"but when you get me to commit myself to a thing
by leaving out the most essential point, / call it
trapping."

"I wonder you stop at trapping, if you think I
got you to favour Fulkerson's scheme, and then
sprung New York on you. I don't suppose you
do, though. But I guess we won't talk about it
any more."

He went out for a long walk, and she went to
her room. They lunched silently together in the
presence of their children, who knew that they
had been quarrelling, but were easily indifferent
to the fact, as children get to be in such cases ;
nature defends their youth, and the unhappiness
which they behold does not infect them. In the
evening, after the boy and girl had gone to bed,
the father and mother resumed their talk. He
would have liked to take it up at the point from
which it wandered into hostilities, for he felt it
lamentable that a matter whicli so seriously con-
cerned them should be confused in the fumes of
senseless anger ; and he was willing to make a tacit
acknowledgment of his own error by recurring to
the question, but she would not be content with
this, and lie had to concede explicitly to her weak-
ness that she really meant it when she had asked

9»

34 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

him to accept Fulkerson's offer. He said he knew
that ; and he began soberly to talk over their pro-
spects in the event of their going to New York.

" Oh, I see you are going ! " she twitted.

" I 'm going to stay," he ansAvered, " and let tlu'm
turn me out of my agency here ! " and in this bitter-
ness their talk ended.

V.

His wife made no attempt to renew their talk
before March went to his business in the morning,
and they parted in dry offence. Their experience
Avas that these things alwaj's came right of them-
selves at last, and they usually let them. He knew
that she had really tried to consent to a thing that
was repugnant to her, and in his heart he gave her
more credit for the effort than he had allowed her
openly. She knew that she had made it with the
reservation he accused her of, and that he had a
right to feel sore at what she could not help. But
,he left her to brood over his ingratitude, and she
suffered him to go heavy and unfriended to meet
the chances of the day. He said to himself that
if she had assented cordially to the conditions of
Fulkerson's offer, he would have had the courage to
take all the other risks himself, and would have had
the satisfaction of resigning his place. As it was,
he must wait till he was removed ; and he figured
with bitter pleasure the pain she would feel when ho
came home some day and told her he had been sup-
planted, after it was too late to close with Fulkerson.

He found a letter on his desk from the secretary,

36 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" Dictated," in type-writing, Avliicli briefly informed
liim tliat j\Ir. Ilubbell, the Inspector of Agencies,
■would be in Boston on Wednesday, and would call
at his ofTice during the forenoon. The letter Avas
not different in tone from many that he had formerly
received ; but the visit announced was out of. the
usual order, and March believed he read his fate in
it. During the eighteen years of his connection
with it — first as a subordinate in the Boston office,
and finally as its general agent there— he had seen
a good many changes in the Reciprocit}'^ ; presidents,
vice-presidents, actuaries, and general agents had
come and gone, but there had always seemed to be
a recognition of his efficiency, or at least sufficiency,
and there had never been any manner of trouble, no
question of accounts, no apparent dissatisfaction
with his management, until latterly, when there had
begun to come from headquarters some suggestions
of enterprise in certain Avays, Avhich gave him his
first suspicions of his clerk Watkins's Avillingness to<
succeed him ; they embodied some of Watkins's
ideas. The things proposed seemed to March un-
dignified, and even vulgar ; he had never thought
himself Avanting in energy, though probably he had
left the business to take its own course in the old
lines more than he realised. Things had always
gone so smoothly that he had sometimes fancied a
peculiar regard for him in the management, Avliich
lie had the Aveakness to attribute to an appreciation
of Avhat he occasionally did in literature, though in
saner moments he felt how impossible this Avas.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 37

Beyond a reference from Mr. Hubbell to some piece
of March's, ■\vhicli had happened to meet his eye, no
one in the management ever gave a sign of con-
sciousness that their service was adorned by an
obscure literary man ; and Mr. Hubbell himself lind
the effect of regarding the excursions of March's pen
as a sort of joke, and of winking at them, as lie
might have winked if once in a way he had found
him a little the gayer for dining.

March wore through the day gloomily, but he had
it on his conscience not to show any resentment
toward AYatkins, whom he suspected of wishing to
supplant him, and even of working to do so.
Through this self-denial he reached a better mind
concerning his Avife. He determined not to make
her suffer needlessly, if the worst came to the worst ;
she Avoidd suffer enough, at the best, and till the
worst came he would spare her, and not say any-
thing about the letter he had got.

But when they met, her first glance divined that
something had happened, and her first question
frustrated his generous intention. He had to tell
her about the lettier. She would not allow that it
had any significance ; but she wished him to make
an end of his anxieties, and forestall whatever it
might portend by resigning his place at once. She
said she was quite ready to go to New York ; she
had been thinking it all over, and now she really
wanted to go. He answered, soberly, that he had
thought it over, too ; and he did not wish to leave
Boston, Avhere he had lived so long, or try a new

38 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

way of life if he could help it. He insisted that he
■was quite selfish in this ; in their concessions their
quarrel vanished ; they agreed that whatever hap-
pened Avould be for the best ; and the next day he
went to his office fortified for any event.

His destiny, if tragical, presented itself with an
aspect which he might have found comic if it had
been another's destiny. Mr. Hubbell brought
March's removal, softened in the guise of a promo-
tion. The management at NeAV York, it appeared,
had acted upon a suggestion of Mr. Hubbell's, and
now authorised him to offer March the editorship
of the monthly paper published in the interest of
the company; his office would include the author-
ship of circulars and leaflets, in behalf of life insur-
ance, and would give play to the literary talent
which Mr, Hubbell had brought to the attention of
the management ; his salary would be nearly as
much as at present, but the work would not take
his whole time, and in a place like New York ho
could get a great deal of outside Avriting, which they
would not object to his doing.

Mr. Hubbell seemed so sure of his acceptance of
a place in every way congenial to a man of literary
tastes, that March was afterward sorry he dismissed
the proposition with obvious irony, and had need-
lessly hurt Hubbell's feelings ; but Mrs, March had
no such regrets. She was only afraid that he had
not made his rejection contemptuous enough, "And
now," she said, " telegraph Mr, Fulkerson, and we
will Ko at once."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 39

"I suppose I could still get Watkins's former
place," March suggested.

" Never ! " she retorted. " Telegraph instantly ! "

They Avere only afraid now that Fulkerson might
have changed his mind, and they had a wretched
day in Avhich they heard nothing from him. It
ended with his answering March's teleo;ram in
person. They were so glad of his coming, and so
touched by his satisfaction with his bargain, that
they laid all the facts of the case before him. He
entered fully into March's sense of the joke latent
in Mr. Hubbell's proposition ; and he tried to make
Mrs. March believe that he shared her resentment
of the indignity offered her husband.

March made a show of willingness to release him
in view of the changed situation, saying that he
held him to nothing. Fulkerson laughed, and
asked him how soon he thought he could come
on to New York. He refused to reopen the ques-
tion of March's fitness with him ; he said they had
gone into that thoroughly, but he recurred to it
with Mrs. March, and confirmed her belief in his
good-sense on all points. She had been from the
first moment defiantly confident of her husband's
ability, but till she had talked the matter over
Avith Fulkerson, she Avas secretly not sure of it ;
or, at least, she was not sure that March was not
right in distrusting himself. "When she clearly un-
derstood, now, Avhat Fulkerson intended, she had no
longer a doubt. He explained how the enterprise
differed from others, and how he needed for its

40 A HAZARD or NEW FORTUNES.

direction a man who combined general business
experience and business ideas Avith a love for the
tliingj and a natural aptness for it. He did not
■Nvant a young man, and yet he wanted youth — its
freshness, its zest — such as ^March Avould feel in a
tiling he could put his whole heart into. He would
not run in ruts, like an old fellow who had got hack-
neyed ; he Avould not have any hobbies ; he would
not have any friends nor any enemies. Besides, he
would have to meet people, and March Avas a man
that people took to ; she knew that herself ; he had
a kind of charm. The editorial management Avas
going to be kept in the background, as far as the
public Avas concerned; the public AA'as to suppose that
the thing ran itself. Fulkerson did not care for a
great literary reputation in his editor — he implied
that ]\Iarch had a very pretty little one. At the
same time the relations between the contributors
and the management Avere to bo much more inti-
mate than usual. Fulkerson felt his personal dis-
qualification for Avorking the thing socially, and he
counted upon Mr. ]\Iarch for that ; that Avas to say,
he counted upon Mrs. ]\Iarch.

She protested lie must not count upon her ; but it
by no means disabled Fulkerson's judgment in her
vioAV that ]\Iarch really seemed more than anything
else a fancy of his. He had been a fancy of hers ;
and the sort of affectionate respect Avith Avhich Ful-
kerson spoke of him laid for ever some doubt she had
of the fineness of Fulkerson's manners, and recon-
ciled her to the graphic slanginess of his speech.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 41

The afliiir was now irretrievable, but she gave
her approval to it as superbly as if it were submitted
in its inception. Only, Mr. Fulkerson must not sup-
pose she should ever like New York. She would
not deceive him on that point. She never should
like it. She did not conceal, either, that she did
not like taking the children out of the Friday even-
ing class ; and she did not believe that Tom would
ever be reconciled to going to Columbia. She took
courage from Fulkcrson's suggestion that it was pos-
sible for Tom to come to Harvard even from New
York ; and she heaped him with questions concern-
ing the domiciliation of the family in that city. He
tried to knoAV something about the matter, and he
succeeded in seeming interested in points necessarily
indifferent to him.

VL

In the uprooting and transplanting of their home
that followed, ]\Irs. March often trembled before
distant problems and possible contingencies, but she
was never troubled by present difficulties. She kept
up with tireless energy ; and in the moments of de-
jection and misgiving which harassed her husband
she remained dauntless, and put heart into him when
he had lost it altogether.

She arranged to leave the children in the house
Avith the servants, while she went on with INIarch to
look up a dwelling of some sort in New York. It
made him sick to think of it ; and when it came to
the point, he would rather have given up the whole
enterprise. She had to nerve him to it, to repre-
sent more than once that now they had no choice
but to make this experiment. Every detail of part-
ing was anguish to him. He got consolation out of
the notion of letting the house furnished for the
Avinter ; that implied their return to it ; but it cost
him pangs of the keenest misery to advertise it ; and
Avhen a tenant was actually found, it was all he
could do to give him the lease. He tried his wife's
love and patience aS a man must to whom the future

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 43

is easy in the mass, but terrible as it translates itself
piecemeal into the present. He experienced remorse
in the presence of inanimate things he was going to
leave as if they had sensibly reproached him, and an
anticipative homesickness that seemed to stop his
heart. Again and again his wife had to make him
reflect that his depression was not prophetic. She
convinced him of what he already knew ; and per-
suaded him against his knowledge that he could be
keeping an eye out for something to take hold of in
Boston if they could not stand NeAV York. She
ended by telling him that it was too bad to make
her comfort him in a trial that was really so much
more a trial to her. She had to support him in a
last access of despair on their Avay to the Albany
depot the morning they started to New York ; but
when the final details had been dealt with, the
tickets bought, the trunks checked, and the hand-
bags hung up in their car, and the future had massed
itself again at a safe distance and was seven hours
and two hundred miles away, his spirits began to
rise and hers to sink. He Avould have been willing
to celebrate the taste, the domestic refinement of tlie
ladies' waiting-room in the depot, where they had
spent a quarter of an hour before the train started.
He said he did not believe there was another station
in the \vorld where mahogany rocking-chairs were jiro-
vided ; that the dull red Avarmth of the walls -was as
cosey as an evening-lamp, and that he always hoped
to see a fire kindled on that vast hearth, and under
that resthctic mantel, but he supposed now he never

44 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

should. He said it was all vciy difTercnt from tnat
tunnel, the old Albany depot, Avhere they had vraited
the morning they went to New York when they
were starting on their wedding journey.

" The morning, Basil ! " cried his wife. " "We went
at night; and Ave were going to take the boat, but
it stormed so ! " She gave him a glance of such
reproach that he could not answer anything, and
noAV she asked him Avhether he supposed their cook
and second girl would be contented with one of those
dark holes where they put girls to sleep in New
York flats, and what she should do if Margaret,
especially, left her. He ventured to suggest that
Margaret would prol^ably like the city ; but if she
left, there Avere plenty of other girls to be had in
New Y^'ork. She replied that there Avere none she
could trust, and that she kncAv Margaret Avould not
stay. He asked her Avhy she took her, then ; Avhy
she did not give her up at once ; and she ansAA'ered
that it Avould he inhuman to give her up just in the
edge of the Avinter. She had promised to keep her ;
and ^Margaret Avas jileascd Avith the notion of going to
NcAv York, Avhere she had a cousin.

*' Then perhaps she '11 be pleased Avith the notion
of staying," he said.

" Oh, much you know about it ! " she retorted ;
and in vieAV of the hypothetical difficulty and his
Avant of sympathy, she fell into a gloom, from Avhich
she roused herself at last by declaring that if there
Avas nothing else in the flat they took, there should
be a light kitchen and a bright sunny bedroom for

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 45

]\Iargarct. Ho expressed the belief that they coukl
easily find such a flat as that, and she denounced his
fatal optimism, which buoyed him up in the absence
of an undertaking, and let him drop into the depths
of desjiair in its presence.

He owned this defect of temperament, but he said
that it compensated the opposite in her character.
" I suppose that 's one of the chief uses of marriage ;
people supplement each other, and form a pretty
fair sort of human being together. The only draw-
back to the theory is that unmarried people seem
each as complete and whole as a married pair."

She refused to be amused ; she turned her face to
the window and put her handkercliicf up under her
veil.

It was not till the dining-car was attached to their
train that they were both able to escape for an hour
into the carc-frce mood of their earlier travels, when
they Avere so easily taken out of themselves. The
time had been when they could have found enough
in the conjectural fortunes and characters of their
fellow-passengers to occupy them. This phase of
their youth had lasted long, and the world was still
full of novelty and interest for them ; but it re-
quired all the charm of the dining-car now to lay
the anxieties that beset them. It was so potent for
the moment, however, that they could take an objec-
tive view at their sitting cosily down there together,
as if they had only themselves in the world. They
wondered what the children were doing, the chil-
dren who possessed them so intensely Avhen present,

46 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

and now, by a fantastic operation of absence, seemed
almost non-existent. They tried to be homesick for
them, but failed ; they recognised with comfortable
self-abhorrence that this was terrible, but owned a
fascination in being alone ; at the same time they
could not imagine how people felt who never had
any children. They contrasted the luxury of din-
ing that way, with every advantage except a band
of music, and the old way of rushing out to snatch
a fearful joy at the lunch-counters of the "Worcester
and Springfield and New Haven stations. They
had not gone often to New York since their Avcd-
ding journey, but they had gone often enough to
have noted the change from the lunch-counter to
the lunch-basket brought in the train, from which
you could subsist Avith more case and dignity, but
seemed destined to a superabundance of pickles,
whatever you ordered.

They thought well of themselves now that they
could be both critical and tolerant of flavours not
very sharply distinguished from one another in
their dinner, and they lingered over their coffee
and watched the autumn landscape through the
windows.

"Not quite so loud a pattern of calico this year,"
he said, with patronising forbearance toward the
painted woodlands whirling by. "Do you see how
the foreground next the train rushes from us
and the background keeps ahead of us, while the
middle distance seems stationary 1 Fdon't think I
ever noticed that effect before. There ought to be

^l,

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 47

something literary in it : retreating past and advanc-
ing future, and deceitfully permanent present :
something like that 1 "

His wife brushed some crumbs from her lap
before rising. "Yes. You mustn't Avaste any of
these ideas noAv."

" Oh no ; it would be money out of Fulkerson's
pocket."

VII.

TiiFvY -went to a quiet hotel far down-town, and
took a small apartment which they thought they
could easily afford for the day or two they need
si)cnd in looking up. a furnished flat. They were
used to staying at tliis hotel when they came on for
a little outing in New York, after some rigid winter
in Boston, at the time of the spring exhibitions.
They were remembered there from year to year ;
the coloured call-boys, who never seemed to get any
older, smiled uj^on them, and the clerk called March
Ijy name even before he registered. lie asked if
^Irs. ]\Iarch were with him, and said then he sup-
posed they would want their usual quarters ; and in
a moment they were domesticated in a far interior
that seemed to have been waiting for them in a
clean, quiet, patient disoccupation ever since they
left it two years before. The little parlour, with its
gilt paper and ebouised furniture, Avas the lightest
of the rooms, but it was not very light at noonday
without the gas, which the bell-boy now flared up
for them. The uproar of the city came to it in a
soothing murmur, and they took jDOSsession of its
peace and comfort with open celebration. After all.

A HAZARD OF NEW FOHTUNES. 49

they agreed, there v:o.s no place in the world so de-
lightful as a hotel apartment like that ; the boasted
charms of home -were nothing to it ; and then the
magic of its being always there, ready for any one,
every one, just as if it were for some one alone : it
was like the experience of an Arabian Xights hero
come true for all the race.

" Oh, vlnj can't we always stay here, just we two ! "
Mrs. March sighed to her husband, as he came out
of his room rubbing his face red with the towel,
while she studied a new arrangement of her bonnet
and hand-bog on the mantel.

" And ignore the past ] I 'm willing. I "vc no
doubt that the children could get on perfectly well
without us, and could find some lot in the scheme of
Providence that would really be just a.s well for
them."

" Yes ; or could contrive somehow never to have
existed. I should insist upon that. If they are,
don't you see that we couldn't wish them not to be 1 "

" Oh yes ; I see your point ; it 's simply incon-
trovertible."

She laughed, and said : " "Well, at any rate, if we
can't find a flat to suit us we can all crowd into
these three rooms somehow, for the winter, and
then browse about for meals. By the week wc
could get them much cheaper ; and we could save
on the eating, as they do in Europe. Or on some-
thing else."

" Something else, probably," said March. " But
we won't take this opartment till the ideal furnished
Vol. I.— 3

50 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

flat winks out altogether. We shall not h:vve .iny
trouble. We can easily find some one avIio is going
South for the winter, and Avill be glad to give up
their flat ' to the right party ' at a nominal rent.
That 's my notion. That 's Avhat the Evanses did
one winter Avhen they came on here in February.
All but the nominality of the rent."

" Yes, and we could pay a very good rent and
still save something on letting our house. You can
settle yourselves in a hundred diff'erent ways in New
York, that is one merit of the place. But if every-
thing else fails, we can come back to this. I want
you to take the refusal of it, Basil. And we '11 com-
mence looking this very evening as soon as we 've
had dinner. I cut a lot of things out of the Herald
as we came on. See here ! "

She took a long strip of paper out of her hand-
bag with minute advertisements junned transversely
upon it, and forming the effect of some glittering
nondescript vertebrate.

"Looks something like the sea-serpent," said
March, drying his hands on the toAvel, while he
glanced up and down the list. "But Ave shan't
have any trouble. I 've no doubt there are half a
dozen things there that will do. Y^ou haven't gone
up-town 1 Because we must be near the Ereri/ Other
Week ofiice."

" No ; but I tvish Mr. Fulkerson hadn't called it
that ! It always makes one think of 'jam yesterday
and jam to-morrow, but never jam to-day,' in Through
the Looking-glass. They're all in this region."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 51

They were still at their table, beside a low Avindow,
whei'e some sort of never-blooming shrub symme-
trically balanced itself in a large pot, with a leaf to
the right and a leaf to the left and a spear up
the middle, when Fulkerson came stepping square-
footedly over the thick dining-room carpet. He
wagged in the air a gay hand of salutation at sight
of them, and of repression when they offered to rise
to meet him ; then, with an apparent simultaneity
of action he gave a hand to each, pulled up a chair
from the next table, put his hat and stick on the
floor beside it, and seated himself.

"Well, you've burnt your ships behind you, sure
enough," he said, beaming his satisfaction upon
them from eyes and teeth.

" The ships are burnt," said March, " though I 'm
not sure we did it alone. But here we are, looking
for shelter, and a little anxious about the disposition
of the natives."

" Oh, they 're an awful peaceable lot," said Ful-
kerson. " I 've been round amongst the caciques a
little, and I think I 've got two or three places that
will just suit you, Mrs. March. How did you leave
the children ? "

" Oh, how kind of you ! Very Avell, and very
proud to be left in charge of the smoking wrecks."

Fulkerson naturally paid no attention to what she
said, being but secondarily interested in the chil-
dren at the best. " Here are some things right in
this neighbourhood, within gunshot of the office,
and if you want you can go and look at them to-

52 A IIAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES.

night ; the agents gave me houses Avhere the people
Avoukl be in."

" "We will go and look at them instantl}^" said
Mrs. March. "Or, as soon as you've had coffee
■with us."

" Never do," Fulkerson replied. He gathered up
his hat and stick. " Just rushed in to say Hello,
and got to run right aAvay again. I tell you, March,
things are humming. I 'm after those fellows Avith
a sharp stick all the while to keei) them from
loafing on my house, and at the same time I 'm just
bubbling over with ideas about The Lone Hand —
wish we could call it that ! — that I want to talk \\\^
with you."

" Well, come to breakfast," said Mrs. March cor-
dially.

" No ; the ideas will keep till you 've secured
your lodge in this vast wilderness. Good-bye."

"You're as nice as you can be, Mr. Fulkerson,"
she said, " to keep us in mind when you have so
much to occupy you."

" I wouldn't have anyih.\ng to occupy me if I
hadn't kept yon in mind, IMrs. March," said Ful-
kerson, going off upon as good a speech as he could
apparently hope to make.

"Why, Basil," said Mrs. March, when he was
gone, " he 's charming ! But now we mustn't lose
an instant. Let's sec where the places are." She
ran over the half-dozen agents' permits. "Capital
— first-rate — the very thing— every one. "Well, I
consider ourselves settled ! "We can go back to the
children to-morrow if we like, though I rather tliink

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 53

I should like to stay over another day and got a
little rested for the final pulling up that's got to
come. But this simplifies everything enormously,
and Mr. Fulkerson is as thoughtful and as sweet as
he can be. I know you will get on well with him.
He has such a good heart. And his attitude toward
you, Basil, is beautiful always — so respectful ; or not
that so much as appreciative. Yes, apjireciative —
that 's the word ; I must always keep that in mind."

" It 's quite important to do so," said March.

" Yes," she assented seriously, " and we must not
forget just what kind of flat we are going to look
for. The sine qua nons are an elevator and steam-
heat, not above the third floor, to begin with. Then
we must each have a room, and you must have your
study and I must have my parlour ; and the two girls
must each have a room. "With the kitchen and
dining-room, how many does that make ? "

"Ten."

"I thought eight. Well, no matter. You can
Avork in the parlour, and run into your bedroom when
anybody comes ; and I can sit in mine, and the girls
must put up with one, if it 's large and sunny, though
I 've always given them two at home. And the
kitchen must be sunny, so they can sit in it. And
the rooms must all have outside light. And the
rent must not be over eight hundred for the winter.
V\''e only get a thousand for our whole house, and
we must save something out of that, so as to cover
the expenses of moving. Now, do you think you
can remember all that ? "

" Not the half of it," said March. " But you can ;

54 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

or if you forget a third of it, I can come in with my
partial half, and more than make it up."

She had brought her bonnet and sack downstairs
with her, and was transferring them from the hat-
rack to her person while she talked. The friendly
door-boy let them into the street, and the clear
October evening air inspirited her so, that as she
tucked her hand under her husband's arm and began
to pull him along, she said, "If we find something
right away — and avc 're just as likely to get the right
flat soon as late ; it 's all a lottery — we '11 go to the
theatre somewhere."

She had a moment's panic about having left the
agents' permits on the table, and after remembering
that she had put them into her little shopping-bag,
where she kept her money (each note crushed into
a round wad), and had left that on the hat-rack,
where it would certainly be stolen, she found it on
her wrist. She did not think that very funny, but
after a first impulse to inculpate her husband, she
let him laugh, while they stopped under a lamp, and
she held the permits half a yard away to read the
numbers on them.

" Where are your glasses, Isabel 1 "
"On the mantel in our room, of course."
" Then j'ou ought to have brought a pair of tongs."
" I wouldn't get off second-hand jokes, Basil," she
said ; and " Why, here ! " she cried, whirling round
to the door before which they had halted, " this is
the very number. Well, I do believe it 's a sign ! "
One of those coloured men who soften the trade of

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 55

janitor in many of the smaller apartment houses in
New York by the sweetness of their race, let the
Marches in, or, rather, welcomed them to the pos-
session of the premises by the bow with which ho
acknowledged their permit. It was a large, old
mansion cut up into five or six dwellings, but it had
kept some traits of its former dignity, which pleased
people of their sympathetic tastes. The dark
mahogany trim, of sufficiently ugly design, gave a
rich gloom to the hallway, Avhich was wide, and
paved with marble ; the carpeted stairs curved aloft
through a generous space.

" There is no elevator ? " Mrs. March asked of the
janitor.

He answered, " No, ma'am ; only two flights up,"
so winningly that she said —

"Oh! "in courteous apology, and whispered, her
husband as she followed lightly up, " We '11 take it,
Basil, if it's like the rest."

" If it 's like him, you mean."

" I don't wonder they wanted to own them," she
hurriedly philosophised. " If I had such a creature,
nothing but death should part us, and I should no
more think of giving him his freedom ! "

"No; we couldn't afford it," returned her husband.

The apartment the janitor unlocked for them, and
lit up from those chandeliers and brackets of gilt
brass in the form of vine bunches, leaves, and ten-
drils in which the early gas-fitter realised most of his
conceptions of beauty, had rather more of the ugliness
than the dignity of the hall. But the rooms were

56 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

large, and they grouped themselves in a reminiscence
of the time Avhen they were part of a dwelhng, that
had its charm, its pathos, its impressiveness. Where
they were cut up into smaller spaces, it had been
done with the frankness with which a proud old
family of fallen fortunes practises its economies.
The rough pine floors shoAved a black border of tack-
heads where carpets had been lifted and put down
for generations ; the white paint was yellow with
age ; the apartment had light at the front and at the
back, and two or three rooms had glimpses of the
day through small windows let into their corners ;
another one seemed lifting an appealing eye to
heaven through a glass circle in its ceiling ; the rest
must darkle in perpetual twilight. Yet something
pleased in it all, and Mrs. March had gone far to
adapt the different rooms to the members of her
family, when she suddenly thought (and for her to
think was to say), " Why, but there 's no steam-
heat ! "

*' No, ma'am," the janitor admitted, " But dere 's
grates in most o' de rooms, and dere 's furnace-heat
in de halls."

" That 's true," she admitted, and having placed
her family in the apartments, it was hard to get
them out again. " Could we manage ? " she referred
to her husband.

" Why, / shouldn't care for the steam-heat if

What is the rent 1 " lie broke off to ask the janitor.

" Nine hundred, sir."

March concluded to his wife, "If it were furnished.

A HAZARD OF NEW rORTUNES. 57

" Why, of course ! "What could I have been think-
ing of 1 "We 're looking for a furnished flat," she
explained to the janitor, " and this was so pleasant
and home-like, that I never thought whether it was
furnished or not."

She smiled upon the janitor, and ho entered into
the joke and chuckled so amiably at her flattering
oversight on the way downstairs that she said, as
she pinched her husband's arm, " Now, if you don't
give him a quarter, I '11 never speak to you again,
Easil ! "

" I would have given half a dollar willingly to gel>
you beyond his glamour," said March, when they
were safely on the pavement outside. " If it hadn't
been for my strength of character, you 'd have taken
an unfurnished flat without heat and with no elevator,
at nine hundred a year, when you had just sworn
me to steam-heat, an elevator, furniture, and eight
hundred."

" Yes ! How could I have lost my head so com-
pletely 1 " she said, with a lenient amusement in her
aberration which she was not always able to feel in
her husband's.

" The next time a coloured janitor opens the door
to us, I '11 tell him the apartment doesn't suit at tlie
threshold. It 's the only way to manage you, Isabel."

" It 's true. I am in love with the Avhole race, I
never saw one of them that didn't have perfectly
angelic manners. I think we shall all be black in
heaven — that is, black-souled."

*' That isn't the usual theory," said March.
3*

58 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

"Well, perhaps not," she assented. "Where are
•\ve going now 1 Oh yes, to the Xcuophon ! "

She pulled him gaily along again, and after they
had walked a block down and half a block over,
they stood before the apartment-house of that name,
wliich was cut on the gas lamps on either side of the
heavily spiked, resthetic-hinged black door. The
titter of an electric bell brought a large, fat Buttons,
with a stage effect of being dressed to look small,
who said he would call the janitor, and they waited
in the dimly splendid, copper-coloured interior, admir-
ing the whorls and waves into which the wall-paint
Avas combed, till the janitor came in his gold-banded
cap, like a continental 2'>oriier. When they said they
would like to see Mrs. Grosvenor Green's apartment
he owned his inability to cope with the affair, and
said he must send for the Superintendent ; he Avas
cither in the Herodotus or the Thucydides, and
would be there in a minute. The Buttons brought
him — a Yankee of browbeating presence in plain
clothes — almost before they had time to exchange a
frightened whisper in recognition of the fact that
there could be no doubt of the steam-heat and
elevator in this case. Half stifled in the one, they
mounted in the other eight stories, while they tried
to keep their self-respect under the gaze of the
Superintendent, which they felt was classing and
assessing them with unfriendly accuracy. They
could not, and they faltered abashed at the threshold
of Mrs. Grosvenor Green's apartment, while the
Superintendent lit the gas in the gangway that he

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 59

called a private hall, and in the drawing-room and
the succession of chambers stretching rearward to
the kitchen. Everything had been done by the
architect to save space, and everything to Avaste it
by Mrs. Grosvenor Green. She had conformed to a
law for the necessity of turning round in each room,
and had folding-beds in the chambers ; but there her
subordination had ended, and wherever you might
have turned round she had put a gimcrack so that
you would knock it over if you did turn. The place
was rather pretty and even imposing at first glance,
and it took several joint ballots for March and his
wife to make sure that with the kitchen there were
only six rooms. At every door hung a portiere
from large rings on a brass rod ; every shelf and
dressing-case and mantel was littered with gim-
cracks, and the corners of the tiny rooms were
curtained off, and behind these portieres swarmed
more gimcracks. The front of the upright piano
had what March called a short-skirted portiere on
it, and the top was covered with vases, M-ith dragon
candlesticks, and Avith Jap fans, whicli also expanded
themselves bat-wise on the walls between the etch-
ings and the water-colours. The floors were covered
with filling, and then rugs, and then skins ; the
easy-chairs all had tidies, Armenian and Turkish
and Persian ; the lounges and sofas had embroidered
cushions hidden under tidies. The radiator was
concealed by a Jap screen, and over the top of this
some Arab scarfs were flung. There was a super-
abundance of clocks. China pugs guarded tlie

60 A IIAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES.

hearth ; a brass sunflower smiled from the top of
cither andiron, and a brass peacock spread its tail
before them inside a high filigree fender; on one
side was a coal-hod in repoussd brass, and on the
other a wrought-iron wood-basket. Some red Japan-
ese bird-kites were stuck about in the necks of
spelter vases, a crimson Jap umbrella hung opened
beneath the chandelier, and each globe had a shade
of yellow silk.

March, wIru ho had recovered his self-command
a little in the presence of the agglomeration, com-
forted himself by calling the bric-a-brac Jamescracks,
as if this was their full name.

The disrespect he Avas able to show the whole
apartment by means of this joke strengthened him
to say boldly to the Superintendent that it was
altogether too small ; then he asked carelessly what
the rent was.

" Two hundred and fifty."

The Marches gave a start, and looked at each other.

" Don't you think we could make it do ? " she
asked him, and he could see that .she had mentally
saved five hundred dollars as the difference between
the rent of their house and that of this flat. " It has
some very pretty features, and Ave could manage to
squeeze in, couldn't we 1 "

" You Avon't find another furnished flat like it for
no tAVO fifty a month in the whole city," the Superin-
tendent put in.

They exchanged glances again, and March said
carelessly, " It 's too small."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. Gl

" There 's a vacant flat in the Herodotus for
eighteen hundred a year, and one in the Thucydides
for fifteen," the Superintendent suggested, clicking
his keys together as they sank down in the elevator ;
" seven rooms and a bath."

" Thank you," said March, " we 're looking for a
burnished flat."

They felt that the Superintendent parted from
them with repressed sarcasm.

*' 0 Basil, do you think we really made him think
it was the smallness and not the dearness ? "

" No, but we saved our self-respect in the attempt ;
and that 's a great deal."

" Of course, I icoiddn't have taken it, anyway, with
only six rooms, and so high up. But what prices !
Now, we must be very circumspect about the next
place."

It was a janitress, large, fat, with her arms wound
up in her apron, Avho received them there. !Mrs.
March gave her a succinct but perfect statement of
their needs. She failed to grasp the nature of them,
or feigned to do so. She shook her head, and said
that her son would show them the flat. There was
a radiator visible in the narrow hall, and Isabel
tacitly compromised on steam-heat Avithout an ele-
vator, as the flat was only one flight up. When the
son appeared from below with a small kerosene
hand-lamp, it appeared that the flat Avas unfur-
nished, but there was no stopping him till he had
shown it in all its impossibility. When they got
safely away from it and into the street March said,

62 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" Well, liavc 3-011 had enough for to-night, Isabel 1
Shall -we go to the theatre now ? "

" Not on any account. I Avant to see the whole
list of flats that Mr. Fulkcrson thought would be
the very thing for us." She laughed, but with a
certain bitterness.

" You 'II be calling him my ^Ir. Fulkerson next,
Isabel."

" Oh no ! "

The fourth address was a furnished flat without
a kitchen, in a house with a general restaurant.
The fifth was a furnished house. At the sixth a
pathetic widow and her pretty daughter wanted
to take a family to board, and would give them a
private table at a rate which the Marches would
have thought low in Boston.

Mrs. March came away tingling with compassion
for their evident anxiety, and this pity naturally
soured into a sense of injury. " Well, I must say I
have completely lost confidence in Mr. Fulkerson's
judgment. Anything more utterly diff"erent from
Avhat I told him we wanted I couldn't imagine. If
he doesn't manage any better about his business
than he has done about this, it will be a perfect
failure."

" "Well, well, let 's hope he '11 be more circumspect
about that," her husband returned, Avith ironical
propitiation, " But I don't think it 's Fulkerson's
fault altogether. Perhaps it 's the house-agents'.
They're a very illusory generation. There seems
to be somethinuj in the human habitation that cor-

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 63

rupts the natures of those who deal in it, to buy
or sell it, to hire or let it. You go to an agent
and tell him what kind of a house you want. He
has no such house, and he sends you to look at
something altogether different, upon the Avell-ascer-
tained principle that if you can't get Avhat you Avant,
you will take Avhat you can get. You don't sup-
pose the * party' that took our house in Boston was
looking for any such house 1 He was looking for a
totally different kind of house in another part of the
toAra."

" I don't believe that ! " his wife broke in.

" "Well, no matter. But see what a scandalous
rent you asked for it."

*' We didn't get much more than half ; and, be-
sides, the agent told me to ask fourteen hundred."

" Oh, I 'm not blaming you, Isabel. I 'm only
analysing the house-agent, and exonerating Fulker-
son."

" "Well, I don't believe he told them just what we
wanted ; and at any rate, I 'm done Avith agents.
To-morrow, I 'm going entirely by advertisements."

VIII.

Mrs. March took the vertebrate with her to the
Vienna Coffee-house, where they went to breakfast
next morning. She made March buy her the
Herald and the JForld, and she added to its spiny
convolutions from them. She read the new adver-
tisements aloud Avith ardour and with faith to believe
that the apartments described in them were every
one truthfully represented, and that any one of them
was richly responsive to their needs. "Elegant,
light, largo, single, and outside flats " were offered
with " all improvements — bath, ice-box, etc." — for
$25 and 830 a month. The cheapness was amazing.
The Wagram, the Esmeralda, the Jacinth, advertised
them for $40 and -SCO, "with steam-heat and eleva-
tor," rent free till November. Others, attractive
from their air of conscientious scruple, announced
" first-class flats ; good order ; reasonable rents." The
Helena asked the reader if she had seen the " cabinet
finish, hard-wood floors, and frescoed ceilings " of its
$50 flats ; the Asteroid affirmed that such apart-
ments, with " six light rooms and bath, porcelain
Avash-tubs, electric bells, and hall-boy," as it offered
for $75 were iinapproached by competition. There

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. C5

Avas a sameness in the jargon Avhicli tended to con-
fusion. Mrs. ]\Iarch got several flats on her list
which promised neither steam-heat nor elevators ;
she forgot herself so far as to include two or three
as remote from the down-town region of her choice
as Harlem. But after she had rejected these the
nondescript vertebrate was still voluminous enough
to sustain her buoyant hopes.

The Avaiter, who remembered them from year to
year, had put them at a window giving a pretty good
section of Broadway, and before they set out on
their search tliey had a moment of reminiscence.
They recalled the Broadway of five, of ten, of twenty
years ago, swelling and roaring Avith a tide of gaily
painted omnibuses and of picturesque traffic that the
horse-cars have now banished from it. The grind of
their wheels and the clash of their harsh bells im-
perfectly fill the silence that the omnibuses have left,
and the eye misses the tumultuous perspective of
former times.

They Avent out and stood for a moment before
Grace Church, and looked doAvn the stately thorough-
fare, and found it no longer impressive, no longer
characteristic. It is still Broadway in name, but now
it is like any other street. You do not now take
your life in your hand Avhen you attempt to cross it ;
the Broadway policeman Avho supported the elboAV
of timorous beauty in the holloAv of his cotton-gloved
palm and guided its little fearful boots over the
crossing, Avhile he arrested the billowy omnibuses on
cither side Avitli r.n imperious glance, is gone, and all

66 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

that certain processional, barbaric gaiety of the yVxce
is gone.

"Palmyra, Baalbcc, Timour of the Desert," said
March, voicing their common feeling of the change.

They turned and Avent into the beautiful church,
and found themselves in time for the matin service.
Rapt far from New York, if not from earth, in the
dim richness of the painted light, the hallowed music
took them with solemn ecstasy ; the aerial, aspiring
Gothic forms seemed to lift them heavenward. They
came out, reluctant, into the dazzle and bustle of the
street, with a feeling that they were too good for it,
which they confessed to each other Avith whimsical
consciousness.

" But no matter how consecrated we feel now," he
said, " Ave mustn't forget that we went into the
church for precisely the same reason that we went
to the Vienna Caf6 for breakfast — to gratify an
aesthetic sense, to renew the faded pleasure of travel
for a moment, to get back into the Europe of our
youth. It Avas a purely Pagan impulse, Isabel, and
we 'd better own it."

" I don't know," she returned. " I think Ave re-
duce ourselves to the bare bones too much. I Avisli
Ave didn't always recognise the facts as we do. Some-
times I should like to blink them. I should like to
think I Avas devouter than I am, and 3'ounger and
prettier."

' Better not ; you couldn't keep it up. Honesty
is the best policy even in such things."

•' No : I don't like it, Basil. I should rather Avaib

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 67

till tlie last day for some of my motives to come to
the top. I know they 're always mixed, but do let
me give them the benefit of a doubt sometimes."

"Well, Avell, have it your own way, my dear.
But I prefer not to lay up so many disagreeable sur-
prises for myself at that time."

She Avould not consent. " I know I am a good deal
younger than I was. I feel quite in the mood of
that morning when Ave walked down Broadway on
our wedding journey. Don't you 1 "

" Oh yes. But I know I 'm not younger ; I 'm
only prettier."

She laughed for pleasure in his joke, and also for
unconscious joy in the gay New York weather, in
Avhich there was no arrihe pensde of the east wind.
They had crossed Broadway, and Avere Avalking over
to Washington Square, in the region of Avhich they
now hoped to place themselves. The primo tenore
statue of Garibaldi had already taken possession of
the place in the name of Latin progress, and they
met Italian ftices, French faces, Spanish faces, as they
strolled over the asphalte walks, under the thinning
shadows of the autumn-stricken sycamores. They
met the familiar picturesque raggedness of southern
Europe Avith the old kindly illusion that somehoAV
it existed for their appreciation, and that it found
adequate compensation for poverty in this. March
thought he sufficiently expressed his tacit sympathy
in sitting down on one of the iron benches Avith his
Avife, and letting a little Neapolitan put a superfluous
shine on his boots, Avhilc their desultory comment

68 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

AvandcrcJ "with equal esteem to the ohl-fashioncd
American respectability which keeps the north side
of the square in vast mansions of red brick, and the
international shabbiness Avhich has invaded the
southern border, and broken it up into lodging-
houses, shops, beer gardens, and studios.

They noticed the sign of an apartment to let on
the north side, and as soon as the little boot-black
could be bought off they went over to look at it.
The janitor met them at the door and examined
them. Then he said, as if still in doubt, "It has
ten rooms, and the rent is twenty-eiglit hundred
dollars."

"It Avouldn't do, then," March replied, and left
him to divide the responsibility between the paucity
of the rooms and the enormity of the rent as he best
might. But their self-love had received a wound,
and they questioned each other what it was in their
appearance made him doubt their ability to pay so
much.

"Of course we don't look like Kew- Yorkers,"
sighed Mrs. March, "and Ave've walked through
the Square. That might be as if we had walked
along the Park Street mall in the Common before
we came out on Beacon. Do you suppose he could
have seen you getting your boots blacked in that
way?"

" It 's useless to ask," said ^March. " But I never
can recover from this blow."

"Oh pshaw! You know you hate such things
as Ixadly as I do. It was very impertinent of him."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. CD

** Let us go back, and ^eraser Vinfdme by paying
him a j'ear's rent in advance and taking immediate
possession. Nothing else can soothe my wounded
feelings. You Avere not having your boots blacked ;
why shouldn't he have supposed you were a Xew-
Yorker, and I a country cousin ? "

"They always know. Don't you remember Mrs.
Williams's going to a Fifth Avenue milliner in a
"Worth dress, and the woman's asking her instantly
Avhat hotel she should send her hat to ? "

" Yes ; these things drive one to despair. I don't
wonder the bodies of so many genteel strangers are
found in the waters around New York. Shall we
try the south side, my dear ? or liad we better go
back to our rooms and rest a while ? "

IMrs. j\Iarch had out the vertebrate, and was con-
sulting one of its glittering ribs, and glancing up
from it at a house before Avhich they stood. " Yes,
it 's the number ; but do they call this being ready
October 1st?" The little area in front of the base-
ment was heaped Avith a mixture of mortar, bricks,
laths, and shavings from the interior ; the brown-
stone steps to the front door Avere similarly
bestreAvn ; the doorway showed the half-open rough
pine carpenter's hatch of an unfinished house ; the
sashless AvindoAvs of eA'ery story shoAved the actiA'ity
of workmen Avithin ; the clatter of hammers and
the hiss of saAvs came out to them from every open-
ing.

" They may call it October 1st," said March, '• be-
cause it 's too late to contradict them. But they 'd

70 A HAZAED OF NEW FORTUNES.

better not call it December 1st in my presence ; I '11
let them say January 1st, at a pinch."

" We will go in and look at it anyway," said his
wife ; and he admired how, when she was once
within, she began provisionally to settle the family
in each of the several floors with the female instinct
for domiciliation which never failed her. She had
the help of the landlord, who was present to urge
forward the workmen apparently ; he lent a hopeful
fancy to the solution of all her questions. To get
her from under his influence March had to represent
that the place Avas damp from undried plastering,
and that if she stayed she Avould probably be down
Avith that New York pneumonia which visiting Bos-
tonians arc always dying of. Once safely on the
pavement outside, she realised that the apartment
was not only unfinished, but unfurnished, and had
neither steam-heat nor elevator. " But I thought we
had better look at everything," she explained.

" Yes, but not take everything. If I hadn't pulled
you away from there by main force you 'd have not
only died of New York pneumonia on the spot, but
you 'd have had us all settled there before we knew
what we were about."

" Well, that 's what I can't help, Basil. It 's the
only way I can realise whether it will do for us. I
have to dramatise the whole thing."

She got a deal of pleasure as well as excitement
oiit of this, and he had to own that the process of
setting up house-keeping in so many different places
was not only entertaining, but tended, through as-

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 71

sociation with their first beginnings in house-keep-
ing, to restore the image of their early married
days, and to make them j'oung again.

It went on all day, and continued far into the
night, until it was too late to go to the theatre, too
late to do anything but tumble into bed and simul-
taneously fall on sleep. They groaned over their
reiterated disappointments, but they could not deny
that the interest Avas unfailing, and that they got a
great deal of fun out of it all. Nothing could abate
Mrs. March's faith in her advertisements. One of
them sent her to a flat of ten rooms which promised
to be the solution of all their difficulties ; it proved
to be over a livery-stable, a liquor store, and a
milliner's shop, none of the first fashion. Another
led them far into old Greenwich Village to an
apartment-house, which she refused to enter be-
hind a small girl with a loaf of bread under one
arm and a quart can of milk under the other.

In their search they were obliged, as March com-
plained, to the acquisition of useless information in
a degree unequalled in their experience. They came
to excel in the sad knowledge of the line at which
respectability distinguishes itself from shabbiness.
Flattering advertisements took them to numbers
of huge apartment-houses chiefly distinguishable
from tenement-houses by the absence of fire-escapes
on their fai;ades, till Mrs. March refused to stop at
any door where there Avere more than six bell-rat-
chets and speaking-tubes on either hand. Before
the middle of the afternoon she decided against

72 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

ratchets altogctlier, and confiucd herself to knobs,
neatly set in the door-frlm. Her husband was still
sunk in the superstition that you can live anywhere
you like in New York, and he would have paused at
some places where her quicker eye caught the fatal
sign of " Modes " in the ground-floor windows. She
found that there was an east and west line beyond
which they could not go if they wished to keep their
self-respect, and that within the region to Avhich
they had restricted themselves there was a choice of
streets. At first all the New York streets looked to
them ill-paved, dirty, and repulsive ; the genend
infamy imparted itself in their casual impression to
streets in no wise guilty. But they began to notice
that some streets were quiet and clean, aud, though
never so quiet and clean as Boston streets, that they
wore an air of encouraging reform, and suggested a
future of greater and greater domesticity. "Whole
blocks of these down-town cross streets seemed to
have been redeemed from decay, and even in the
midst of squalor a dwelling here and there had been
seized, painted a dull-red as to its brick-work, and
a glossy black as to its wood-work, and with a bright
brass bell-})ull and door knob and a large brass plate
for its key-hoiG escutcheon, had been endowed Avith
an eff'ect of purity and pride which reuioved its
shabby neighbourhood far from it.

Some of these houses Avere quite small, and
imaginably within their means ; but, as March said,
somebody seemed always to be living there himself,
and the fact that none of them were to rent kept

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 73

]\Irs. March true to her ideal of a flat. Nothing
prevented its realisation so much as its difference
from the New York ideal of a flat, which was in-
flexibly seven rooms and a bath. One or two rooms
might be at the front, the rest crooked and cornered
backward through increasing and then decreasing
darkness till they reached a light bedroom or kitchen
at the rear. It might be the one or the other, but
it was always the seventh room with the bath ; or
if, as sometimes happened, it was the eighth, it was
so after having counted the bath as one. In this
case the janitor said you always counted the bath as
one. If the flats Avere advertised as having "all
light rooms," lie explained that any room with a
window giving into the open air of a court or shaft
was counted a light room.

The Marches tried to make out why it was that
these flats were so much more repulsive than the
apartments which every one lived in abroad ; Ijut
they could only do so upon the supposition that
in tlieir European days they were too young, too
happy, too full of the future, to notice whether
rooms were inside or outside, light or dark, big or
little, high or low. "Now we're imprisoned in
the present," he said, "and we have to make the
worst of it."

In their despair he had an inspiration, which she
declared worthy of him : ib was to take two small
flats, of four or five rooms and a bath, and live in
both. They tried this in a great many places ; but
they never could get two flats of the kind on the
Vol. I.— 4

7i A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

same floor where there was steam-heat and an
elevator. At one place they almost did it. They
had resigned themselves to the hnmility of the
neighbourhood, to the prevalence of modistes and
livery-stablemen (they seem to consort much in New
York), to the garbage in the gutters and the litter
of paper in the streets, to the faltering slats in the
surrounding -window-shutters and the crumbled
brown-stone steps and sills, Avhen it turned out that
one of the apartments had been taken between two
visits they made. Then the only combination left
open to them was of a ground-floor flat to the right
and a third-floor flat to the left.

Still they kept this inspiration in reserve for use
at the first opportunity. In the meaniime there
were several flats which they thought they could
almost make do : notably one Avhere they could get
an extra servant's room in the basement four flights
down, and another where they could get it in the
roof five flights up. At the first the janitor was
respectful and enthusiastic ; at the second he had an
effect of ironical pessimism. When they trembled
on the verge of taking his apartment, he pointed out
a spot in the kalsomining of the parlour ceiling, and
gratuitously said, Now such a thing as that he should
not agree to put in shape unless they took the apart-
ment for a term of years. The apartment was
unfurnished, and they recurred to the fact that they
wanted a furnished apartment, and made their escape.
This saved them in several other extremities ; but
short of extremity they could not keep their different

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 75

requirements in mind, and ■\vcrc always about to
decide without regard to some one of them.

They went to several places twice without intend-
ing : once to that old-fashioned house with the
pleasant coloured janitor, and wandered all over the
apartment again with a haunting sense of familiarity,
and then recognised the janitor and laughed ; and to
that house with the pathetic widow and the pretty
daughter who Avished to take them to board. They
stayed to excuse their blunder, and easily came by the
fact that the mother had taken the house that the
girl might have a home while she was in NeAv York
studying art, and they hoped to pay their way by
taking boarders. Her daughter was at her class
now, tlie mother concluded ; and they encouraged
her to believe that it could only be a few days till
the rest of her scheme was realised.

"I dare say wc could be perfectly comfortable
there," ]\Iarch suggested when they had got away.
"Now if wc were truly humane we Avould modify
our desires to meet their needs and end this sicken-
ing search, wouldn't wc ? "

" Yes, but Ave 're not truly humane," his Avife
answered, " or at least not in that sense. You knoAV
you hate boarding ; and if Ave Avent there I should
liaA'^e them on my sympathies the Avhole time."

" I see. And then you Avould take it out of
me."

" Then I should take it out of 3'ou. And if you
are going to be so Avcak, Basil, and let every little
thing Avork upon you in that Avay, you 'd better not

76 A IIAZAUD OF NEW FORTUNES.

come to New York. You'll see enough misery
here."

"AVell, don't take tliat superior tone 'vvith mc, as
if I Avcrc a child that had its mind set on an unde-
sirable toy, Isabel."

" Ah, don't you suppose it 's l^ccausc you are such
a child in some respects that I like you, dear 1 " she
demanded, without relenting.

"But I don't find so much misery in New York.
I don't suppose there 's any more sufToring here to
the population than there is in the country. And
they're so gay about it all. I think the outward
aspect of the place and the hilarity of the sky and
air must get into the people's blood. The weather
io simply unapproachable ; and I don't care if it is
the ugliest place in the world, as you say. I sup-
pose it is. It shrieks and yells with ugliness here
and there, but it never loses its spirits. That
widow is from the country. "When she 's been a
}ear in New Y^'ork she '11 be as gay — as gay as an L
road." He celebrated a satisfaction they both had
in the L roads. " They kill the streets and avenues,
l)ut at least they jiartially hide them, and that is
some comfort ; and they do triumph over their
])rostrate forms with a savage exultation that is
intoxicating. Those bends in the L that you get in
the corner of "Washington Square, or just below the
Cooper Institute — they 're the gayest things in the
world. Perfectly atrocious, of course, but incom-
parably picturesque ! And the whole city is so,"
said March, " or else the L would never have got

A HAZARD or NEW FORTUNES. 77

built here. New York may be splendidly gay or
squalidly gay ; but, prince or pauper, it 's gay
always."

"Yes, gay is the word," she admitted, with a
sigh. " But frantic, I can't get used to it. They for-
get death, Basil ; they forget death in New York."

" Well, I don't know that I 've ever found much
advantage in remembering it."

" Don't say such a thing, dearest."

He could see that she had got to the end of her
nervous strength for the present, and he proposed
tliat they shoidd take the Elevated road as far as it
Avould carry them into the country, and shake off
their nightmare of flat-hunting for an hour or two ;
but her conscience would not let her. She con-
victed him of levity equal to that of the New-
Yorkers in proposing such a thing; and they
dragged through the day. She was too tired to
care for dinner, and in the night she had a dream
from which she woke herself Avith a cry that roused
him too. It was something about the children at
first, whom they had talked of wistfully before
falling asleep, and then it was of a hideous thing
with two square eyes and a series of sections grow-
ing darker and then lighter, till the tail of the
monstrous articulate was quite luminous again.
She shuddered at the vague description she was
able to give ; but he asked, " Did it offer to bite
you 1. "

"No. That Avas the most ftightful thing about
it; it had no mouth."

78 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

^larch laughed. " Why, my dear, it was nothing
but a harmless New York flat — seven rooms and
a bath."

" I really believe it Avas," she consented, recog-
nising an architectural resemblance, and she fell
asleep again, and "wokc renewed for the Avork before
them.

IX.

Their house-hunting no longer had novelty, but
it still had interest ; and they varied their day by
talcing a coup(^, by renouncing advertisements, and
by reverting to agents. Some of these induced them
to consider the idea of furnished houses ; and Mrs.
March learned tolerance for Fulkerson by accepting
jjermits to visit flats and houses which had none of
the qualifications she desired in either, and were as
far beyond her means as they were out of the region
to which she had geographically restricted herself.
They looked at three-thousand and four-thousand
dollar apartments, and rejected them for one reason
or another which had nothing to do Avith the rent ;
the higher the rent was, the more critical they Avere
of the slippery inlaid floors and the arrangement of
the richly decorated rooms. They never knew
whether they had deceived the janitor or not ; as
they came in a coupe, they hoped they had.

They drove accidentally through one street that
seemed gayer in the perspective than an L road.
The fire-escapes, Avith their light iron balconies and
ladders of iron, decorated the lofty liouse fronts ;
the roadway and sidcAvalks and door-steps swarmed

80 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

■\vitli children; Avomcn'.s neads seemed to show at
every -window. In the basements, over which fliglits
of high stone steps led to the tenements, Avere green-
grocers' shops abounding in cabbages, and provision
stores running chiefly to bacon and sausages, and
cobblers' and tinners' shops, and the like, in pro-
portion to the small needs of a poor neiglibourhood.
Ash barrels lined the sidewalks, and garbage heajin
filled the gutters; teams of all trades stood idly
about ; a peddler of cheap fruit urged his cart through
the street, and mixed his cry Avith the joyous screams
and shouts of the children and the scolding and
gossiping voices of the women ; the burly blue bulk
of a policeman defined itself at the corner ; a
drunkard zigzagged down the sidcAvalk toward him.
It was not the abode of the extremcst poverty, but
of a poverty as hopeless as any in the world, trans-
mitting itself from generation to generation, and
establishing conditions of permanency to Avhich
human life adjusts itself as it does to those of sonic
incurable disease, like leprosy.

The time had been Avhen the Marches would have
taken a purely {esthetic view of the facts as they
glimpsed them in this street of tenement-houses ;
when they would have contented themselves with
saying that it was as picturesque as a street in
Naples or Florence, and with wondering why nobody
came to paint it ; they would have thought they
Avere sufficiently serious about it in blaming the
artists for their failure to appreciate it, and going
abroad for the picturesque Avhcn they hud it here

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 81

under their noses. It was to the nose that the street
made one of its strongest appeals, and Mrs. March
pulled up her window of the coup6. " Why does he
take us through such a disgusting street ? " she de-
manded, with an exasperation of which her husband
divined the origin.

"This driver may be a philanthropist in dis-
guise," he answered, with dreamy irony, " and may
want us to think about the people who are not
merely carried through this street in a coup6, but
have to spend their whole lives in it, winter and
summer, with no hopes of driving out of it, except
in a hearse. I must say they don't seem to mind
it. I haven't seen a jollier crowd anywhere in New
York. They seem to have forgotten death a little
more completely than any of their fellow-citizens,
Isabel. And I wonder what they think of us,
making this gorgeous progress through their midst.
I suppose they think we 're rich, and hate us — if
they hate rich people ; they don't look as if they
hated anybody. Should we be as patient as they
are with their discomfort ? I don't believe there 's
steam-heit or an elevator in the whole block. Seven
rooms and a batli would be more than the largest and
genteelest family would know what to do with. Thoy
wouldn't know what to do with the bath anyway."

Ilis monologue seemed to interest his wife apart
from the satirical point it had for themselves. "You
ought to get Mr. Fulkerson to let you work some of
these New York sights up for Every Other Week,
Basil ; you could do them very nicely."
4*

?2 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

"Yes; I've thought of that. Eut don't let's
leave the personal ground. Doesn't it make you
feel rather small and otherwise unworthy when you
see the kind of street these fellow-beings of yours
live in, and then think how particular you are about
locality and the number of bell-pulls 1 I don't see
even ratchets and speaking-tubes at these doors."
He craned his neck out of the window for a better
look, and the children of discomfort cheered him,
out of sheer good feeling and high spirits. *' I didn't
know I was so popular. Perhaps it 's a recognition
of my humane sentiments."

" Oh, it 's A'ery easy to have humane sentiments,
and to satirise ourselves for wanting eight rooms
and a bath in a good neighbourhood, when we see
how these wretched creatures live," said his wife.
" But if we shared all we have Avith them, and then
settled downi among them, Avhat good would it do 1 "

" Not the least in the world. It might help us
for the moment, but it wouldn't keep the wolf from
their doors for a week ; and then they Avould go on
just as before, only they wouldn't be on such good
terms Avith the AA'olf. The only Avay for them is to
keep up an unbroken intimacy Avith the Avolf ; then
they can manage him somehoAV. I don't know hoAv,
and I 'm afraid I don't Avant to. Wouldn't you like
lo liave this fellow drive us round among the halls
of i)ridc somcAvhere for a little Avhile 1 Fifth Avenue
or Madison, up-toAvn ] "

" No ; Ave 've no time to waste. I 've got a i)lace
near Third Avenue, on a nice cross street, and I

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 83

want him to take us there." It proved tliat she had
several addresses near together, and it seemed best
to dismiss their coupe and do the rest of their after-
noon's "work on foot. It came to nothing ; she was
not humbled in the least by what she had seen in
the tenement-house street ; she yielded no point in
her ideal of a flat, and the flats persistently refused
to lend themselves to it. She lost all patience with
them.

'* Oh, I don't say the flats are in the right of it,"
said her husband, when she denounced their stupid
inadequacy to the purposes of a Christian home.
"But I'm not so sure that we arc either. I've
been thinking about that home business ever since
my sensibilities were dragged — in a coupe — through
that tenement-house street. Of course no child born
and brought up in such a place as that could have
any conception of home. But that 's because those
poor people can't give character to their habitations.
They have to take what they can get. But people
like us — that is, of our means— do give character to
the average flat. It 's made to meet their tastes, or
their supposed tastes ; and so it 's made for social
show, not for family life at all. Think of a baby in
a flat ! It 's a contradiction in terms ; the flat is
the negation of motherhood. The flat means society
life ; that is, the pretence of social life. It 's made
to give artificial people a society basis on a little
money — too much money, of course, for what they
get. So the cost of the building is put into marble
halls and idiotic decoration of all kinds. I don't

84 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

object to the conveniences, but none of tliesc flats
have a living-room. They have drawing-rooms to
foster social pretence, and they have dining-rooms
and bedrooms ; but they have no room Avhere the
family can all come together and feel the sweetness
of being a family. The bedrooms are black-holes
mostly, with a sinful waste of space in each. If it
were not for the marble halls, and the decorations,
and the foolislily expensive finish, the houses could
be built round a court, and tlie flats could be shaped
something like a Pompoiian house, Avith small sleep-
ing closets — only lit from the outside — and the rest
of the floor thrown into two or three large cheerful
halls, where all the family life could go on, and
society could be transacted unpretentiously. Why,
those tenements are better and humancr than those
flats ! There the Avhole family lives in the kitchen,
and has its consciousness of being ; but the flat
abolishes the family consciousness. It's confine-
ment without cozincss ; it 's cluttered without be-
ing snug. You couldn't keep a self-respecting cat in
a flat ; you couldn't go down cellar to get cider. No :
the Anglo-Saxon home, as we know it in the Anglo-
Saxon house, is simply impossible in the Franco-
American flat, not because it's humble, but because
it's false."

"AVell, then," said Mrs. March, "let's look at
houses."

He had been denouncing the flat in the abstract,
and he had not expected this concrete result. But
he said, " We will look at houses, then."

X.

Nothing mystifies a man more than a woman's
aberrations from some point at which he supposes
her fixed as a star. In these unfurnished houses,
without steam or elevator, March followed his wife
about with patient wonder. She rather liked the
worst of them best ; but she made him go down into
the cellars and look at the furnaces ; she exacted
from him a rigid inquest of the plumbing. She
followed him into one of the cellars by the fitful
glare of successively lighted matches, and they
enjoyed a moment in which the anomaly of their
presence there on that errand, so remote from all
the facts of their long-stablished life in Boston,
realised itself f^r them.

" Think how easily we might have been murdered
and nobody been any the wiser ! " she said when they
were comfortably out-doors again.

"Yes, or made way with ourselves in an access of
emotional insanity, supposed to have been induced
by unavailing flat-hunting," he suggested.

She fell in with the notion. "I'm beginning to
feel crazy. But I don 't want you to lose your head,
Basil. And I don't vrant you to sentimentalise any

86 A IIAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES.

of the tilings you see in New York. I think you
■were disposed to do it in that street we drove through.
I don't believe there 's any real suffering — not real
suffering — among those people • that is, it would he
suffering from our i)oint of view, hut they've been
used to it all their lives, and they don't feel their
discomfort so much."

" Of course I understand that, and I don't propose
to sentimentalise them. I think when people get
used to a bad state of things they had better stick
to it ; in fact they don't usually like a better state
so well, and I shall keep that firmly in mind."

She laughed with him, and they walked along the
L-bestridden avenue, exhilarated by their escape
from murder and suicide in that cellar, toward the
nearest cross-town track, which they meant to take
home to their hotel. " Now to-night we Avill go to
the theatre," she said, "and get this whole house
business out of our minds, and be perfectly fresh for
a new start in the morning." Suddenly she clutched
his arm. " Why, did you see that man ? " and she
signed with her head toAvard a dfecently dressed
person who walked beside them, next the gutter,
stooping over as if to examine it, and half halting at
times.

"No. What?"

*' Why, I saw him pick up a dirty bit of cracker
from the pavement and cram it into his mouth and
eat it down as if he were famished. And look ! he 's
actually hunting for more in those garbage heaps !"

This was what the decent-lookinn; man with the

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 87

hard hands and broken nails of a workman was
doing — like a hungry dog. They kept up with him,
in the fascination of the sight, to the next corner,
Avhere he turned down the side street still searching
the gutter.

They walked on a few paces. Then March said,
" I must go after him," and left his wife standing.

"Are you in want — hungry?" he asked the
man.

The man said he could not speak English,
monsieur.

March asked his question in French.

The man shrugged a pitiful, desperate shrug,
*' Mais, monsieur "

March put a coin in his hand, and then suddenly
the man's face twisted up ; he caught the hand of
this alms-giver in both of his, and clung to it.
" Monsieur ! monsieur ! " he gasped, and the tears
rained down his face.

His benefactor pulled himself away, shocked and
ashamed, as one is by such a chance, and got back
to his wife, and the man lapsed back into the
mystery of misery out of which he had emerged.

March felt it laid upon him to console his Avife for
what had happened. " Of course we might live
here for 3-ears and not sec another case like that ;
and of course there are twenty places Avhere he
could have gone for help if he had known where to
find them."

"Ah, but it's the possibility of his needing the
help so badly as that ! " she answered. " That 's

88 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

what I can't bear, and I sliall not come to a place
where such things are possible, and wc may as well
stop our house-hunting here at once.'

" Yes 1 And what part of Christendom will you
live in 1 Such things arc possible everywhere in our
conditions."

" Then wc must change the conditions "

" Oh no ; we must go to the theatre and forget
them. We can stop at Brentano's for our tickets as
we pass through Union Square."

" I am not going to the theatre, Basil. I am
going home to Boston to-in*ght. You can stay and
find a flat."

Ho convinced her of the absurdity of her position,
and even of its selfishness ; but she said that her
mind was quite made up irrespective of what had
happened ; that she had been away from the
children long enough ; that she ought to be at home
to finish up the work of leaving it. The word
brought a sigli. " Ah, I don't know why we should
see nothing but sad and ugly things now. When
we were young "

" Younger," he put in. " We 're still young."

" That 's what we pretend, but we know better.
But I was thinking how pretty and pleasant things
used to be turning up all the time on our travels in
the old days. Why, when we were in New York
here on our wedding journey the place didn't seem
half so dirty as it does now, and none of these dis-
mal things happened."

" It was a good deal dirtier," he answered ; "and I

A HAZARD OP NEW FORTUNES. 89

fancy Avorse in every way — liungrier, raggeJer, more
wretchedly housed. But that wasn't the period of
life for us to notice it. Don't you remember,
when we started to Niagara the last time, how
everybody seemed middle-aged and commonplace ;
and when we got there there were no evident
brides ; nothing but elderly married people ? "

" At Icvast they Avcrcn't starving," she rebelled.

"No, you don't starve in parlour cars and first-
class hotels ; but if you step out of them you run
your chance of seeing those who do, if you 're get-
ting on pretty well in the forties. If it's the un-
happy who see unhappiness, think Avhat misery must
be revealed to people who pass their lives in the
really squalid tenement-house streets — I don't mean
picturesque avenues like that we passed through."

" But we are not unhappy," she protested, bring-
ing the talk back to the personal base again, as
women must to get any good out of talk. " We 're
7-oally no unhappier than we were when we were
young."

"We're more serious."

" Well, I hate it ; and I wish you wouldnt be so
serious, if that 's what it brings us to."

"I will be trivial from this on," said March.
" Shall we go to the Hole in the Ground to-night 1 "

"I am going to Boston."

" It 's much the same thing. How do you like that
for triviality ? It 's a little blasphemous, I '11 allow."

" It 's very silly," she said.

At the hotel they found a letter from the agent

90 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

who had sent them the permit to see Mrs. Gros-
venor Green's apartment. He wrote that she had
heard they were pleased with her apartment, and
that she thought she could make the terms to suit.
She had taken her passage for Europe, and was very
anxious to let the flat before she sailed. She would
call that evening at seven.

" Mrs. Grosvcnor Green ! " said Mrs. March.
" Which of the ten thousand flats is it, Basil 1 "

" The gimcrackery," ho answered. " In the
Xenophon, you know."

" Well, she may save herself the trouble. I shall
not see her. Or yes — I must. I couldn't go away
without seeing what sort of creature could have
planned that fly-aAvay flat. She must be a perfect "

''Parachute," March suggested.

"No : anybody so light as that couldn't come down. "

"Well, toy balloon."

" Toy balloon will do for the present," Mrs. March
admitted. " But I feel that naught but herself can
be her parallel for volatility."

When Mrs. Grosvenor Green's card came up they
both descended to the hotel parlour, which March
said looked like the saloon of a Moorish day -boat ;
not that he knew of any such craft, but the decora-
tions were so Saracenic and the architecture so
Hudson Riverish. They found there on the grand
central divan a large lady whose vast smoothness,
placidity, and plumpness set at defiance all their j^re-
conceptions of Mrs. Grosvenor Green, so that Mrs.
March distinctly paused Avith her card in her hand

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 91

before venturing even tentatively to address her.
Then slie was astonished at the Ioav calm voice in
■which Mrs. Green acknowledged herself, and slowly
proceeded to apologise for calling. It was not quite
true that she had taken her passage for Europe, but
she hoped soon to do so, and she confessed that in
the meantime she was anxious to let her flat. She
was a little worn out with the care of house-keeping
— Mrs. March breathed, " Oh yes ! " in the sigh with
which ladies recognise one another's martyrdom —
and Mr. Green had business abroad, and she was
going to pursue her art studies in Paris ; she drew
in Mr. Ilcomb's class now, but the instruction was
so much better in Paris ; and as the Superintendent
seemed to think the price was the only objection,
she had ventured to call.

" Then we didn't deceive him in the least,"
thought Mrs. March, while she answered sweetly :
"No; we were only afraid that it would be too
small for our family. We require a good many
rooms." She could not forego the opportunity of
saying, " My husband is coming to New York to
take charge of a literary periodical, and he will
have to have a room to write in," which made
Mrs. Green bow to March, and made Tilarch look
sheepish, "But we did think the apartment very
charming (It was architecturally charming," she pro-
tested to her conscience), *' and we should have been
so glad if we could have got into it." She followed
this with some account of their house-hunting, amid
soft murmurs of sympathy from ^Irs. Green, who

92 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

said that she had been through all that, and tliat if
she could have shown hor apartment to them she
felt sure that she could have explained it so that
they would have seen its capabilities better. Mrs.
March assented to this, and Mrs. Green added that
if they found nothing exactly suitable she would be
glad to have them look at it again ; and then Mrs.
March said that she was going back to Boston her-
self, but she was leaving Mr. March to continue the
search, and she had no doubt he would be only too
glad to see the apartment by dayliglit. " But if
you take it, Basil," she warned him, when they were
alone, " I shall simply renounce you. I wouldn't
live in that junk shop if you gave it to me. But
who would have thought she was that kind of look-
ing person 1 Though of course I might have known
if I had stopped to think once. It's because the
place doesn't express her at all that it 's so unlike
her. It couldn't be like anybody, or anything that
flies in the air, or creeps upon the earth, or swims
in the waters under the earth. I wonder where in
the world she 's from ; she 's no New-Yorker ; even
we can see that ; and she 's not quite a countr}-
person either ; she seems like a person from some
large town, where she 's been an {esthetic authority.
And she can't find good enough art instruction in
New York, and has to go to Paris for it ! Well, it 's
pathetic, after all, Basil. I can't help feeling sorry
for a person Avho mistakes herself to that extent."
" I can't help feeling sorry for the husband of a
person who mistakes herself to that extent. AVhat

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 93

is Mr. Grosvenor Green going to do in Paris while
she 's Avorking her Avay into the Salon 1 "

" Well, you keep away from her apartment, Basil ;
that 's all I 've got to say to you. And yet I do like
some things about her."

" I like everything about her but her ajiartment,"
said March.

*' I like her going to be out of the country," said
his wife. " We shouldn't be overlooked. And the
place was prettily shaped, you can't deny it. And
there Avas an elevator and steam-heat. And the loca-
tion is very convenient. And there was a hall-boy
to bring up cards. The halls and stairs were kept
very clean and nice. But it wouldn't do. I could
put you a foMing bed in the room where you wrote,
and we could even have one in the parlour "

" Behind a portiere 1 I couldn't stand any more
portieres ! "

"And Ave could squeeze the two girls into one
room, or perhaps only bring Margaret, and put out
the Avhole of the Avash. Basil ! " she almost shrieked,
" it isn't to be thought of ! "

He retorted, "I 'm not thinking of it, my dear."

Fidkerson came in just before they started for Mrs.
March's train, to find out Avhat had become of them,
he said, and to see Avhether they had got anything
to live in yet.

" Not a thing," she said. " And I 'm just going
back to Boston, and IcaA'ing Mr. March here to do
anything he pleases about it. He has carte blanche."

"But freedom brings responsibility, you know,

94 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

Fulkerson, and it 's the same as if I 'd no choice. I 'in
staying behind because I 'm left, not because I expect
to do anything."

" Is that so ] " asked Fulkerson. " Well, ■\vc must
see what can be done. I suj)posed you would be all
settled by this time, or I should have humped myself
to find you something. None of those places I gave
you amount to anything 1 "

" As much as forty thousand others we 'vc looked
at," said Mrs. March. "Yes, one of them does
amount to something. It comes so near being what
Ave want that I 've given Mr. March particular in-
structions not to go near it."

She told him about Mrs. Grosvenor Green and her
flats, and at the end he said —

" Well, well, wc must look out for that. I "11 keep
an eye on him, Mrs. March, and see that he doesn't
do anything rash, and I won't leave him till he'.s
found just the right thing. It exists, of course ; it
must in a city of eighteen hundred thousand people,
and the only question is where to find it. You leave
him to me, Mrs. March ; I '11 watch out for him."

Fulkerson showed some signs of going to the
station Avhen he found they were not driving, but
she bade him a peremptory good-b3'e at the hotel door.

*' He 's very nice, Lasil, and his Avay with you is
perfectly charming. It's very sweet to see how
really fond of you lie is. But I didn't want him
stringing along up to Forty-second Street with ns,
and spoiling our last moments together."

At Third Avenue they took the Elevated, for

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 95

which she confessed an infatuation. She declared it
the most ideal -way of getting about in the -world,
and Avas not ashamed -vvhcn he reminded her of how
she used to say that nothing under the sun could
induce her to travel on it. She now said that the
night transit was even more interesting than the
day, and that the fleeting intimacy you formed with
people in second and third floor interiors, while all
the usual street life went on underneath, had a
domestic intensity mixed with a perfect repose that
was the last effect of good society with all its security
and exclusiveness. He said it was better than the
theatre, of which it reminded him, to see those
people through their windows : a family party of
work-folk at a late tea, some of the men in their
shirt sleeves ; a Avoman sewing by a lamp ; a mother
laying her child in its cradle ; a man Avith his head
fallen on his hands upon a table ; a girl and her
lover leaning over the Avindow-sill together. "What
suggestion ! Avhat drama ! Avhat infinite interest !
At the Forty-second Street station they stopped a
minute on the bridge that crosses the track to the
branch road for the Central Depot, and looked up
and doAvn the long stretch of the eleA\ated to north
and south. The track that found and lost itself a
thousand times in the flare and tremor of the innu-
merable lights ; the moony sheen of the electrics
mixing Aviih the reddish points and blots of gas far
and near; the architectural shapes of houses and
churches and tOAvers, rescued by the obscurity from
all that AA'as iirnoble in them, and the comin" and

9G A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

going of the trains marking the stations with vividor
or fainter phimes of flame-shot steam — formed an
incomparable perspective. They often talked after-
Avard of the superb spectacle, which in a city full of
painters nightly works its unrecorded miracles ; and
they were just to the Arachne roof spun in iron
over the cross street on which they ran to the depot ;
but for the present they were mostly inarticulate
before it. They had another moment of rich silence
when they paused in the gallery that leads from the
elevated station to the waiting-rooms in the Central
Depot and looked down upon the great night trains
lying on the tracks dim under the rain of gas-lights
that starred without dispersing the vast darkness of
the place. AVhat forces, what fates, slept in these
bulks which would soon l)c hurling themselves north
and cast and west through the night ! Now they
Avaited there like fablcil monsters of Arab story ready
for the magician's touch, tractable, reckless, will-less
— organised lifelessness full of a strange semblance
of life.

The Marches admired the impressive sight with a
thrill of patriotic pride in the fact that the whole
Avorld perhaps could not afTord just the like. Then
they hurried down to the ticket offices, and he got
her a lower berth in the Boston sleeper, and Avent
Avith her to the car. They made the most of the
fact that her berth AA-as in the very middle of the
car ; and she promised to Avrite as soon as she reached
home. She promised also that having seen the
limitations of Ncav York in respect to flats, she

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 97

■svould not be hard on him if lie took something not
quite ideal. Only he must remember that it was
not to be above Twentieth Street nor below Wash-
ington Square ; it must not be higher than the third
floor; it must have an elevator, steam-heat, hall-
boys, and a pleasant janitor. These were essentials ;
if he could not get them, then they must do without.
But he must get them.
Vol. I.— 5

XI.

Mrs. March Avas one of those wives avIio exact a
more rigid adherence to their ideals from their hus-
bands than from themselves. Early in their married
life she had taken charge of liim in all matters "which
she considered practical. She did not include the
business of bread-winning in these ; that Avas an
affair that might safely be left to his absent-minded,
dreamy inefficiency, and she did not interfere with
him there. But in such things as relumging the pic-
tures, deciding on a summer boarding-place, taking a
seaside cottage, repapering rooms, choosing seats at
the theatre, seeing what the children ate when she
was not at table, shutting the cat out at night, keep-
ing run of calls and invitations, and seeing if the fur-
nace was damped, he had failed her so often that she
felt she could not leave him the slightest discretion
in regard to a flat. Her total distrust of his judg-
ment in the matters cited and others like them con-
sisted with the greatest admiration of his mind and
respect for his character. She often said that if he
would only bring them to bear in such exigencies he
would be simply perfect; but she had long given up
his ever doing so. She subjected him, therefore, to

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 99

ail iron code, but after proclaiming it she was apt to
abandon him to the native hxwlessness of his tem-
perament. She expected him in this event to do as
he pleased, and she resigned herself to it with con-
siderable comfort in holding him accountable. He
learned to expect this, and after suffering keenly
from her disappointment with M'hatever he did he
waited patiently till she forgot her grievance and
began to extract what consolation lurks in the irre-
parable. She would almost admit at moments that
what he had done was a very good thing, but she
reserved the right to return in full force to her
original condemnation of it; and she accumulated
each act of independent volition in witness and
warning against him. Their mass oppressed but
never deterred him. He expected to do the wrong
thing when left to his own devices, and he did io
without any apparent recollection of his former mis-
deeds and their consequences. There was a good
deal of comedy in it all, and some tragedy.

He now experienced a certain expansion, such as
husbands of his kind will imagine, on going back to
his hotel alone. It was, perhaps, a revulsion from
the pain of parting ; and he toyed with tho idea
of Mrs. Grosvenor Green's apartment, which, in its
preposterous unsuitability, had a strange attraction.
He felt that he could take it with less risk than
anything else they had seen, but he said he would
look at all the other places in town first. He really
spent the greater part of the next day in hunting up
the owner of an apartment that had neither steam-

100 A IL\ZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

heat nor an elevator, but was otherwise perfect, and
trying to get him to take less than the agent asked.
By a curious psychical operation he was able, in the
transaction, to work himself into quite a passionate
desire for the apartment, while he held the Gros-
venor Green apartment in the background of his
mind as something that he could return to as alto-
gether more suitable. He conducted some simul-
taneous negotiation for a furnished house, which
enhanced still more the desirability of the Grosvenor
Green apartment. Toward evening he went off at
a tangent far up-town, so as to be able to tell his
wife how utterly preposterous the best there would
be as compared even with this ridiculous Grosvenor
Green gimcrackery. It is hard to report the pro-
cesses of his sophistication ; perhaps this, again,
may best be left to the marital imagination.

He rang at the last of these up-town apartments
as it M^as falling dusk, and it was long before the
janitor appeared. Then the man was very surly,
and said if he looked at the flat now he would say
it was too dark, like all the rest. His reluctance
irritated March in proportion to his insincerity in
proposing to look at it at all. He knew he did not
mean to take it under any circumstances; that he
Avas going to use his inspection of it in dishonest
justification of his disobedience to his wife ; but he
put on an air of offended dignity. "If you don't
wish to show the apartment," he. said, " I don't care
to see it."

The man groaned, for he was heavy, and no doubt

A HAiJARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 101

dreaded the stairs. He scratched a match on his
thigh, and led the way up. March Avas sorry for
him, and he put his fingers on a quarter in his
waistcoat-pocket to give him at parting. At the
same time, he had to trump up an objection to the
flat. This was easy, for it was advertised as con-
taining ten rooms, and he found the number eked
out with the bath-room and two large closets. " It 's
light enough," said March, " but I don't see how you
make out ten rooms."

*' There 's ten rooms," said the man, deigning no
prool

March took his fingers off the quarter, and went
downstairs and out of the door without another
word. It would be wrong, it would be impossible,
to give the man anything after such insolence. He
reflected, with shame, that it was also cheaper to
punish than forgive him.

He returned to his hotel prepared for any
desperate measure, and convinced now that the
Grosvenor Green apartment was not merely the
only thing left for him, but was, on its own merits,
the best thing in New York.

Fulkerson was waiting for him in the reading-room,
and it gave March the curious thrill with which a
man closes with temptation when he said: "Look
here ! Why don't you take that woman's flat in the
Xenophon ? She 's been at the agents again, and
they 've been at me. She likes your look — or Mrs.
March's — and I guess you can have it at a pretty
heavy discount from the original price. I 'm author-

102 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

ised to say you can have it for one seventy- five a
month, and I don't believe it would be safe for you
to offer one fifty."

!March shook his head, and dropped a mask of
virtuous rejection over his corrupt acquiescence.
" It 's too small for us — we couldn't squeeze into it."

" Why, look here ! " Fulkerson persisted. "How
many rooms do you people want ? "

" I 'vc got to have a place to work "

" Of course ! And you 've got to have it at the
Fifth Wheel office."

"I hadn't thought of that," March began. "I
suppose I could do my work at the office, as there 's
not much writing "

" Why, of course you can't do your work at home.
You just come round with me now, and look at that
flat again."

"No; I can't do it."

"Why?"

"I— I've got to dine."

" All right," said Fulkerson, "Dine with me. I
want to take you round to a little Italian place that
I know."

One may trace the successive steps of March's
descent in this simple matter with the same edifica-
tion that would attend the study of the self-delusions
and obfuscations of a man tempted to crime. The
process is probably not at all different, and to the
philosophical mind the kind of result is unimpor-
tant ; tlio process is everything.

Fulkofsoii led him down one block and hilf

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 103

across another to the steps of a small dwelling-house,
transformed, like many others, into a restaurant
of the Latin ideal, with little or no structural
change from the pattern of the lower middle-class
New York home. There were the corroded brown-
stone steps, the mean little front door, and the
cramped entry with its narrow stairs by which
ladies could go up to a dining-room appointed for
them on the second floor ; the parlours on the first
were set about with tables, where men smoked
cigarettes between the courses, and a single Avaiter
ran swiftly to and fro "with plates and dishes, and
exchanged unintelligible outcries with a cook be-
yond a slide in the back parlour. He rushed at the
new-comers, brushed the soiled table-cloth before
them with a towel on his arm, covered its worst
stains with a napkin, and brought them, in their
order, the vermicelli soup, the fried fish, the cheesc-
strcAvn spaghetti, the veal cutlets, the tepid roast
fowl and salad, and the wizened pear and coffee
which form the dinner at such places.

" Ah, this is nice ! " said Fulkerson, after the
laying of the charitable napkin, and he began to
recognise acquaintances, some of whom he described
to March as young literary men and artists with
whom they should probably haA'C to do ; others
were simply frequenters of the place, and were of
all nationalities and religions apparently — at least,
several were Hebrews and Cubans. " You get a
pretty good slice of New York here," he said, " all
except the frosting on top. That you won't find

101 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

much at Maroni's, though you will occasionally. I
don't mean the ladies ever, of course." The ladies
present seemed liarmless and reputable looking
people enough, but certainly they wore not of the
first fashion, and, except in a few instances, not
Americans. "It's like cutting straight down
through a fruit-cake," Fulkerson went on, "or a
mince-pie, when you don't know who made the pie ;
you get a little of everything." He ordered a small
flask of Chianti with the dinner, and it came in
its pretty wicker jacket. March smiled upon it
with tender reminiscence, and Fulkerson laughed.
" Lights you up a little. I brought old Dryfoos
here one day, and he thought it was sweet-oil ;
that 's the kind of bottle they used to have it in at
the country drug-stores."

" Yes, I remember now ; but I 'd totally forgotten
it," said March. " IIow far back that goes ! AVho 's
Dryfoos ? "

"Dryfoos?" Fulkerson, still smiling, tore off a
piece of the half-yard of French loaf which had been
supplied them, with two pale, thin disks of butter,
and fed it into himself. " Old Dryfoos ? Well, of
course ! I call him old, but he ain't so very.
About fifty, or along there."

"No," said March, "that isn't very old — or not
so old as it used to be."

" Well, I suppose you 've got to know about him,
anyway," said Fulkerson thoughtfully. "And I've
been wondering just how I should tell you. Can't
always make out exactly how much of a Bostoiiian

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 105

you really are ! Ever been out in the natural gas
country 1 "

" No," said March. " I 've had a good deal of
curiosity about it, but I 've never been able to get
away except in summer, and then we always pre-
ferred to go over the old ground, out to Niagara
and back through Canada, the route Ave took on our
•wedding journey. The children like it as much as
we do."

"Yes, yes," said Fulkerson. "Well, the natural
gas country is worth seeing. I don't mean the
Pittsburg gas-fields, but out in Northern Ohio and
Indiana around Moffitt — that 's the place in the
heart of the gas region that they 've been booming
so. Yes, you ought to see that country. If you
haven't been "West for a good many years, you
haven't got any idea how old the country looks.
You remember how the fields used to be all full of
stumps ] "

" I should think so."

" "Well, you won't see any stumps now. All that
country out around Moffitt is just as smooth as a
checker-board, and looks as old as England. You
know how we used to burn the stumps out ; and
then somebody invented a stump-extracter, and we
pulled them out with a yoke of oxen. Now they
just touch 'em off with a little dynamite, and they 've
got a cellar dug and filled up with kindling ready
for house-keeping whenever you want it. Only
they haven't got any use for kindling in that coimtry
— all gas. I rode along on tlio cars through those

lOG A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

level black fields at corn-planting time, and every
once in a -while I 'd come to a place witli a piece of
ragged old stove-pipe stickin' up out of the ground,
and blazing away like forty, and a fellow jiloughing
all round it and not minding it any more than if it
was spring violets. Horses didn't notice it, either.
Well, they 've always known about the gas out there ;
thoy say there are places in the woods Avhoreit's
been burning ever since the country was settled.

" But when \ on come in sight of Moffitt — my, oh
my ! Well, you come in smell of it about as soon.
That gas out there ain't odourless, like the Pittsburg
gas, and so it 's perfectly safe ; but the smell isn't
bad — about as bad as the finest kind of benzine.
Well, the first thing that strikes you Avhen you
come to Moffitt is the notion that there has been a
good warm, growing rain, and the town's come up
overnight. That 's in the suburbs, the annexes, and
additions. But it ain't shabby — no shanty-town
business ; nice brick and frame houses, some of 'em
Queen Anne style, and all of 'cm looking as if they
had come to stay. And Avhcn you drive up from
the depot you think everybody 's moving. Every-
thing seems to be piled into the street ; old houses
made over, and new ones going up everywhere. You
know the kind of street Main Street always used to
be in our section — half plank-road and turnpike, and
the rest mud-hole, and a lot of stores and doggeries
strung along with false fronts a story higher than
the back, and here and there a decent building with
the gable end to the public; and a court-house and

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 107

jail and two taverns and three or four churches.
Well, they 're all there in Moffitt yet, but architecture
has struck it hard, and they 've got a lot of new
huildings that needn't be ashamed of themselves
anywhere ; the new court-house is as big as St.
Peter's, and the Grand Opera-house is in the highest
style of the art. You can't buy a lot on that street
for much less than you can buy a lot in New York
— or you coiildn't when the boom was on; I saw
the place just when the boom was in its prime. I
went out there to work the newspapers in the
syndicate business, and I got one of their men to
write me a real bright, snappy account of the gas ;
and they just took me in their arms and showed me
everything. Well, it was wonderful, and it was
beautiful, too! To see a whole community stirred up
like that was — just like a big boy, all hope and high
spirits, and no discount on the remotest future ;
nothing but perpetual boom to the end of time — I
tell you it Avarmed your blood. Why, there Avere
some things about it that made you think Avhat a
nice kind of Avorld this Avould be if people ever took
hold together, instead of each fellow fighting it out
on his OAvn hook, and devil take the hindmost. They
made up their minds at Moffitt that if they Avanted
their toAvn to groAv they 'd got to keep their gas
public property. So they extended their corporation
line so as to take in pretty much the Avhole gas
region round there ; and then the city took posses-
sion of every Avell that Avas put doAA'n, and held it
for the common good. Anybody that 's a mind to

108 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

come to ]\Ioffitt and start any kind of manufacture
can have all the gas he wants free ; and for fifteen
dollars a year you can have all the gas you want to
heat and light your private house. The people hold
on to it for themselves, and, as I say, it 's a grand
sight to see a whole community hanging together
and working for the good of all, instead of splitting
up into as many diflcrcnt cut-throats as there are
able-bodied citizens. See that fellow ] " Fulkerson
broke off, and indicated with a twirl of his head a
short, dark, foreign-looking man going out of the
door. " They say that fellow 's a Socialist. I think
it 's a shame they 're allowed to come here. If they
don't like the way we manage our affairs, let 'em
stay at home," Fulkerson continued. "They do a
lot of mischief, shooting off their mouths round here.
I believe in free speech and all that ; but I 'd like
to see these fellows shut up in jail and left to jaAv
each other to death. JFe don't want any of their
poison."

March did not notice the vanishing Socialist. He
was watching, with a teasing sense of familiarit}-, a
tall, shabbily dressed, elderly man, who had ju&t
come in. He had the aquiline profile uncommon
among Germans, and yet March recognised him at
once as German. His long, soft beard and moustache
had once been fair, and they kept some tone of their
yellow in the gray to which they had turned. His
eyes were full, and his lips and chin shaped the beard
to the noble outline which shows in the beards the
Italian masters liked to paint for their Last Suppers.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 109

His carnage was erect and soldierl}-, and March
presently saw that he had lost his left hand. He
took his place at a table where the overAvorked
waiter found time to cut up his meat, and put
everything in easy reach of his right hand.

" Well," Fulkerson resumed, " they took me round
everywhere in Moffitt, and showed me their big
wells — lit 'cm up for a private view, and let me hear
them purr with the soft accents of a mass-meeting
of locomotives. Why, when they let one of these
wells loose in a meadow that they'd piped it into
temporarily, it drove the flame away forty feet from
the mouth of the jjipc and blew it over half an acre
of ground. They say when they let one of their
big wells burn away all winter before they had
learned how to control it, that well kept up a little
summer all around it ; the grass stayed green, and
the flowers bloomed all through the winter. / don't
know whether it's so or not. But I can believe
anything of natural gas. My ! but it was beautiful
when they turned on the full force of that well and
shot a roman candle into the gas — that's the way
they light it — and a plume of fire about twenty feet
Avide and seventy-five feet high, all red and yellow
and violet, jumped into the sky, and that big roar
shook the ground under your feet ! You felt like
saying, 'Don't trouble yourself; I'm perfectly con-
vinced. I believe in Moffitt.' "\Ve-e-e-ll ! " drawled
Fulkerson, with a long breath, " that 's Avliere I met
old Dryfoos."

" Oh yes ! — Dryfoos," said March. He observed

110 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

that the waiter had brought the old one-liandcd
German a toAvering glass of beer.

" Yes," Fulkerson laughed. " Wc 'vc got round
to Dryfoos again. I thought I could cut a long
story short, but I seem to be cutting a short story

long. If you 're not in a hurry, though "

" Not in the least. Go on as long as you like."
" I met him there in the office of a real-estate man
—speculator, of course ; everybody Avas, in ^loffitt ;
but a first-rate fellow, and public-spirited as all get-
out ; and when Dryfoos left he told me about him.
Dryfoos was an old Pennsylvania Dutch farmer,
about three or four miles out of Moffitt, and he 'd
lived there pretty much all his life; father was one
of the first settlers. Everybody knew he had the
right stuff in him, but he Avas slower than molasses
in January, like those Pennsylvania Dutch. He 'd
got together the largest and handsomest farm any-
where around there ; and he was making money on
it, just like he was in some business somewhere ;
h6 was a very intelligent man ; he took the papers
and kept himself posted ; but he was awfully old-
fashioned in his ideas. He hung on to the doctrines
as well as the dollars of the dads ; it Avas a real
thing with him. Well, Avhen the boom began to
come he hated it awfully, and he fought it. He
used to Avrite communications to the weekly news-
paper in Moffitt — they've got three dailies there
now — and throw cold Avater on the boom. He
couldn't catch on no Avay. It made him sick to
hear the clack that Avent on about the rras the

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 1 1 1

whole wliile, and that stirred up the neighbour-
hood and got into his family. Whenever he'd
hear of a man that had been offered a big price
for his land and Avas going to sell out and move
into town, he 'd go and labour with him and try to
talk him out of it, and tell him how long his fifteen
or twenty thousand Avould last him to live on, and
shake the Standard Oil Company before him, and
try to make him believe it Avouldn't be five years
before the Standard owned the whole region.

" Of course he couldn't do anything with them.
When a man 's offered a big price for his farm, he
don't care whether it 's by a secret emissary from
the Standard Oil or not ; he 's going to sell and get
the better of the other fellow if he can. Dryfoos
couldn't keep the boom out of his own family even.
His wife was with him. She thought whatever he
said and did was just as right as if it had been
thundered down from Sinai. But the young folks
were sceptical, especially the girls that had been
away to school. The boy that had been kept at
home because he couldn't be spared from helping
his father manage the farm was more like him, but
they contrived to stir the boy up Avith the hot end
of the boom too. So Avhen a fellow came along one
day and offered old Dryfoos a cool hundred thousand
for his farm, it Avas all up Avith Dryfoos. He 'd 'a'
liked to 'a' kept the offer to himself and not done
anything about it, but his A-anity Avouldn't let him
do that ; and Avhen he let it out in his family the
girls outA'oted him. They just made him sell.

112 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" He -wouldn't sell all. He kept about eighty
acres that was off iu one piece by itself, but the
three hundred that had the old brick house on it,
and the big barn — that went, and Dryfoos bought
him a place in Moffitt and moved into town to live
on the interest of his money. Just what he had
scolded and ridiculed everybody else for doing.
Well, they say that at first he seemed like ho
would go crazy. He hadn't anything to do. He
took a fancy to that land-agent, and he used to
go and set in his office and ask him what he should
do. ' I hain't got any horses, I hain't got any cows,
I hain't got any pigs, I hain't got any chickens. I
hain't got anything to do from sun np to sundown.'
The fellow said the tears used to run down the old
fellow's cheeks, and if he hadn't been so busy him'-
self he believed he should 'a' cried too. But most
o' people thought old Dryfoos was down in the
mouth because he hadn't asked more for his farm,
when he wanted to buy it back and found they held
it at a hundred and fifty thousand. People couldn't
believe he was just homesick and heartsick for the
old place. Well, perhaps he iras sorry he hadn't
asked more ; that *s human nature too.

" After a while something happened. That land-
agent used to tell Dryfoos to get out to Europe
with his money and see life a little, or go and live
in Washington, where he could he somebody ; but
Dryfoos wouldn't, and he kept listening to the talk
there, and all of a sudden he caught on. He came
into that fellow's one day with a plan for cutting

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 113

up the eight)'- acres he 'd kept into town lots ; and
he 'd got it all plotted out so well, and had so many
practical ideas about it, that the fellow was aston-
ished. He went right in with him, as far as
Dryfoos would let him, and glad of the chance ;
and they were working the thing for all it was
worth when I struck Moffitt. Old Dryfoos wanted
me to go out and see the Dryfoos & Hendry Addi-
tion— guess he thought may be I 'd write it up ; and
he drove me out there himself. Well, it was funny
to see a town made : streets driven through ; two
rows of shade-trees, hard and soft, planted ; cellars
dug and houses put up — regular Queen Anne style,
too, with stained glass — all at once. Dryfoos apolo-
gised for the streets because they were hand-made ;
said they expected their street-making machine
Tuesday, and then they intended to pish things."

Fulkerson enjoyed the effect of his picture on
March for a moment, and then went on : " He was
mighty intelligent, too, and he questioned me up
about my business as sharp as / ever was ques-
tioned ; seemed to kind of strike his fancy ; I guess
he wanted to find out if there was any money in it.
He was making money, hand over hand, then ; and
he never stopped speculating and improving, till
he 'd scraped together three or four hundred
thousand dollars ; they said a million, but they like
round numbers at Moffitt, and I guess half a million
would lay over it comfortably and leave a few
thousands to spare, probably. Then he came on
to New York."

114 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

Fulkerson struck a luatcli against the ribbed side
of the porcelain cup that hekl the matches in the
centre of the table, and lit a cigarette, which he
began to smoke, throwing his head back "with a
leisurely effect, as if he had got to the end of at least
as much of his story as he meant to tell -without
prompting.

March asked him the desired question. "What
in the world for 1 "

Fulkerson took out his cigarette and said, witli a
smile : " To spend his money, and get his daughters
into the old Knickerbocker society. ]\Iay be he
thought they were all the same kind of Dutch."

"And has he succeeded ? "

" Well, they 're not social leaders yet. But it 's
only a question of time — generation or two — espe-
cially if time 's money, and if Every Other Week is
the success it's bound to be."

" You don't mean to say, Fulkerson," said March,
Avith a half doubting, half-daunted laugh, "that Ite's
your Angel '? "

"That's what I mean to say," returned Fulkerson.
" I ran onto him in Broadway one day last summer.
If you ever saw anybody in your life, yovL 're sure to
meet him in Broadway again, sooner or later. That 's
the philosophy of the bunco business; country
people from the same neighbourhood are sure to run
up against each other the first time they come Jto
New York. I put out my hand, and I said, ' Isn't
this Mr. Dryfoos from Moffitt I ' He didn't seem to
have any use for my hand ; he let me keep it, and

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 115

he squared those old lips of his till his imperial stuck
straight out. Ever see Bernhardt in L'Eiraiujhe 1
Well, the American husband is old Dryfoos all over ;
no moustache, and hay-coloured chin-whiskers cut
slanting from the corners of his mouth. He cocked
his little gray eyes at me, and says he, ' Yes, young
man. My name is Dryfoos, and I 'm from Moffitt.
But I don't want no present of Longfellow's Works,
illustrated ; and I don't want to taste no fine teas ;
Ijut I know a policeman that does ; and if you 're
the son of my old friend Squire Strohfeldt, you 'd
better get out.' ' Well, then,' said I, ' how would
you like to go into the newspaper syndicate busi-
ness ?' He gave another look at me, and then he
burst out laughing, and he grabbed my hand, and
he just froze to it. I never saw anybody so glad.

" Well, the long and the short of it was that I
asked him round here to Maroni's to dinner ; and
before we broke up for the night we had settled the
financial side of the plan that's brought you to New
York. I can see," said Fulkerson, who had kept his
eyes fast on Mai'ch's face, "that you don't more than
half like the idea of Dryfoos. It ought to give you
more confidence in the thing than you ever had.
You needn't be afraid," he added, with some feeling,
" that I talked Dryfoos into the thing for my own
advantage."

" Oh, my dear Fulkerson ! " March protested, all
the more fervently because he Avas really a little
guilty.

" Well, of course not ! I didn't mean you were.

1 IG A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

But I just happened to tell him what I wanted to
go ijito when I could sec my way to it, and he caught
on of his own accord. The fact is," said Fulkerson,
" I guess I 'd better make a clean breast of it, now
I 'm at it. Dryfoos wanted to get something for
that boy of his to do. He's in railroads himself,
and he 's in mines and other things, and he keeps
busy, and he can't bear to have his boy hanging
round the house doing nothing, like as if he was a
girl. I told him that the great object of a rich man
was to get his son into just that fix, but he couldn't
seem to see it, and the boy hated it himself. He 's
got a good head, and he wanted to study for the
ministry when they were all living together out on
the farm ; but his father had the old-fashioned ideas
about that. You know they used to think that any
sort of stuff was good enough to make a preacher
out of ; but they wanted the good timber for busi-
ness ; and so the old man wouldn't let him. You '11
see the fellow ; you '11 like him ; he 's no fool, I can
tell you ; and he 's going to be our publisher,
nominally at first and actually when I 've taught
him the ropes a little."

xir.

FULKERSON stopped and looked at March, whom
he saw lapsing into a serious silence. Doubtless he
divined his uneasiness with the facts that had been
given him to digest. He pulled out his watch and
glanced at it. " See here, how would you like to go
up to Forty-sixth Street with me, and drop in on
old Dryfoos 1 Now 's your chance. He 's going
"West to-morrow, and Avon't be back for a month or
so. They '11 all be glad to see you, and you '11
understand things better when you 've seen him and
his family. I can't explain."

March reflected a moment. Then he said, with a
wisdom that surprised him, for he would have liked
to yield to the impulse of his curiosity : " Perhaps
we 'd better w^ait till Mrs. March comes down, and
let things take the usual course. The Dryfoos
ladies will want to call on her as the last-comer, and
if I treated myself en gar^on noAV, and paid the first
visit, it might complicate matters."

"Well, perhaps you're right," said Fulkerson.
" I don't know much about these things, and I don't
believe Ma Dryfoos does either." He was on his
legs lighting another cigarette. "I suppose the

lis A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

girls are getting tlicmsclvcs up in etiquette, though.
Well, then, let 's have a look at the Every Other Week
building, and then, if you like your quarters there,
you can go round and close for Mrs. Green's fiat."

^March's dormant allegiance to his wife's M'ishes
had been roused by his decision in favour of good
social usage. " I don't think I shall take the Hat,"
he said.

""Well, don't reject it "without giving it another
look, anyway. Come on ! "

He helped March on with his light overcoat, and
the little stir they made for their departure caught
the notice of the old German ; he looked up from
his beer at them. March Avas more than ever
impressed Avith something familiar in his face. In
compensation for his prudence in regard to the
Dryfooses he now indulged an impulse. He stepped
across to where the old man sat, Avith his bald head
.shining like ivory vmder the gas-jet, and his fine
patriarchal length of bearded mask taking j^icturesquc
lights and shadows, and put out his hand to him.

'* Lindau- ! Isn't this Mr. Lindau ? "

The old man lifted himself slowly to his feet witli
mechanical politeness, and cautiously took March's
hand. " Yes, my name is Lindau," he said sloAvh',
Avhile he scanned IMarch's face. Then he broke into
a long cr3^ "Ah-h-h-h-h, my dear poy ! my yong

friendt ! my — my Idt is Passil Marge, not zo ?

Ah, ha, ha, ha ! How gladt I am to zee you ! Why,
I am gladt ! And you rcmemberdt me 1 You
remember Schiller, and Goethe, and Uhland 1 And

A HAZARD or NEW FORTUNES. 119

Indianapolis 1 You still lif in Indianapolis 1 It
sheers my hardt to zee you. But you are lidtle oldt
too 1 Tventy-fivc years makes a difference. Ah, I
am gladt ! Dell me, idt is Passil Marge, not zo 1 "

He looked anxiously into March's face, with a
gentle smile of mixed hope and doubt, and March
said : "As sure as it's Berthold Lindau, and I guess
it 's you. And you remember the old times 1 You
were as much of a boy as I was, Lindau. Are you
living in New York ? Do you recollect how you
tried to teach me to fence ? I don't know how
to this day, Lindau. How good you were, and how
patient ! Do you remember how we used to sit up
in the little parlour back of your printing office, and
read Die Fiduhcr and Die Thcilung dcr Ercle and Die
Glocke ? And JMrs. Lindau 1 Is she with "

"Deadt — deadt long ago. Eight after I got
home from the war — tventy years ago. But tell
me, you are married 1 Children 1 Yes ! Goodt !
And how oldt are you now % "

" It makes me seventeen to see you, Lindau, but
I 've got a son nearly as old."

" Ah, ha, ha ! Goodt ! And where do you
lif ? "

"Well, I'm just coming to live in New York,"
March said, looking over at Fulkerson, who had
been M'atching his interview with the perfunctory
smile of sympathy that people put on at the meet-
ing of old friends. " I want to introduce you to my
friend Mr. Fulkerson. He and I are going into a
literary enterprise here."

120 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" Ah I zo ? " said the old man, with pohte interest.
He took Fulkerson's proffered hand, and they all
stood talking a few moments together.

Then Fulkerson said, with another look at his
watch, " "Well, JMarch, we 're keeping Mr. Lindau
from his dinner."

"Dinner!" cried the old man. "Idt's better
than breadt and meadt to see Mr. Marge ! "

" I must be going, anyway," said March. " But I
must see you again soon, Lindau. Where do you
live 1 I want a long talk."

"And I. You will find me here at dinner-time,"
said the old man. *' It is the best place ;" and March
fancied him reluctant to give another address.

To cover his consciousness he answered gaily,
** Then, it 's auf iciedersehcn with us. Well ! "

^^Aho ! " The old man took his hand, and made
a mechanical movement with his mutilated arm, as
if he would have taken it in a double clasp. He
laughed at himself. "I wanted to gif you the
other handt too, but I gafe it to your gountry a
goodt while ago."

" To my country ? " asked March, with a sense of
pain, and yet lightly, as if it were a joke of the old
man's. " Your country too, Lindau ? "

The old man turned very grave, and said, almost
coldly, " What gountry hass a poor man got, Mr.
IMarge 1 "

" Well, you ought to have a share in the one you
helped to save for us rich men, Lindau," ]\Iarch re-
turned, still humouring the joke.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 121

The old man smiled sadly, but made no answer as
he sat down again.

" Seems to be a little soured," said Fulkerson, as
they went down the steps. He was one of those
Americans M'hose habitual conception of life is
unalloyed prosperity. AVhen any experience or
observation of his went counter to it he suffered
something like physical pain. He eagerly shrugged
away the impression left upon his buoyancy by
Lindau, and added to March's continued silence,
" "What did I tell you about meeting every man in
New York that you ever knew before 1 "

" I never expected to meet Lindau in the world
again," said March, more to himself than to Fulker-
son. " I had an impression that he had been killed
in the Avar. I almost wish he had been."

" Oh, hello, now ! " cried Fulkerson.

March laughed, but went on soberly. " He was a
man predestined to adversity, though. "When I
first knew him out in Indianapolis he was starving
along Avith a sick wife and a sick newspaper. It
was before the Germans had come over to the
Eepublicans generally, but Lindau was fighting the
anti-slavery battle just as naturally at Indianapolis
in 1858 as he fought behind the barricades at Berlin
in 1848. And yet he Avas always such a gentle soul !
And so generous ! He taught me German for the
love of it; he wouldn't spoil his pleasure by taking
a cent from me ; he seemed to get enough out of
my being young and enthusiastic, and out of
prophesying great things for me. I wonder what
Vol. L— 6

123 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

the poor old fellow is doing here, ■with that one
hand of his 1 "

"Not amassing a very handsome pittance, I
should say," said Fullcerson, getting back some of
his lightness. " There are lots of two-handed fellows
in New York that are not doing much hotter, I
guess. May be he gets some writing on the German
papers. "

"I hope so. He's one of the most accomplished
men ! He used to be a splendid musician — pianist
— and knows eight or ten languages."

"Well, it's astonishing," said Fulkerson, "how
much lumber those Germans ean carry around in
their heads all their lives, and never work it up into
anything. It 's a pity they couldn't do the acrpiiring,
and let out the use of their learning to a few bright
Americans. "\Vc could make things hum, if Ave could
arrange 'em that way."

He talked on, unheeded by !March, who went
along half-consciously tormented by his lightness in
the pensive memories the meeting with Lindau had
called up. "Was this all that sweet, unselfish nature
could come to 1 What a homeless old age at that
meagre Italian table (Fhote, with that tall glass of
beer for a half-hour's oblivion ! That shabby dress,
that pathetic mutilation ! He must have a pension,
twelve dollars a month, or eighteen, from a grateful
country. But what else did he eke out with 1

"Well, here we are," said Fulkerson cheerily.
He ran up the steps before ]\Iarch, and opened the
carpenter's temporary valve in the door frame, and

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 123

led the way into a darkness smelling sweetly of
unpainted wood-work and newly dried plaster ; their
feet slipped on shavings and grated on sand. He
scratched a match, and found a candle, and then
walked about up and down stairs, and lectured on
the advantages of the place. He had fitted up
bachelor apartments for himself in the house, and
said that he "was going to have a flat to let on the
top floor. " I didn't offer it to you because I supposed
3'ou 'd be too proud to live over your shop ; and it 's
too small, anyway ; only five rooms."

" Yes, that 's too small," said March, shirking the
other point.

'' Well, then, here 's the room I intend for your
office," said Fulkerson, showing him into a large back
parlour one flight up. " You '11 have it quiet from
the street noises here, and you can be at home or
not as you please. There '11 be a boy on the stairs
to find out. Now, you see, this makes the Grosvenor
Green flat practicable, if you want it."

March felt the forces of fate closing about him
and pushing him to a decision. He feebly fought
them off till he could have another look at the flat.
Then, baffled and subdued still more by the unex-
pected presence of Mrs. Grosvenor Green herself,
who was occupying it so as to be able to show it
effectively, he took it. He was aware more than
ever of its absurdities ; he knew that his wife would
never cease to hate it ; but he had suffered one of
those eclijises of the imagination to which men of
his temperament are subject, and in which he could

124 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

see no future for his desires. He felt a comfort in
iiTetrievably committing himself, and exchanging the
burden of indecision for the burden of responsibility.

" I didn't Icnow," said Fulkerson, as tlioy walked
back to his hotel together, " but you might fix it up
with that lone widow and her pretty daughter to
take part of their house here." He seemed to be
reminded of it by the fact of passing the house, and
March looked up at its dark front. He could not
have told exactly why he felt a pang of remorse at
the sight, and doubtless it was more regret for
having taken the Grosvenor Green fiat than for not
ha^ ing taken the Avidow's rooms. Still he could not
forget her wistfulness when his wife and he were
looking at them, and her disappointment Avhen they
decided against them. He had toyed, in his after-
talk to Mrs. March, Avith a sort of hypothetical
obligation they had to modify their plans so as to
meet the widow's want of just such a family as
theirs ; the}' had both said what a blessing it would
1)e to her, and Avhat a pity they could not do it ;
but they had decided very distinctly that they
could not. NoAV it seemed to him that they might ;
and he asked himself Avhether he had not actually
departed as much from their ideal as if he had taken
board Avith the AvidoAv, Suddenly it seemed to him
that his AA'ifo asked him this too.

"I reckon," said Fulkerson, " that she could haA'e
arranged to give you your meals in your rooms, and
it would have come to about the same thing as
house-keeping."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES, 125

"No sort of boarding can be the same as house-
keeping," said March. "I want my little girl to
have the run of a kitchen, and I want the whole
family to have the moral effect of house-keeping.
It's demoralising to board, in every way; it isn't
a home, if anybody else takes the care of it off your
hands."

" Well, I suppose so," Fulkerson assented ; but
March's words had a hollow ring to himself, and in
his own mind he began to retaliate his dissatisfac-
tion upon Fulkerson.

He parted from him on the usual terms out-
wardly, but he felt obscurely abused by Fulkerson
in regard to the Dryfooses, father and son. He did
not know but Fulkerson had taken an advantage of
him in allowing him to commit himself to their en-
terprise AA'ithout fully and frankly telling him who
and what Iris backer was ; he perceived that with
young Dryfoos as the publisher and Fulkerson as
the general director of the paper there might be
very little play for his own ideas of its conduct.
Perhaps it was the hurt to his vanity involved by
the recognition of this fact that made liim forget how
little choice he really had in the matter, and how,
since he had not accepted the offer to edit the in-
surance paper, nothing remained for him but to
close with Fulkerson. In this moment of suspicion
and resentment he accused Fulkerson of hastening
his decision in regard to the Grosvenor Green apart-
ment ; he now refused to consider it a decision, and
said to himself that if he felt disposed to do so he

126 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

■vvoukl send INIrs. Green a note reversing it in the
morning. But he put it all off till morning with his
clothes, when he went to bed ; he jnit off even think-
ing what his wife would say ; he cast Fulkerson and
his constructive treacher}- out of his mind too, and
invited into it some pensive reveries of the past,
when he still stood at the parting of the ways, and
could take this path or that. In his middle life this
was not possible ; he must follow the path chosen
long ago, wherever it led. He Avas not master of
himself, as he once seemed, but the servant of those
he loved ; if he could do what he liked, perhaps
he might renounce this whole New York enterprise,
and go off somewhere out of the reach of care ; but
he could not do what he liked, that was very clear.
In the pathos of this conviction he dwelt compassion-
ately upon the thought of poor old Lindau ; he
resolved to make him accept a handsome sum of
money — more than he could spare, something that
he would feel the loss of — in payment of the lessons
in German and fencing given so long ago. At the
usual rate for such lessons, his debt, with interest
for twenty odd }'ears, would run very far into the
hundreds. Too far, he perceived, for his wife's
joyous approval ; he determined not to add the
interest ; or he believed that Lindau would refuse
the interest; he put a fine speech in his mouth,
making him do so ; and after that he got Lindau
employment on Every Other Week, and took care of
him till he died.

Through all his melancholv and munificence he

A HA2AKD OF NEW FORTUNES. 127

was aware of sordid anxieties for having taken tlie
GrosA^enor Green apartment. These began to as-
sume visible, tangible shapes as he drowsed, and to
become personal entities, from which he woke, with
little starts, to a realisation of their true nature, and
then suddenly fell fast asleep.

In the accomi)lishment of the events which his
reverie played with, there was much that retroac-
tively stamped it with prophecy, but much also
that AA-as better than he forboded. He found that
with regard to the Grosvenor Green apartment he
had not allowed for his Avife's Avillingness to get any
sort of roof over her head again after the removal
from their old home, or for the alleviations that
grow up through mere custom. The practical Avork-
ings of the apartment Avere not so bad ; it had its
good points, and after the first sensation of oppres-
sion in it they began to feel the convenience of its
arrangement. They Avere at that time of life Avhen
people first turn to their children's opinion Avith
deference, and, in the loss of keenness in their OAvn
likes and dislikes, consult the young preferences
Avhich are still so sensitive. It Avent far to reconcile
Mrs. March to the apartment that her children Avere
pleased Avith its novelty ; AA^hen this Avore off for
them, she had herself begun to find it much more
easily manageable than a house. After she had put
aAA^ay scA'eral barrels of gimcracks, and folded up
screens and rugs and skins, and carried them all off to
the little dark store-room Avhich the flat developed,
she perceived at once a roominess and cozincss in it

128 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

unsuspected before. Then, Avhen people began to
call, she had a pleasure, a superiority, in saying that
it was a furnished apartment, and in disclaiming all
responsibility for the upholstery and decoration. If
Alarch "was by, slic ahvays explained that it ■was
Mr. March's fancy, and amiably laughed it off with
her callers as a mannish eccentricity. Nobody really
seemed to think it otherwise than pretty ; and this
again was a triumph for !Mrs. ]\Iarch, because it
showed how inferior the New York taste was to the
Boston taste in such matters.

March submitted silently to his punishment, and
laughed with her before company at his own eccen-
tricity. She had been so preoccupied with the
adjustment of the family to its new quarters and
circumstances that the time passed for laying his
misgivings, if they were misgivings, about Fulkerson
before her, and when an occasion came for express-
ing them they had themselves passed in the anxieties
of getting forward the first number of Every Other
JFeeh. He kept these from her too, and the business
that brought them to New York had apparently
dropped into abeyance before the Cjuestions of
domestic economy that presented and absented
themselves. March knew his wife to be a woman
of good mind and in perfect sympathy with him,
but he understood the limitations of her perspective ;
and if he was not too Avise, he was too ex})erienced
to intrude upon it any affairs of his till her own
were reduced to the right order and proportion. It
would have been folly to talk to her of Fulkerson's

A ILVZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 129

conjecturable uiicandour while she was in doubt
■whether her cook would like the kitchen, or her two
servants Avould consent to room together ; and till it
was decided what school Tom should go to, and
whether Bella should have lessons at home or not,
the relation which March was to bear to the Dry-
fooses, as owner and publisher, was not to be dis-
cussed with his wife. He might drag it in, but he
was aware that with her mind distracted by more
immediate interests he could not get from her that
judgment, that reasoned divination, which he relied
upon so much. She would try, she would do her
best, but the result would be a view clouded and
discoloured by the effort she must make.

He put the whole matter by, and gave himself to
the details of the work before him. In this he found
not only escape, but reassurance, for it became more
and more apparent that Avhatever was nominally the
structure of the business, a man of his qualifications
and his instincts could not have an insignificant
place in it. He had also the consolation of liking
his work, and of getting an instant grasp of it that
grew constantly firmer and closer. The joy of
knowing that he had not made a mistake was great.
In giving rein to ambitions long forborne he seemed
to get back to the youth when he had indulged them
first; and after half a lifetime passed in pursuits
alien to his nature, he was feeling the serene happi-
ness of being mated through his work to his early
love. From the outside the spectacle might have
had its patlios, and it is not easy to justify such an
G*

130 A HAZARD OF NFAV FORTUNES.

experiment as he had made at his time of life, except
upon the ground where he rested from its con-
sideration— the ground of necessity.

His Avork was more in his thoughts than himself,
however, and as the time for the publication of the
first number of his periodical came nearer, his cares
all centred upon it. Without fixing any date,
Fulkerson had announced it, and pushed his
announcements with the shameless vigour of a born
advertiser, lie Avnrked his interest with the press
to the utmost, and paragraphs of a variety that did
credit to his ingenuity were afloat everywhere.
Some of them were speciously unfavourable in tone ;
they criticised and even ridiculed the principles on
which the new departure in literary journalism was
based. Others defended it ; others yet denied that
this rumoured principle was really the principle.
All contributed to make talk. All proceeded from
the same fertile invention.

March observed with a degree of mortification
that the talk was very little of it in the New York
pres'; there the references to the novel enterprise
were slight and cold. But Fulkerson said : " Don't
mind that, old man. It's the whole country that
makes or breaks a thing like this ; Ncav York has
very little to do with it. Now if it were a play,
it would be different. New York does make or
break a play ; but it doesn't make or break a book ;
it doesn't make or break a magazine. The great
mass of the readers are outside of New York, and
the rural districts are what we have got to go for.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 131

They don't read much in New York ; they -write,
and talk about Avhat they 've written. Don't you
worry."

The rumour of Fulkerson's connection with the
enterprise accompanied many of the paragraphs, and
he was able to stay March's thirst for employment
by turning over to him from day to day heaps of
the manuscripts which began to pour in from his
old syndicate writers, as well as from adventurous
volunteers all over the country. With these in
hand March began practically to plan the first
number, and to concrete a general scheme from the
material and the experience they furnished. They
had intended to issue the first number with the new
year, and if it had been an affair of literature alone,
it would have been very easy ; but it was the art
leg they limped on, as Fulkerson phrased it. They
had not merely to deal with the question of specific
illustrations for this article or that, but to decide the
whole character of their illustrations, and first of all
to get a design for a cover which should both
ensnare the heedless and captivate the fastidious.
These things did not come properly within ^March's
province — that had been clearly understood — and
for a while Fulkerson tried to run the art leg him-
self. The phrase was again his, but it was simpler
to make the phrase than to run the leg. The diffi-
cult generation, at once stiff-backed and slippery,
with which he had to do in this endeavour, reduced
even so buoyant an optimist to despair, and after
wasting some valuable weeks in trying to work the

132 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

artists himself, lie determined to get an artist to
work them. But what artist ? It could not be a
man with fixed reputation and a following : he
would bo too costly, and would have too many
enemies among his brethren, even if he would con-
sent to undertake the job. Fulkerson had a man in
mind, an artist too, m'Iio would have been the very
thing if he had been the thing at all. He had
talent enough, and his sort of talent would reach
round the whole situation, but, as Fulkerson said,
he was as many kinds of an ass as he was kinds of
an artist.

PART SECOND.

The evening when March closed Avith Mrs. Green's
reduced offer, and decided to take her apartment,
the widow Avhose lodgings he had rejected sat with
her daughter in an upper room at the back of her
house. In the shaded glow of the drop-light she
was sewing, and the girl was drawing at the same
table. From time to time, as they talked, the girl
lifted her head and tilted it a little on one side so as
to get some desired effect of her work.

"It's a mercy the cold weather holds off," said
the mother. " "We should have to light the furnace,
unless we wanted to scare everybody away with a
cold house ; and I don't know who would take care
of it, or what would become of us, every Avay."

*' They seem to have been scared away from a
house that wasn't cold," said the girl. " Perhaps
they might like a cold one. But it 's too early for
cold yet. It's only just in the beginning of No-
vember."

" The Messenger says they 've had a sprinkling of
snow."

134 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" Oh yes, at St. Barnal)y ! I don't know when
they don't have sprinklings of snow there. I'm
awfully glad Ave haA'cn't got that winter before lis."

The Avidow sighed as mothers do Avho feel the
contrast their experience opposes to the hopeful
recklessness of such talk as this. " We may have a
Avorsc Avinter here," she said darkly.

"Then I couldn't stand it," said the girl, "and I
should go in for lighting out to Florida double-
quick."

" And how Avould you get to Florida 1 " demanded
her mother severely.

" Oh, by the usual conveyance — Pullman vcsti-
biiled train, I suppose. "What makes you so blue,
mamma ? " The girl Avas all the time sketching aAvay,
rubbing out, lifting her head for the effect, and then
bending it over her Avork again Avithout looking at
lier mother.

" I am not blue, Alma. But I cannot endure this
— this hopefulness of yours."

" Why ? AVhat harm does it do ? "

" Harm 1 " echoed the mother.

Pending the effort she must make in saying, the
girl cut in ; "Yes, harm. You've kept your despair
dusted off and ready for use at an instant's notice
ever since we came, and Avhat good has it done?
I'm going to keep on hoping to the bitter end.
That 's Aviiat papa did."

It Avas Avhat the Eev. Archibald Leighton liad
done Avith all the consumptive's buoyancy, Tlie
mornin!! he died lie told them that now he had

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 135

turned the point and was really going to get Avell.
The cheerfulness was not only in his disease, but
in his temperament. Its excess was always a little
against him in his church-work, and Mrs. Leighton
was right enough in feeling that if it had not been
for the ballast of her instinctive despondency he
would have made shipwreck of such small chances
of prosperity as befell him in life. It was not from
him that his daughter got her talent, though he had
left her his temperament intact of his widow's legal
thirds. He was one of those men of Avhom the
country people say when he is gone that the woman
gets along better without him. Mrs. Leighton had
long eked out their income by taking a summer
boarder or two, as a great favour, into her family ;
and when the greater need came, she frankly gave
up her house to the summer-folks (as they call them
in the country), and managed it for their comfort
from the small quarter of it in which she shut her-
self up with her daughter.

The notion of shutting up is an exigency of the
rounded period. The fact is, of course, that Alma
Leighton was not shut up in any sense whatever.
She was the pervading light, if not force, of the
house. She was a good cook, and she managed the
kitchen with the help of an Irish girl, while her
mother looked after the rest of the house-keeping.
But she was not systematic ; she had inspiration but
not discipline, and her mother mourned more over
the days Avhen Alma left the whole dinner to the
Irish girl than she rejoiced in those when one cf

13G A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

Alma's great thoughts took form in a chiclcen-pie of
incomparable savour or in a matchless pudding. The
off-days came when her artistic nature was express-
ing itself in charcoal, for she drew to the admiration
of all among the lady boarders who could not draw.
The others had their reserves ; they readily conceded
that Alma had genius, but they were sure she needed
instruction. On the other hand, they were not so
radical as to agree Avith the old painter who came
every summer to paint the elms of the St. Barnaby
mcadows. He contended that she needed to be a
man in order to amotuit to anything; but in this
theory he Avas opposed by an authority of his own
sex, whom the lady shctchers believed to speak with
more impartiality in a matter concerning them as
much as Alma Leighton. He said that instruction
would do, and he was not only younger and
handsomer, but he was fresher from the schools
than old Harrington, who, even the lady sketchers
could see, painted in an obsolescent manner. His
name was Beaton — Angus Beaton ; but he was not
Scotch, or not more Scotch than Mary Queen of
Scots was. His father was a Scotchman, but Beaton
was born in Syracuse, New York, and it had taken
only three years in Paris to obliterate many traces
of native and ancestral manner in him. He wore
his black beard cut shorter than his moustache, and
a little pointed ; he stood with his shoulders well
thrown back and with a lateral curve of his person
when he talked about art, which would alone have
carried conviction even if he had not had a thick.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 137

dark bansr comins; almost to the brows of his mobile
grey eyes, and had not spoken English with quick,
staccato impulses, so as to give it the effect of
epigrammatic and sententious French. One of the
ladies said that you always thought of him as
having spoken French after it Avas over, and accused
herself of wrong in not being able to feel afraid of
him. N'one of the ladies were afraid of him, though
they could not believe that he Avas really so de-
ferential to their work as he seemed; and they
knew, when he would not criticise Mr. Harrington's
Avork, that he was just acting from principle.

They may or may not liave known the difference
with Avhich he treated Alma's Avork ; but the girl
herself felt that his abrupt, impersonal comment
recognised her as a real sister in art. He told her
she ought to come to Isew York, and draAV in the
League, or get into some painter's private class ; and
it was the sense of duty thus appealed to which
finally resulted in the hazardous experiment she and
her mother Avere noAv making. There Avere no
logical breaks in the chain of their reason ina; from
past success Avith boarders in St, Barnaby to future
success with boarders in Ncav York. Of course the
outlay Avas much greater. The rent of the furnished
house they had taken Avas such that if they failed
their experiment Avould be little less than ruinous.

But they Avere not going to fail ; that Avas Avhat
Alma contended, Avith a hardy courage that her
mother sometimes felt almost invited failure, if it
did not deserve it. She Avas one of those people

138 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

who believe that if j'ou dread harm enough it is less
likely to happen. She acted on this superstition as
if it ■were a religion.

" If it had not been for my despair, as you call it,
Alma," she answered, "I don't know -where -we
should have been now."

" I suppose we should have been in St. Barnaby,"
said the girl. "And if it's worse to be in New
York, you see Avhat your despair's done, mamma.
But what 's the use ? You meant well, and I don't
blame you. You can't expect even despair to come
out always just the way you want it. Perhaps
you 've used too much of it." The girl laughed, and
Mrs. Leighton laughed too. Like eveiy one else,
she was not merely a prevailing mood, as people are
apt to be in books, but was an irregularly spheroidal
character, Avith surfaces that caught the different
lights of circumstance and reflected them. Alma
got up and took a pose before the mirror, which she
then transferred to her sketch. The room was
pinned about Avith other sketches, which showed
with fantastic indistinctness in the shaded gas-light.
Alma held up the drawing. " How do you like it ? "

Mrs. Leighton bent forward over her sewing to
look at it. " You 've got the man's face rather
weak."

"Yes, that's so. Either I see all the hidden
weakness that's in men's natures, and bring it to
the surface in their figures, or else I put my own
weakness into them. And anyway, it 's a draw-
back to tlieir presenting a truly manly appearance.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 139

As long as I have one of the miserable objects
before me, I can draw him ; but as soon as his
back's turned I get to putting ladies into men's
clothes. I should think you'd be scandalised,
mamma, if you were a really feminine person. It
must be your despair that helps you to bear up.
But what 's the matter with the young lady in
young lady's clothes 1 Any dust on hei- 1 "

" What expressions ! " said Mrs. Leighton.
"Eeally, Alma, for a refined girl you are the most
unrefined ! "

" Go on — about the girl in the picture ! " said
Alma, slightly knocking her mother on the shoulder,
as she stood over her.

" I don't see anything to her. "What 's she doing V

" Oh, just being made love to, I suppose."

" She 's perfectly insipid ! "

"You're awfully articulate, mamma! Now, if
Mr. Wetmore was to criticise that picture he'd
draw a circle round it in the air, and look at it
through that, and tilt his head first on one side and
then on the other, and then look at you, as if you
were a figure in it, and then collapse a while, and
moan a little and gasp, 'Isn't your young lady a

little too — too ' and then he 'd try to get the word

out of you, and groan and suffer some more ; and
)'ou 'd saj'-, ' She is, rather,' and that would give him
courage, and he 'd say, ' I don't mean that she 's so

very ' 'Of course not.' 'You understand]'

'Perfectly. I see it myself, now.' 'Well then,' —
and he 'd take your pencil and begin to draw — ' I

140 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

slioukl give her a little more Ah 1 ' ' Yes, I see

the difference.' ' You see the difference ? ' And
lie 'd go off to some one else, and you 'd know that
you'd been doing the wishy-Avashiest thing in the
■world, though he hadn't sjwlccn a word of criticism,
and couldn't. But he wouldn't have noticed the
expression at all ; he 'd have shown you where your
drawing was bad. He doesn't care for what he
calls the literature of a thing ; he says that will take
care of itself if the drawing's good. lie doesn't
like my doing these chic things ; but I 'm going to
keep it up, for / tliink it 's the nearest Avay to
illustrating."

She took her sketch and pinned it up on the door.

"And has Mr. Beaton been about, yet?" asked
her mother.

"No," said the girl, with her back still turned;
and she added, "I believe he 's in New Y'ork ; Mr.
"Wetmore 's seen him."

"It's a little strange ho doesn't call."

" It would be if he were not an artist. But
artists never do anything like other people. He
was on his good behaviour while he was with us,
and he 's a great deal more conventional than most
of them ; but even he can't keep it up. That 's what
makes me really think that Avomen can never
amount to anything in art. They keep all their
appointments, and fulfil all their duties just as if
they didn't know anything about art. Well, most
of them don't. ^Ye 've got that new model to-day."

"What new modeH"

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 141

"The one Mr, Wetmore was telling us about —
the old German ; he 's splendid. He 's got the most
beautiful head ; just like the old masters' things.
He used to be Humphrey Williams's model for his
biblical pieces; but since he's dead, the old man
hardly gets anything to do. Mr. Wetmore says
there isn't anybody in the Bible that Williams
didn't paint him as. He 's the Law and the Prophets
in all his Old Testament pictures, and he 's Joseph,
Peter, Judas Iscariot, and the Scribes and Pharisees
in the New."

" It 's a good thing people don't know how artists
work, or some of the most sacred pictures would
have no influence," said Mrs. Leighton.

" Why, of course not ! " cried the girl. " And the
iuliuence is the last thing a painter thinks of — or
supposes he thinks of. What he knows he 's anxious
about is the drawing and the colour. But people
will never understand how simple artists are. When
I reflect what a complex and sophisticated being I
am, I 'm afraid I can never come to anything in art.
Or I should be if I hadn't genius."

" Do you think Mr. Beaton is very simple 1 " asked
Mrs. Leighton.

"Mr. Wetmore doesn't think he's very much of
an artist. He thinks he talks too well. They
believe that if a man can express himself clearly he
can't paint.'

" And what do ycm believe ? "

" Oh, / can express myself, too.^'

The mother seemed to be satisfied with this evasion.

142 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

After a while she said, " I presume he will call Avhen
he gets settled."

The girl made no answer to this. " One of the
girls says that old model is an educated man. He
was in the war, and lost a hand. Doesn't it seem
a pity for such a man to have to sit to a class of
affected geese like us as a model ? I declare it
makes me sick. And we shall keep him a week,
and pay him six or seven dollars for the use of his
grand old head, and then what will he do? The
last time he was regularly employed was Avhen Mr.
Mace was working at his Damascus Massacre. Then
ho wanted so many Arab sheiks and Christian elders
that he kept old Mr. Lindau steadily employed for
six months. Now he has to pick up odd jobs where
he can."

"I suppose he has his pension," said ]\Irs. Leigh-
ton.

"No; one of the girls" — that was the way Alma
always described her fellow-students — " says he has
no pension. He didn't apply for it for a long time,
and then there Avas a hitch about it, and it was some-
thinged — vetoed, I believe she said."

' Who vetoed it 1 " asked Mrs. Leighton, with
some curiosity about the jiroccss, which she held in
reserve.

" I don't know — whoever vetoes things. I wonder
Avhat Mr. Wetmore does think of us — his class. We
must seem perfectly crazy. There isn't one of us
really knows what she's doing it for, or Avhat she
expects to happen when she 's done it. I suppose

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. U3

every one thinks she has genius. I know the
Nebraska widow does, for she says tliat unless you
liave genius it isn't the least use. Everybody 's
puzzled to know what she does with her baby when
she 's at work — whether she gives it soothing syrup.
I wonder how Mr. Wetmore can keep from laughing
in our faces. I know he does behind our backs."

Mrs. Leighton's mind wandered back to another
point. " Then if he says Mr. Beaton can't paint, I
presume he doesn't respect him very much."

"Oh, he never said he couldn't paint. But I
know he thinks so. He says he's an excellent
critic."

"Alma," her mother said, with the effect of break-
ing off, " Avhat do you suppose is the reason he hasn't
been near us 1 "

" Why, I don't know, mamma, except that it
Avould have been natural for another person to come,
and he 's an artist — at least, artist enough for that."

" That doesn't account for it altogether. He was
very nice at St. Barnaby, and seemed so interested
in you — your work."

" Plenty of people were nice at St. Barnaby. That
rich Mrs. Horn couldn't contain her joy when she
heard we were coming to New York, but she hasn't
poured in upon us a great deal since Ave got here."

" But that 's different. She 's very fashionable,
and she's taken up with her own set. But Mr.
Beaton 's one of our kind."

" Thank you. Papa wasn't quite a tombstone-
cutter, mamma."

144 A ILVZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" That makes it all the harder to bear. He cnn't
be ashamed of us. Perhaps he doesn't know where
we are."

"Do you wish to send him your card, mammal"
The girl flushed and towered in scorn of the idea.

" Why, no, Alma," returned her mother.

" Well, then," said Alma.

But Mrs. Leighton was not so easily quelled. She
had got her mind on Mr. Beaton, and she could not
detach it at once. Besides, she was one of those
women (the}^ are commoner than the same sort of
men) whom it does not pain to take out their most
intimate thoughts and examine them in the light
of other people's opinions. "But I don't see how
he can behave so. He must know that "

" That tvhat, mamma 1 " demanded the girl.

" That he influenced us a crreat deal in

comin£r-

" He didn't. If he dared to presume to think
such a thing "

" Now, Alma," said her mother with the clinging
persistence of such natures, " you know he did.
And it 's no use for you to j^retend that we didn't
count upon him in — in every way. You may not have
noticed his attentions, and I don't say you did, but
others certainly did ; and I must say that I didn't
expect he would drop us so."

" Drop us ! " cried Alma, in a fury. " Oh ! "

" Yes, droj> us, Alma. He must know where wc
are. Of course, Mr. Wetmore 's spoken to him about
you, and it 's a shame that he hasn't been near us.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES, 145

I should have thought common gratitude, common
decency, Avould have brought him after — after all
we did for him."

" We did nothing for him — nothing f He paid his
board, and that ended it."

" No, it didn't, Alma. You know Avhat he used
to say — about its being like home, and all that ;
and I must say that after his attentions to you, and
all the things you told me he said, I expected some-
thing very dif "

A sharp peal of the door-bell thrilled through the
house, and as if the pull of the bell-wire had
twitched her to her feet, Mrs. Leigh ton sprang
up and grappled with her daughter in their common
terror.

They both glared at the clock and made sure that
it was five minutes after nine. Then they aban-
doned them some moments to the unrestricted play
of their apprehensions.
Vol. I.— 7

II.

" Why, Alma," whispered the mother, " who in
the world can it be at this time of night 1 You
don't suppose ho "

" Well, I 'm not going to the door anyhow,
mother, I don't care who it is ; and of course he
wouldn't be such a goose as to come at this hour."
She put on a look of miserable trepidation, and
shrank back from the door, while the hum of the
bell died away in the hall.

" What shall wo do 1 " asked Mrs. Leighton
helplessly.

" Let him go away — whoever they are," said
Alma.

Another and more peremptory ring forbade them
refuge in this simple expedient.

"Oh dear! what shall we do? Perhaps it's
a despatch."

The conjecture moved Alma to no more than a
rigid stare. " I shall not go," she said. A third
ring more insistent than the others followed, and
she said : " You go ahead, mamma, and I '11 come
behind to scream if it's anybody. We can look
through the sidedights at the door first."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 147

Mrs. Leigliton fearfully led the way from the
back chamber where they had been sitting, and
slowly descended the stairs. Alma came behind
and turned up the hall gas-jet with a sudden flash
that made them both jump a little. The gas inside
rendered it more difficult to tell Avho Avas on the
threshold, but Mrs. Leighton decided from a timor-
ous peep through the scrims that it was a lady and
gentleman. Something in this distribution of sex
emboldened her ; she took her life in her hand, and
opened the door.

The lady spoke. " Does Mrs. Leighton live heah ]"
she said, in a rich, throaty voice ; and she feigned a
reference to the agent's permit she held in her hand.

" Yes," said Llrs. Leighton ; she mechanically
occupied the doorway, while Alma already quivered
behind her "with impatience of her impoliteness.

" Oh," said the lady, who began to ap^jear more
and more a young lady, " Ah didn't know but Ah
had mistaken the ho'se. Ah suppose it 's rather
late to see the Apawtments, and Ah most ask you
to pawdon us." She put this tentatively, Avitli a
delicately growing recognition of Mrs. Leighton as
the lady of the house, and a humorous intelligence
of the situation in the glance she threw Alma over
her mother's shoulder. " Ah 'm afraid we most
have frightened you."

" Oh, not at all/' said Alma ; and at the same
time her mother said, " Will you walk in, please ? "

The gentleman promptly removed his hat and
made the Lei srh tons an inclusive bow. " You awe

148 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

very kind, madam, and I am sorry for the trouble
we awe giving you." He Avas tall and severe-look-
ing, vith a grey, trooperisli moustache and iron-
grey hair, and, as Alma decided, iron-grey eyes.
His daughter "was short, plump, and fresh-coloured,
with an effect of liveliness that did not all express
itself in her broad-vowelled, rather formal speech,
with its odd valuations of some of the auxiliary
verbs, and its total elision of the canine letter,

"We awe from the Soath," she said, "and we
arrived this mawning, but we got this cyahd from
the brokah just bcfo' dinnali, and so we awe rathah
late."

"Not at all; it's only nine o'clock," said Mrs.
Lcighton, in condonation. She looked up from the
card the young lady had given her, and explained,
" We haven't got in our servants yet, and we had to
answer the bell ourselves, and "

" You tcere frightened, of coase," said the young
lady caressingly.

The gentleman said they ought not to have come
so late, and he offered some formal apologies.

"We should have been just as much scared any
time after five o'clock," Alma said to the sympathetic
intelligence in the girl's face.

She laughed out. " Of coase ! Ah would have
my hawt in my moath all day long too, if Ah was
living in a big hoasc alone."

A moment of stiffness followed ; Mrs. Leighton
would have liked to withdraw from the intimacy of
the situation, but she did not know how. It was

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 149

very well for these people to assume to be what they
pretended ; but, she reflected too late, she had no
proof of it except the agent's permit. They were
all standing in the hall together, and she prolonged
the awkward pause while she examined the permit.
" You are Mr. Woodburn 1 " she asked, in a way
that Alma felt implied he might not be.

" Yes, madam ; from Charlottesboag, Virginia/'
he answered, Avith the slight umbrage a man shows
Avhen the strange cashier turns his check over and
questions him before cashing it.

Alma writhed internally, but outwardly remained
subordinate ; she examined the other girl's dress,
and decided in a superficial consciousness that she
had made her own bonnet.

" I shall be glad to show you my rooms," said
Mrs Leighton, with an irrelevant sigh. " You must
excuse their being not just as I should wish them.
We 're hardly settled yet."

" Don't speak of it, madam," said the gentleman,
"if you can overlook the trouble we awe giving you
at such an unseasonable houah."

"Ah'm a hoase-keepah mahself," Miss "Woodburn
joined in, '•' and Ah know ho' to accyoant fo' every-
thing."

Mrs. Leighton led the way upstairs, and the
young lady decided upon the large front room and
small side-room on the third story. She said she
could take the small one, and the other was so large
that her father could both sleep and work in it.
She seemed not ashamed to ask if Mrs. Leighton's

150 A ILVZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

price was infloxil)Io, but gave "way laughing Avlieu
her fatlicr refused to have any bargaining, with a
haughty self-respect which lie softened to deference
for Mrs. Leighton. His impulsiveness opened the
Avay for some confidences from her, and before the
afTair was arranged she was enjoying in lier quality
of clerical widow the balm of the Alrginians'
reverent sympathy. They said they were Church
people themselves.

" Ah don't know what yo' mothah means by yo'
hoasc not being in oddah," the young lady said to
Alma, as they went downstairs together. " Ah 'm
a great hoasc-keepah mahself, and Ah mean what
Ah say."

They had all turned mechanically into the room
where the Leightons were sitting when the "Wood-
burns rang. Mr. AVoodburn consented to sit down,
and he remained listening to Mrs. Leighton while
his daughter bustled up to the sketches pinned
round the room, and questioned Alma about them.

"All suppose you awe going to be a great aw-
tust?" she said, in friendly banter, when Alma owned
to having done the things. " Ah 've a great notion to
take a few lessons mahself. Who 's yo' teachah 1 "

Alma said she was drawing in Mr. "Wetmore's
class, and Miss Woodburn said : " Well, it 's just
beautiful. Miss Leighton ; it 's grand. Ah suppose
it 's raght expensive, now ? Mali goodness ! we have
to cyoant the coast so much nowiidays, it seems to
mo we do nothing hut cyoant it. Ah 'd lilce to bah
something once without askin' the price."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 151

" Well, if you didn't ask it," said Alma, " I don't
believe Mr. Wetmore would ever know what the
price of his lessons was. He has to think, when
you ask him."

"Why, he most be chomming," said Miss Wood-
burn. "Perhaps Ah maght get the lessons for
nothing from him. Well, Ah believe in my soul
Ah '11 trah. Now ho' did you begin 1 and ho' do
you expect to get anything oat of it 1 " She turned
on Alma eyes brimming with a shrewd mixture of
fun and earnest, and Alma made note of the fact
that she had an early nineteenth-century face,
round, arch, a little coquettish, but extremely sen-
sible and unspoiled-looking, such as used to be
painted a good deal in miniature at that period ; a
tendency of her brown hair to twine and twist at
the temples helped the effect ; a high comb would
have completed it. Alma felt, if she had her bonnet
off. It was almost a Yankee country -girl type; but
perhaps it appeared so to Alma because it was, like
that, pure Anglo-Saxon. Alma herself, with her
dull dark skin, slender in figure, slow in speech,
with aristocratic forms in her long hands, and the
oval of her fine face pointed to a long chin, felt her-
self much more Southern in style than this bloom-
ing, bubbling, bustling Virginian.

" I don't know," she answered slowly.

"Going to take po'traits," suggested Miss Wood-
burn, " or just paint the ahdeal 1 " A demure bur-
lesque lurked in her tone.

"I suppose I don't expect to paint at all," said

152 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

Alma. "I'm going to illustrate books — if anybody
■will let me."

" Ah should tliiidc they 'd just joamp at you,"
said Miss "W'oodburn. "Ah 'II tell you what let 's do,
Miss Leighton : you make some pictures, and Ah '11
wrahte a book fo' them. Ah 'vc got to do some-
thing. Ah maght as well -wrahte a book. You know
Avc Southerners have all had to go to weak. But
Ah don't mand it. I tell papa I shouldn't ca' fo'
the disgrace of bein' poo' if it Avasn't fo' the incon-
venience."

"Yes, it's inconvenient," said Alma; "but you
forget it when you 're at work, don't you think ? "

"Mah, yes ! Perhaps that's one reason why poo'
people have to woak so hawd — to keep their mands
off their poverty."

The girls both tittered, and turned from talking
in a low tone with their backs toward their elders,
and faced them.

"Well, Madison," said Mr. AVoodburn, "it is
time we should go. I bid you good night, madam, '
he bowed to Mrs. Leighton. "Good night," ho
bowed again to Alma.

His daughter took leave of them in formal phrase,
but with a jolly cordiality of manner that deforma-
lised it. "We shall be roand raght soon in the
mawning, then," she threatened at the door.

"We shall be all ready for you," Alma called
after her down the steps.

"Well, Alma 1 " her mother asked, when the door
clo-sed upon them.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 153

"She doesn't know any more about art,'^ said
Alma, "than — nothing at all. But she 's jolly and
good-hearted. Slie praised everything that "was bad
in my sketches, and said she was going to take
lessons herself. When a person talks about taking
lessons, as if they could learn it, you know where
they belong artistically."

Mrs. Leighton shook her head with a sigh. " I
wish I knew where they belonged financially. "We
shall have to get in two girls at once. I shall have
to go out the first thing in the morning, and then
our troubles will begin."

" Well, didn't you want them to begin 1 I will
stay home and help you get ready. Our prosperity
couldn't begin without the troubles, if you mean
boarders, and boarders mean servants. I shall be
very glad to be afflicted with a cook for a while
myself."

" Yes ; but Ave don't know anything about these
people, or whether they will be able to pay us. Did
she talk as if they were Avell off ] "

" She talked as if they were poor ; poo' she called
it."

"Yes, how queerly she pronounced," said Mrs.
Leighton. " Well, I ought to have told them that I
required the first week in advance."

"Mamma! If that's the way you're going to
act- "

"Oh, of course, I couldn't, after he Avouldn't lot
her bargain for the rooms. I didn't like that."

" / did. And you can see that they were perfect

loi A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES,

ladies ; or at least one of tlicm." Alma laughed at
herself, but her mother did not notice.

" Their being ladies ■won't help if they 'vc got no
money. It'll make it all the worse."

" Very vrcW, then ; ■we have no money, either.
We 're a match for them any day there. "We can
sho^w them that two can play at that game."

III.

Angus Beaton's studio looked at first glance like
many other painters' studios. A grey wall quad-
rangularly vaulted to a large north light ; casts of
feet, hands, faces hung to nails about ; prints,
sketches in oil and water-colour stuck here and
there lower down ; a rickety table, with paint and
palettes and bottles of varnish and siccative tossed
comfortlessly on it ; an easel, with a strip of some
faded mediaeval silk trailing from it ; a lay figure
simpering in incomplete nakedness, with its head on
one side, and a stocking on one leg, and a Japanese
dress dropped before it ; dusty rugs and skins kick-
ing over the varnished floor ; canvases faced to the
mop-board j an open trunk overflowing with cos-
tumes : these features one might notice anywhere.
But besides there was a bookcase Avith an unusual
number of books in it, and there was an open
colonial writing-desk, claw-footed, brass-handled, and
scutcheoned, with foreign periodicals — French and
English — littering its leaf, and some pages of manu-
script scattered among them. Above all, there was
a sculptor's revolving stand, supporting a bust which
Beaton was modelling, with an eye fixed as simul-

15G A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

taueously as possible on the clay and on the head of
the old man -who sat on the platform beside it.

Few men have been able to get through the
vorld Avith several gifts to advantage in all ; and
most men seem handicajiped for the race if they
have more than one. But they are .apparently
immensely interested as well as distracted by them.
When Beaton was writing, he would have agreed,
lip to a certain point, with any one who said litera-
ture was his pro})er expression ; but then, when he
was painting, up to a certain point, he would have
maintained against the world that he was a colourist
and supremely a colonrist. At the certain point in
cither art he was apt to break away in a frenzy of
disgust, and wreak himself upon some other. In
these moods he sometimes designed elevations of
buildings, very striking, very original, very chic,
very everything bnt habitable. It was in this way
that he had tried his hand on sculpture, which he
had at first approached rather slightingly as a mere
decorative accessory of architecture. But it had
grown in his respect till he maintained that the ac-
cessory business ought to be all the other way : that
temples should be raised to enshrine statues, not
statues made to ornament temples ; that was putting
the cart before the horse with a vengeance. This
Avas when he had carried a plastic study so far that
the sculptors who saw it said that Beaton might
have been an architect, but would certainly never
be a sculptor. At the same time he did some
hurried, nervous things that had a popular charm,

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 157

and that sold in plaster reproductions, to the profit
of another. Beaton justly despised the popular
charm in these, as well as in the paintings he sold
from time to time ; he said it was flat burglary to
have taken money for them, and he would haA^e
been living almost wholly upon the bounty of the old
tombstone-cutter in Syracuse if it had not been for
the syndicate letters which he supplied to Fulkerson
for ten dollars a Aveek.

They were very well done, but he hated doing
them after the first two or three, and had to be
punched up for them by Fulkerson, who did not
cease to prize them, and who never failed to punch
him up. Beaton being Avhat he was, Fulkerson Avas
his creditor as Avell as patron ; and Fulkerson being
Avhat he Avas, had an enthusiastic patience Avith the
elusiA^e, facile, adaptable, unpractical nature of
Beaton. He was very proud of his art-letters, as he
called them ; but then Fulkerson Avas proud of
everything he secured for his syndicate. The fact
that he had secured it gave it A'alue ; he felt as if he
had Avritten it himself.

One art trod upon another's heels Avith Beaton.
The day before he had rushed upon canvas the con-
ception of a picture Avhich he said to himself Avas
glorious, and to others (at the table dliole of Maroni)
AA'as not bad. He had Avorked at it in a fury till
the light failed him, and he execrated the dying
day. But he lit his lamp, and transferred the pro-
cess of his thinking from the canvas to the opening
of the syndicate letter Avhich he knoAv Fulkerson

158 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

would be coming for m the morning. He remained
talking so long after dinner in the same strain as he
had painted and Avrittou in that he could not finish
his letter that night. The next morning, Avhile he -was
making his tea for breakfast, the postman brought him
a letter from his father enclosing a little cheque, and
begging hini -with tender, almost deferential, urgence
to come as lightly upon him as possible, for just now
his expenses were very heavy. It brought tears of
shame into Beaton's eyes — the fine smouldering, float-
ing eyes that many ladies admired, under the thick
bang — and he said to himself that if he were half a
man he would go home and go to work cutting grave-
stones in his father's shop. But he would wait, at
least, to finish his picture ; and as a sop to his con-
science, to stay its immediate ravening, he resolved to
finish that syndicate letter first, and borrow enough
money from Fulkerson to be able to send his father's
cheque back ; or if not that, then to return the sum of
it partly in Fulkerson's cheque. "While he still teemed
with both of these good intentions the old man
from whom he was modelling his head of Judas
came, and Beaton saw that he must get through
with him before he finished either the picture or the
letter ; he would have to pay him for the time any-
way. He utilised the remorse with which he Avas
tingling to give his Judas an expression which he
found novel in the treatment of that character — a
look of such touching, appealing self-abhorrence that
Beaton's artistic joy in it amounted to rapture ;
between the breathless moments when he worked in

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 159

dead silence for an effect that was trying to escape
him, he sang and whistled fragments of comic opera.

In one of the hushes there came a blow on the
outside of the door that made Beaton jump, and
swear Avith a modified profanity that merged itself
in apostrophic prayer. He knew it must be Fulker-
son, and after roaring, '' Come in ! " he said to the
model, " That 11 do this morning, Lindau."

Fulkerson squared his feet Jn front of the bust,
and compared it by fleeting glances with the old
man as he got stiffly up, and suffered Beaton to help
him on with his thin shabby overcoat.

" Can you come to-morrow, Lindau 1 "

"'No, not to-morrow, Mr. Peaton. I haf to zit
for the young ladties."

"Oh!" said Beaton. " Wetmore's class? Is
Miss Leighton doing you 1 "

"I don't know their namcss,'"' Lindau began,
when Fulkerson said

" Hope you haven't forgotten mine, Mr. Lindau 1
I met you with Mr. March at Maroni's one night."
Fulkerson offered him a universally shakable hand.

" Oh yes ! I am gladt to zee you again, Mr.
Vulkerzon. And Mr. Marge — he don't zeem to
gome any more 1 "

" Up to his eyes in work. Been moving on from
Boston and getting settled, and starting in on our
enterprise. Beaton here hasn't got a very flattering
likeness of you, hey 1 Well, good morning," he said,
for Lindau appeared not to have heard him, and was
escaping with a bow through the door.

IGO A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

Beaton lit a cigarette Avliich ho pinched nervously
between his lips before he spoke. " You 've come
for that letter, I suppose, Fulkerson 1 It isn't done."

Fulkerson turned from staring at the bust to
which he had mounted. " "What you fretting about
that letter for 1 I don't want your letter."

Beaton stoi)ped biting his cigarette, and looked at
him. " Don't 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 ; / don't want your letter ; I want you."
Beaton disdained to ask an explanation, but he
internally loAvered his crest, wliile he continued to
look at Fulkerson Avithout changing his defiant
countenance. This suited Fulkerson well enough,
and he went on Avith relish : " I 'm going out of the
syndicate business, old man, and I 'm on a new
tiling." He jait his leg over the back of a chair
and rested his foot on its seat, and Avith one hand
in his pocket, he laid the scheme of Every Other
JFceh before Beaton Avith the help of the other. The
artist Avent about the room, meauAvhile, Avith an
effect of indifference Avhich by no means offended
Fulkerson, He took some Avatcr into his mouth
from a tumbler, Avhich he blcAv in a fine mist over
the head of Judas, before SAvathing it in a dirty
cotton cloth ; he Avashcd 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 Avith a
gloomy face; then he gathered the sheets of his

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. IGl

unfinished letter together and slid them into a
drawer of his writing-desk. By the time he had
finished and tarned again to Fulkerson, Fulkerson
was saying : " I did think we could have the first
number out by New- Year's ; but it will take longer
than that — a month longer ; but I 'm not sorry, for
the holidays kill everything ; and by February, or
the middle of February, people wull get their breath
again, and begin to look round and ask what 's new.
Then Ave '11 reply in the language of Shakespeare and
Milton, Every Other Week ; and don't you forget it."
He took down his leg and asked, "Got a pipe of
'baccy anywhere ? "

Leaton nodded at a clay stem sucking out of a
Japanese vase of bronze on his mantel. "There's
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 Avant Avith me V

" You 1 Oh yes " Fulkerson humorously drama-
tised a return to himself from a pensive absence.
" Want you for the art department."

Beaton shook his head. " I 'm not your man,
Fulkerson," he said compassionately. " You Avant
a more practical hand ; one that 's in touch Avitli
Avhat 's going. I 'm getting further and further
away from this century and its claptrap. I don't
believe in your enterprise ; I don't respect it, and I
Avon't have anything to do with it. It would —
choke me, that kind of thing."

1G2 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" That 's all riglit," said Fulkcrson. He esteemed
a man who was not going to let himself go cheap.
*' Or if it isn't, we can make it. You and Marcli
will pull together first-rate. I don't 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 don't understand me," said Beaton. " I 'm
not trying to get a rise out of you. I 'm in earnest.
What you want is some man who can have patience
with mediocrity putting on the style of genius, and
Avith genius turning mediocrity on his hands, I
haven't any luck Avith men ; I don't get on with
them; I'm not popular." Beaton recognised the
fact Avith the satisfaction Avhich it somehoAv always
brings to human pride.

" So much the better ! " Fulkerson Avas ready for
him at this point. " I don't Avant you to Avork the
old established racket — the reputations. When I
Avant them I '11 go to them Avith a pocketful of rocks
— knock-down argument. But my idea is to deal
Avith the A'olunteer material. Look at the Avay the
periodicals are carried on noAV ! Names ! names !
names ! In a country that 's just boiling over Avith
literary and artistic ability of every kind the new
felloAvs have no chance. The editors all engage their
material, I don't believe there are fifty volunteer
contributions printed in a year in all the ISToav York
magazines. It 's all Avrong ; it 's suicidal. Every
Other Week is going back to the good old anonymous
system, the only fair system. It 's Avorkcd avcII in
literature, and it Avill Avork wc.\ in art."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 163

"It icon't work well in art," said Beaton. " There
you have a totally different set of conditions. What
you '11 get by inviting volunteer illustrations will be
a lot of amateur trash. And how are you going to
submit your literature for illustration 1 It can't be
done. At any rate, / won't undertake to do it."

" We '11 get up a School of Illustration," said
Fulkerson, with cynical security. " You can read
the things and explain 'em, and your pupils can
make their sketches under your eye. They wouldn't
be much further out than most illustrations are if
they never knew what they Avere illustrating. You
might select from what comes in and make up a sort
of pictorial variations to the literature without any
particular reference to it. Well, I understand you
to accept ? "

" No, you don't."

" That is, to consent to help us Avith your advice
and criticism. That 's all I want. It won't commit
you to anything ; and you can be as anonymous as
anybody." At the door Fulkerson added : " By the
way, the new man — the fellow that 's taken my old
syndicate business — will want you to keep on ; but
I guess he 's going to try to beat you down on the
price of the letters. He 's going in for retrench-
ment. I brought along a cheque for this one ; I 'm
to pay for that." He offered Beaton an envelope.

" I can't take it, Fulkerson. The letter 's paid for
already." Fulkerson stepped forward and laid the
envelope on the table among the tubes of paint.

" It isn't the letter merely. I thought you

164 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

wouldn't object to a little advance on your Every
Other Wceh work till you kind of got started."

Beaton remained inflexible. " It can't be done,
Fulkcrson. Don't I tell you I can't sell myself out
to a thing I don't believe in 1 Can't you under-
stand that V

" Oh yes ; I can understand that first-rate. I
don't want to buy you ; I want to borrow you. It's
all right. Sec ? Come round when you can ; I 'd
like to introduce you to old March. That 's going
to be our address." He jjut a card on the table
beside the envelope, and Beaton allowed him to go
without making him take the cheque back. He had
i-emembered his father s plea ; that unnerved him,
and he promised himself again to return his father's
poor little cheque and to Avork on that picture and
give it to Fulkerson for the cheque he had left and
for his back debts. He resolved to go to work on
the picture at once ; he had set his palette for it ; but
first he looked at Fulkerson's cheque. It was for
only fifty dollars, and the canny Scotch blood in
Beaton rebelled ; he could not let this picture go for
any such money ; he felt a little like a man whose
generosity has been trifled Avith. The conflict of
emotions broke him up, and he could not Avork.

IV.

The day wasted away in Beaton's hands ; at half-
past four o'clock he went out to tea at the house of
a lady avIio was At Home that afternoon from four
till seven. By this time Beaton Avas in possession
of one of those otlier selves, of which Ave each have
several about us, and Avas again tlie laconic, staccato,
rather Avorldlified young artist Avliose moments of
a controlled utterance and a certain distinction of
manner had commended him to Mrs. Horn's fancy
in the summer at St. Barnaby.

Mrs. Horn's rooms Avere large, and they never
seemed very full, though this perhaps AA'as because
people Avere always so quiet. The ladies, who out-
numbered the men ten to one, as they ahvays do at
a NeAv York tea, Avere dressed in sympathy Avith
the loAv tone every one spoke in, and with the sub-
dued light Avhich gave a crepuscular uncertainty to
the feAV objects, the dim pictures, the iinexcited up-
holstery, of the rooms. One breathed free of bric-a
brae there, and the new-comer breathed softly as one
does on going into church after service has begun.
This might be a suggestion from the voiceless be
haviour of the man-servant Avho let you in, but it

166 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

Avas also because Mrs. Horn's At Home was a cere-
mony, a decorum, and not festival. At far greater
houses there -was more gaiety, at richer houses there
Avas more freedom ; the suppression at Mrs. Horn's
was a personal, not a social, effect ; it was an efflux
of her character, demure, silentious, vague, but very
correct.

Beaton easily found his way to her around the
grouped skirts and among the detached figures, and
received a pressure of welcome from the hand which
she momentarily relaxed from the teapot. She sat
behind a table put crosswise of a remote corner, and
offered tea to people whom a niece of hers received
provisionally or sped finally in the outer room.
They did not usually take tea, and when they did
they did not usually drink it; but Beaton was
feverishly glad of his cup ; he took rum and lemon
in it, and stood talking at IMrs. Horn's side till the
next arrival should displace him : he talked in his
French manner.

*■' I have been hoping to see you," she said. " I
wanted to ask you about the Leightons. Did they
really come ? "

" I believe so. They are in town — yes. I haven't
seen them."

" Then you don't know how they 're getting on —
that pretty creature, with her cleverness, and poor
Mrs. Leighton 1 I was afraid they were venturing on
a rash experiment. Do }'ou know where they are 1 "

"In AVest Eleventh Street somewhere. Miss
Leighton is in ]\Ir. AVetmore's class."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 167

"I must look them up. Do you know their
number 1 "

"Not at the moment. I can find out."

" Do," said Mrs. Horn. " What courage they
must have, to plunge into New York as they've
done ! I really didn't think they Avould. I wonder
if they 've succeeded in getting anybody into their
house yet 1 "

"I don't know," said Beaton.

"I discouraged their coming all I could," she
sighed, " and I suppose you did too. But it 's quite
useless trying to make people in a place like St.
Barnaby understand how it is in town."

"Yes," said Beaton. He stirred his tea, while
inwardly he tried to believe that he had really
discouraged the Leightons from coming to New
York. Perhaps the vexation of his failure made
him call Mrs. Horn in his heart a fraud.

"Yes," she went on. "It is very, very hard.
And when they won't understand, and rush on
their doom, 3'ou feel that they are going to hold you
respons "

Mrs. Horn's eyes wandered from Beaton ; her
voice faltered in the faded interest of her remark,
and then rose with renewed vigour in greeting a
lady who came up and stretched her glove across
the teacups.

Beaton got himself aAvay and out of the house
with a much briefer adieu to the niece than he had
meant to make. The patronising comj)assion of
Mrs. Horn for the Leightons filled him with indigna-

168 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

tion toward her, toward himself. There was no
reason why he should not have ignored them as he
had done ; but there was a feeling. It was his
nature to be careless, and he had been spoiled into
reclclessness ; he neglected everybody, and only
remembered them when it suited his Avhim or his
convenience ; but he fiercely resented the inatten-
tion of others toward himself. He had no scruple
about breaking an engagement or failing to keep an
appointment ; he made promises without thinking
of their fulfilment, and not because he was a faith-
less person, but because he was imaginative, and
expected at the time to do what he said, but was
fickle, and so did not. As most of his shortcomings
were of a society sort, no great harm was done to
anybody else. He had contracted somewhat the
circle of his acquaintance by what some people
called his rudeness, but most people treated it as his
oddity, and were patient Avith it. One lady said
she valued his coming when he said he would come
because it had the charm of the unexpected. "Only
it show^s that it isn't always the unexpected that
happens," she explained.

It did not occur to him that his behaviour was
immoral ; he did not realise that it was creating a
reputation if not a character for him. While we
are still young we do not realise that our actions
have this effect. It seems to us that people will
judge us from Avhat "we think and feel. Later Ave
find out that this is impossible ; perhaps Ave find it
out too late ; some of us ncA'er find it out at all.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 169

In spite of his shame about the Leightons Beaton
had no present intention of looking them up or
sending Mrs. Horn their address. As a matter of
fact, he never did send it ; but lie happened to meet
Mr. Wetmore and his wife at the restaurant where
he dined, and he got it of the painter for himself.
He did not ask him how Miss Leighton was getting
on; but "Wetmore launched out, with Alma for a
tacit text, on the futility of women generally going
in for art. " Even when they have talent they 've
got too much against them. Where a girl doesn't
seem very strong, like Miss Leighton, no amount of
chic is going to help."

His wife disputed him on behalf of her sex, as
women always do.

"No, Dolly," he persisted; "she'd better be
home milking the cows and leading the horse to
water."

" Do you think she 'd better be up till two in the
morning at balls and going all day to receptions and
luncheons 1 "

" Oh, I guess it isn't a question of that, even if
she weren't drawing. You knew them at home," he
said to Beaton.

" Yes."

" I remember. Her mother said you suggested
me. Well, the girl has some notion of it ; there 's
no doubt about that. But — she 's a woman. The
trouble with these talented girls is that they 're all
woman. If they weren't, there wouldn't be much
chance for the men, Beaton. -But we 've got Provi-
VoL. I.— 8

170 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

dence on our own side from the start. I 'm able to
vatch all their inspirations with perfect composure.
I know just how soon it's going to end in nervous
hrcakdowu. Somehody ought to marry them all
and put them out of their miserj'."

" And what will you do with your students Avho
are married already "2 " his wife said. She felt that
she had let him go on long enough.

" Oh, they ought to get divorced."

"You ought to he ashamed to take their money if
that 's what you think of them."

" My dear, I have a wife to support."

Beaton intervened with a question. " Do you
mean that Miss Leighton isn't standing it very well 1 "

"How do I know? She isn't the kind that
bends; she'd the kind that breaks."

After a little silence Mrs. Wetmore asked, "Won't
you come home with us, Mr. Beaton 1 "

" Thank you ; no. I have an engagement."

" I don't see Avhy that should prevent yon," said
AVetmore. "But you always were a punctilious cuss.
Well ! "

Beaton lingered over his cigar ; but no one else
Avhom he kneAV came in, and he yielded to the three-
fold impulse of conscience, of cariosity, of inclina-
tion, in going to call at the Leightons'. He asked
for the ladies, and the maid showed him into the
parlour, where he found ]\Irs. Leighton and ]\Iiss
Woodburn.

The widow met him with a welcome neatly
marked by resentmei>t ; she meant him to feci that

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES, 171

his not coming sooner had been noticed. Miss
Woodburn bubbled and gurgled on, and did Avhat
she could to mitigate his punishment, but she did
not feel authorised to stay it, till Mrs. Leighton, by-
studied avoidance of her daughter's name, obliged
Beaton to ask for her. Then Miss "Woodburn caught
up her Avork, and said, " Ah '11 go and tell her, Mrs.
Leighton." At the top of the stairs she found Alma,
and Alma tried to make it seem as if she had not
been standing there. " ^Mah goodness, chald ! there 's
the handsomest young man asking for you down
there you evah saw. Ah told you' mothali Ah
would come up fo' you."

" What— who is it 1 "

"Don't you hiowl But ho' could a on "? He's
got the most beautiful eyes, and he wca's his hai' in
a, bang, and he talks English like it was something
else, and his name 's Mr. Beaton."

" Did he — ask for me 1 " said Alma, with a
dreamy tone. She put her hand on the stairs rail,
and a little shiver ran over her.

" Didn't I tell you 1 Of coase he did ! And you
ought to go raght down if you want to save the poo'
fellah's lahfe ; you' mothah's just freeziu' him to
death."

V.

" She is ?" cried Alma. " Tclik ! " She flew down-
stairs, and flitted swiftly into the room, and fluttered
up to Beaton, and gave him a crushing hand-shake.

"IIoAV rcrij kind of you to come and sec us, Mr.
Beaton ! AVhen did you come to New York ? Don't
you find it warm here 1 We 'vc only just lighted
the furnace, but with this mild weather it seems too
early. Mamma does keep it so hot !" She rushed
about opening doors and shutting registers, and then
came back and sat facing him from the sofa with a
mask of radiant cordiality. " How haix you been
since we saw you V

" Very well," said Beaton. "I hope you 're well.
Miss Leigh ton ?"

" Oh, perfcdhj ! I think New York agrees Avith
us both wonderfully. I never knew such air. And
to think of our not having snow yet ! I should
think everybody would want to come here ! AVhy
don't you come, Mr. Beaton % "

Beaton lifted his eyes and looked at her. " I — I
live in New York," he faltered.

" In New York cifi/ ! " she exclaimed.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 173

" Surely, Alma," said her mother, '•' you remember
Mr. Beaton's telling us he lived in Kew York."

" But I thought you came from Rochester ; or
■was it Syracuse 1 I always get those places mixed
up."

" Probably I told you my father lived at Syracuse.
I Ve been in New York ever since I came home from
Paris," said Beaton, "with the confusion of a man
•who feels himself played upon by a woman.

" From Paris ! " Alma echoed, leaning forward,
with her smiling mask tight on. " Wasn't it
Munich, where you studied 1 "

" I was at Munich too. I met Wetmore there."

" Oh, do you know Mr. Wetmore ? "

" Why, Alma," her mother interposed again, " it
was Mr, Beaton who told you of Mr. Wetmore."

"Was it? Why, yes, to be sure. It was Mrs.
Horn ; she suggested Mr. Ilcomb. I remember now.
I can't thank you enough for having sent me to Mr.
Wetmore, Mr, Beaton. Isn't he delightful] Oh
yes, I'm a perfect Wetmorian, I can assure you.
The whole class is the same way."

" I just met him and Mrs. Wetmore at dinner,"
said Beaton, attempting the recovery of something
that he had lost through the girl's shining ease and
steely sprightliness. She seemed to him so smooth
and hard, with a repellent elasticity from which he
was flung off. " I hope you 're not working too
hard. Miss Leighton ? "

" Oh no ! I enjoy every minute of it, and grow
stronger on it. Do I look very much Avasted away ? "

174 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

She looked him full in the face, brilliantly smiling,
and intentionally beautiful.

"No," he said, -with a slow sadness; "I never
saw you looking better."

" Poor Mr. Beaton ! " she said, in recognition of
his doleful tune. " It seems to be quite a blow."

" Oh no "

" I remember all the good advice you used to give
mc about not working too hard, and probably it's
that that 's saved my life — that and the house-hunt-
ing, lias mamma told you of our adventures in get-
ting settled 1 Some time we must. It was such fun !
And didn't you think we were fortunate to get such
a pretty house ? You must see both our parlours."

She jumped up, and her mother followed her with
a bewildered look as she ran into the back parlour
and flashed up the gas.

" Come in here, Mr. Beaton. I want to show you
the great feature of the house." She opened the low
windows that gave upon a glazed veranda stretching
across the end of the room. " Just think of this in
New York ! You can't see it very well at night, but
when the southern sun pours in here all the after-
noon "

" Yes, I can imagine it," he said. lie glanced up
at the bird-cage hanging from the roof. "I su})pose
Gypsy enjoys it."

" You remember Gypsy ? " she said ; and she
made a cooing, kissing little noise up at the bird,
who responded drowsilj'. " Poor old Gypsum !
AVell, he shan't be disturbed. Yes, it's Gyp's de-

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 175

liglit, ami Colonel ^YoocllK^•u likes to write here in
the morning. Think of us having a real live author
in the house ! And Miss Woodburn : I 'ra so glad
you 've seen her ! The}^ 're Southern people.'"'

" Yes, that was obvious in her case."

" From her accent ? Isn't it fascinating 1 I didn't
believe I could ever endure Southerners, but Ave 're
like one family with the "Woodburns. I should
think' you 'd want to paint Miss ^Yoodburn. Don't
you think her colouring is delicious 1 And such a
quaint kind of eighteenth-century type of beauty !
But she's perfectly lovely every wa)^, and every-
thing she says is so funny. The Southerners seem
to be such great talkers ; better than we are, don't
you think 1 "

" I don't know," said Beaton, in pensive dis-
couragement. He was sensiljle of being manipu-
lated, operated, but he was helpless to escape from
the performer or to fathom her motives. His
pensiveness passed into gloom, and Avas degenerat-
ing into sulky resentment when he went away,
after several failures to get back to the old ground
he had held in relation to Alma. He retrieved
something of it with Mrs. Leighton; but Alma
glittered upon him to the last Avith a keen impene-
trable candour, a childlike singleness of glance,
covering unfathomable reserve.

" Well, Alma," said her mother, when the door
had closed upon him.

" Well, mother." Then, after a moment, she said,
with a rush : " Did you think I was going to let him

17C A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

suppose we were piqued at his not corning'? Did
you suppose I was going to let him patronise us, or
think that we were in the least dependent on his
favour or friendship ? "

Ilcr mother did not attempt to answer her. She
merely said, " I shouldn't think he would come any
more."

"Well, we have got on so far without him ; per-
haps we can live through the rest of the winter."

" I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. He was
quite stupefied. I could see that he didn't know
vv'hat to make of you."

" He 's not required to make anything of me,"
said Alma.

" Do 3'oii tliiidv he really believed you had for-
gotten all those things 1 "

" Impossible to sa}', mamma."

"Well, I don't think it was quite right, Alma."

" I '11 leave him to you the next time. Miss
Woodburn said you Avere freezing him to death
when I came down."

" That was quite different. But there won't be
any next time, I 'm afraid," sighed Mrs. Leighton.

Beaton went home feeling sure there would not.
He tried to read when he got to his room ; but
Alma's looks, tones, gestures, whirred through and
through the woof of the story like shuttles ; he
could not keep them out, and he fell asleep at last,
not because he forgot them, but because he forgave
them. He was able to say to himself that he had
boen justly cut off from kindness M-liich l;e knew

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 177

how to value in losing it. He did not expect ever
to right himself in Alma's esteem ; but he hoped
some day to let her know that he had understood.
It seemed to him that it would be a good thing
if she should find it out after his death. He ima-
gined her being touched by it under those circum-
stances.

\a.

In the morning it seemed to Beaton that he had
done liimsclf injustice. When he uncovered his
Judas and looked at it, he could not believe that
the man Avho ■was capable of such Avork deserved the
punishment Miss Leighton had inflicted upon him.
He still forgave her, but in the presence of a thing
like that he could not help respecting himself ; he
believed that if she could see it she -would be sorry
that she had cut herself off from his acquaintance,
lie carried this strain of conviction all through his
syndicate letter, Avhich he now took out of his desk
and finished, -with an increasing security of his
opinions and a mounting severity in his judgments,
lie retaliated upon the general condition of art
among us the pangs of wounded vanity, Avhich Alma
had made him feel, and he folded up his manuscript
and put it in his pocket, almost healed of his humi-
liation. He had been able to escape from its sting
so entirely -while he -was -\vriting that the notion of
making his life more and more literary commended
itself to him. As it -\vas no-w evident that the
future -was to be one of renunciation, of self-forget-
ting, an oblivion tinged with bitterness, he formlessly

A HAZARD OF NEW FOETUNES. 179

reasoned in favour of reconsidering liis resolution
against Fulkerson's offer. One must call it reason-
ing, but it was rather that swift internal dramatisa-
tion which constantly goes on in persons of excitable
sensibilities, and which now seemed to sweep
Beaton physically along toward the Every Other
JFeek office, and carried his mind with lightning
celerity on to a time when he should have given
that journal such quality and authority in matters
of art as had never been enjoyed by any in America
before. "With the prosperity which he made attend
his Avork he changed the character of the enterprise,
and with Fulkerson's enthusiastic support he gave
the public an art journal of as high grade as Les
Letires ct les Arts, and very much that sort of thing.
All this involved now the unavailing regret of Alma
Leighton, and now his reconciliation with her : they
were married in Grace Church, because Beaton had
once seen a marriage there, and had intended to
paint a picture of it some time.

Nothing in these fervid fantasies prevented his
responding Avith due dryness to Fulkerson's cheery
" Hello, old man ! " when he found himself in the
building fitted up for the Every OtJier JFeek office.
Fulkerson's room was back of the smaller one
occupied by the book-keeper ; they had been respec-
tively the reception-room and dining-room of the
little place in its dwelling-house days, and they had
been simply and tastefully treated in their trans-
formation into business purposes. The narrow old
trim of the doors and Avindows had been kept, and

180 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

the quaintly ugly marble mantels. The architect
had said, Better let them stay : they expressed
epoch, if not character.

" Well, have you come round to go to ■work 1 Just
hang up your coat on the floor anywhere," Fulkerson
Avent on.

" I've come to bring you that letter," said Beaton,
all the more haughtily because he found that
Fulkerson was not alone Avhen he Avelcomed him in
these free and easy terms. There was a quiet-look-
ing man, rather stout, and a little above the middle
height, with a full, close-croi)ped iron-grey beard,
seated beyond the table where Fulkerson tilted him-
self back, with his knees set against it ; and leaning
against the mantel there was a young man with a
singularly gentle face, in which the look of goodness
qualified and transfigured a certain simplicity. His
large blue eyes were somewhat prominent ; and his
rather narrow face Avas drawn forward in a nose a
little too long perhaps, if it had not been for the full
chin deeply cut below the lip, and jutting firmly
forward.

"Introduce you to Mr. March, our editor, Mr.
Beaton," Fulkerson said, rolling his head in the
direction of the elder man ; and then nodding it
toward the younger, he said, " Mr. Dryfoos, Mr.
Beaton." Beaton shook hands Avith ^larch, and
then with Mr. Dryfoos, and Fulkerson Avent on
gaily: "We Avere just talking of you, Beaton —
Avell, you knoAV the old saying. Mr. March, as I
told you, is our editor, and Mr. Dryfoos has charge

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 181

of the publishing department — he's the counting-
room incarnate, the source of power, the fountain of
corruption, the element that prevents journalism
being the high and holy thing that it would be if
there were no money in it." Mr. Dryfoos turned
his large mild eyes upon Beaton, and laughed with
the uneasy concession Avhich people make to a
character when they do not quite approve of the
character's language. "What Mr. March and I arc
trying to do is to carry on this thing so that there
loonH be any money in it — or very little ; and we 're
planning to give the public a better article for the
price than it 's ever had before. Now here 's a
dummy we 've had made up for Every Other JFeel;
and as we 've decided to adopt it, we would naturally
like your opinion of it, so 's to know Avhat opinion
to have of you." He reached forward and pushed
toward Beaton a volume a little above the size of the
ordinary duodecimo book ; its ivory white pebbled
paper cover was prettily illustrated with a water-
coloured design irregularly washed over the greater
part of its surface : quite across the page at top, and
narrowing from right to left as it descended. In the
triangular space left blank the title of the periodical
and the publisher's intiprint were tastefully lettered
so as to be partly covered by the background of
colour.

" It 's like some of those Tartarin books of Dau-
det's," said Beaton, looking at it with more interest
than he suffered to be seen. "But it's a book, not
a magazine." He opened its pages of thick mellow

182 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

■white paper, with uncut leaves, the first few pages
experimentally printed in the type intended to be
used, and illustrated with some sketches drawn into
and over the text, for the sake of the effect.

** A Daniel— a Daniel conio to judgment ! Sit
down, Dan'el, and take it easy." Fulkerson pushed a
chair toward Beaton, who dropped into it. " You 're
right, Dan'el ; it 's a book, to all practical intents
and purposes. And what we propose to do with the
American public is to give it twenty-four books like
this a year — a complete library — for the absurd sum
of six dollars. We don't intend to sell 'em — it 's no
name for the transaction — but to give 'em. And
what we want to get out of you — beg, borrow, buy,
or steal from you — is an opinion Avhether we shall
make the American public this princely present in
paper covers like this, or in some sort of flexible
boards, so they can set them on the shelf and say no
more about it. Now, Dan'el, come to judgment, as
our respected friend Shylock remarked."

Beaton had got done looking at the dummy, and
he dropped it on the table before Fulkerson, who
pushed it away, apparently to free himself from
partiality. " I don't know any tiling about the
business side, and I can't tell about the effect of
cither style on the sales ; but you '11 spoil the whole
character of the cover if you use anything thicker
than that thickish paper."

" All right ; very good ; first-rate. The ayes have
it. Paper it is. I don't mind telling you that we
had decided for that paper before you came in. Mr.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 183

March -wanted it, because he felt in his bones just
the way j'ou do about it, and ]\Ir. Dryfoos wanted
it, because he 's the counting-room incarnate, and
it 's cheaper ; and I wanted it, because I always like
to go Avith the majority. Now Avhat do you think
of that little design itself 1 "

" The sketch ? " Beaton pulled the book toward
him again and looked at it again. " Eather decora-
tive. Drawing 's not remarkable. Graceful; rather
nice." He pushed the book away again, and Fulker-
son pulled it to his side of the table.

" Well, that 's a piece of that amateur trash you
despise so much. I went to a painter I know — by
the way, he Avas guilty of suggesting you for this
thing, but I told him I was ahead of him — and I
got him to submit my idea to one of his class, and
that's the result. Well, now, there ain't anything
in this world that sells a book like a pretty cover,
and we're going to have a pretty cover for Every
Other JFeek every time. We 've cut loose from the
old traditional quarto literary ncAvspaper size, and
Ave 've cut loose from the old two-column big page
magazine size ; we 're going to have a duodecimo
page, clear black print, and paper that '11 make your
mouth Avater; and Ave 're going to have a fresh
illustration for the cover of each number, and Ave
ain't a-going to give the public any rest at all.
Sometimes Ave 're going to have a delicate little
landscape like this, and sometimes we're going to
have an indelicate little figure, or as much so as the
laAV AA'ill alloAv."

184 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

The young man leaning against the mantcl])iece
hhished a sort of protest.

March smiled and said dryly, " Those are the
numbers that Mr. Fulkerson is going to edit himself."

"Exactly. And Mr. Beaton here is going to
supply the floating females, gracefully airing them-
selves against a sunset or something of that kind."
Beaton frowned in embarrassment, while Fulkerson
went on philosophically. "It's astonishing how
you fellows can keep it up at this stage of the pro-
ceedings ; you can paint things that your harshest
critic would be ashamed to describe accurately;
you're as free as the theatre. But that's neither
here nor there. What I 'm after is the fact that
we 're going to have variety in our title-pages, and
we are going to haA'e novelty in the illustrations of
the body of the book. March, here, if he had his
own way, Avouldn't have any illustrations at all."

"Not because I don't like them, Mr. Beaton,"
March interposed, " but because I like them too much.
I find that I look at the pictures in an illustrated
article, but I don't read the article very much, and I
fancy that 's the case with most other people. You've
got to doing them so prettily that you take our eyes
off the literature, if you don't take our minds off."

" Like the society beauties on the stage : people
go in for the beauty so much that they don't know
what the play is. But the box office gets there all
the same, and that's what Mr. Dryfoos wants."
Fulkerson looked up gaily at Mr. Dryfoos, who
smiled deprecatingly.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 185

"It was different," March went on, "when the
ilkistrations used to be bad. Then the text had
some chance."

"Old legitimate drama days, Avhen ugliness and
genius combined to storm the galleries," said Ful-
kerson.

" We can still make them bad enougli," said
Beaton, ignoring Fulkerson in his remark to March.

Fulkerson took the reply upon himself. " Well,
you needn't make 'em so bad as the old-style cuts ;
but you can make them unobtrusive, modestly re-
tiring. We 'vc got hold of a process something like
that those French fellows gave Daudet thirty-five
thousand dollars to write a novel to use with ; kind
of thing that begins at one side, or one corner, and
spreads in a sort of dim religious style over the
print till you can't tell which is which. Then we 've
got a notion that where the pictures don't behave
quite so sociably, they can be dropped into the text,
like a little casual remark, don't you know, or a
comment that has some connection, or may be none
at all, with what's going on in the story. Some-
thing like this." Fulkerson took away one knee
from the table long enough to open the drawer, and
pull from it a book that he shoved toward Beaton.
" That's a Spanish book I happened to see at Bren-
tano's, and I froze to it on account of the pictures.
I guess they 're pretty good."

" Do you expect to get such drawings in this
country 1 " asked Beaton, after a glance at the book.
" Such character — such drama 1 You won't."

ISO A IIAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES.

""Well, I'm not so sure," sakl Fulkerson, "come
to get our amateurs "svarmed up to the vork. But
what I want is to get the physical effect, so to speak
— get that-sized picture into our page, and set the
fashion of it. I shouldn't care if the illustration
Avas sometimes confined to an initial letter and a
tail-piece."

" Couldn't be done here. "We haven't the touch.
"We 're good in some things, but this isn't in our
Avay," said Beaton stubbornly. " I can't think of a
man who could do it ; that is, amongst those that
would."

" Well, think of some woman, then," said Fulker-
son easily. " I 've got a notion that ihe women
could help us out on this thing, come to get 'cm
interested. There ain't anything so popular as
female fiction ; why not try female art 1 "

" The females themselves have been supposed to
have been trying it for a good while," March sug-
gested ; and i\Ir. Dryfoos laughed nervously ; Beaton
remained solemnly silent.

"Yes, I know," Fulkerson assented. "But I
don't mean that kind exactly. AVliat we Avant to
do is to Avork the cicig WciUiche in this concern.
"We want to make a magazine that will go for the
women's fancy every time. I don't mean with
recipes for cooking and fashions and personal gossip
about authors and societ}', but real high-tone litera-
ture that will show Avomen triumphing in all the
stories, or else suffering tremendously. We've got
to recognise that Avomcn form three-fourths of the

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 187

reading public in this country, and go for their
tastes and their sensibilities and their sex-piety
along the whole line. They do like to think that
women can do tilings better than men ; and if we
can let it leak out and get around in the papers that
the managers of Every Other Week couldn't stir a peg
in the line of the illustration they wanted till they
got a lot of God-gifted girls to help them, it '11 make
the fortunes of the thing. See ? "

He looked sunnily round at the other men, and
March said : " You ought to be in charge of a
Siamese white elephant, Fulkcrson. It 's a disgrace
to be connected with you."

" It seems to me," said Beaton, " that you 'd better
get a God-gifted girl for your art editor."

Fulkerson leaned alertly forward, and touched
him on the shoulder, with a compassionate smile.
" My dear boy, they haven't got the genius of
organisation. It takes a very masculine man for
that — a man who combines the most subtle and
refined sympathies Avith the most forceful purposes
and the most ferruginous will power. Which his
name is Angus Beaton, and here he sets ! "

The others laughed with Fulkerson at his gross
burlesque of flattery, and Beaton frowned sheepishly.
" I suppose you understand this man's style," he
growled toward March.

'•' They do, my son," said Fulkerson. " They
know that I cannot tell a lie." He pulled out his
watch, and then got suddenly upon his feet.

" It 's quarter of twelve, and I 'vc got an appoint-

188 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

mcnt. Beaton rose too, and Fulkerson put tlie
two books in his lax hands. " Take these along,
Michelangelo Da Vinci, my friend, and put your
multitudinous mind on them for about an hour,
and let us hear from you to-morrow. AVe hang
upon your decision."

" There 's no deciding to be done," said Beaton.
" You can't combine the two styles. They 'd kill
each other."

" A Dan'el, a Dan'el come to judgment ! I knew
you could help us out ! Take 'em along, and tell us
which will go the furthest "with the ewij JFeihliche.
Dryfoos, I want a word with you." Ho led the way
into the front room, flirting an airy farewell to
Beaton with his hand as he went.

VII.

March and Beaton remained alone together for a
moment, and March said : " I hope you v:iU think
it worth while to take hold with us, Mr. Beaton.
Mr. Fulkerson puts it in his own way, of course ;
but we really want to make a nice thing of the
magazine." He had that timidity of the elder in
the presence of the younger man Avhich the younger,
preoccupied with his own timidity in the presence of
the elder, cannot imagine. Besides, March was aware
of the gulf that divided him as a literary man from
Beaton as an artist, and he only ventured to feel his
way towai'd sympathy with hinu " AYe want to
make it good ; we want to make it high. Fulker-
son is right about aiming to please the women, but
of course he caricatures the way of going about it."

For answer, Beaton flung out, " I can't go in for
a thing I don't understand the plan of."

March took it for granted that he had wounded
some exposed sensibility of Beaton's. He continued
still more deferentially : " Mr. Fulkerson's notion —
I must say the notion is his, evolved from his syndi-
cate experience — is that we shall do best in fiction
to confine ourselves to short stories, and make each

190 A IIAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

number complete in itself. lie found that the nio.st
successful things he could furnish his newspajjcns
■were short stories ; "\ve Americans arc supposed to
excel in writing them ; and most people begin with
them in fiction ; and it 's ]\Ir. Fulkcrson's idea to
Avork unknown talent, as he says, and so he thinks
he can not only get them easily, but can gradually
form a school of short-story writers. I can't say I
follow him altogether, but I respect his experience.
AVe shall not despise translations of short stories,
but otherwise the matter will all be original, and of
course it won't all be short stories. "We shall use
sketches of travel, and essays, and little dramatic
studies, and bits of biography and history ; but all
very light, and always short enough to be completed
in a single number. Mr. Fulkcrson believes in pic-
tures, and most of the things would be capable of
illustration."

" I see," said Beaton.

" I don't know but this is the whole afTair," said
March, beginning to stiffen a little at the young
man's reticence.

" I understand. Thank you for taking the trouble
to explain. Good morning." Beaton bowed him-
self off, without offering to shake hands.

Fulkerson came in after a •while from the outer
office, and Mr. Dryfoos followed him. " "Well, what
do you think of our art editor 1 "

" Is he our art editor ? " asked March. '• I wasn't
quite certain when he left."

" Did he take the books 1 "

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 191

" Yes, he took tlic books."

" I guess he 's all right, then." Fulkerson added,
in concession to the umbrage he detected in March,
" Beaton has his times of being the greatest ass in
the solar system, but he usually takes it out in per-
sonal conduct. When it comes to work, he 's a
regular horse."

" He appears to have compromised for the present
by being a perfect mule," said March.

" Well, he 's in a transition state," Fulkerson
allowed. " He 's the man for us. He really under-
stands what Ave Avant. You '11 see ; he '11 catch on.
That lurid glare of his will Avear off in the course of
time. He 's really a good felloAv Avhen you take him
off his guard ; and he 's full of ideas. He 's spread
out over a good deal of ground at present, and so he 's
pretty thin ; but come to gather him up into a lump,
there 's a good deal of substance to him. Yes, there
is. He 's a first-rate critic, and he 's a nice felloAv
Avith the other artists. They laugh at his univer-
sality, but they all like him. He 's the best kind of
a teacher Avhen he condescends to it ; and he 's just
the man to deal Avith our volunteer Avork. Yes, sir,
he's a prize. Well, I must go noAv."

Fulkerson Avent out of the street door and then
came quickly back. "By-the-by, March, I saAV that
old dynamiter of yours round at Beaton's room
yesterday."

" What old dynamiter of mine ? "

" That old one-handed Dutchman — friend of your
youth — the one Ave saAv at Maroni's "

192 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" Oh — Lindau ! " said March, with a vague pang
of self-reproach for having thought of Lindau so
Httlc after the first flood of his tender feeling toward
him was past

" Yes, our versatile friend was modelling him as
Judas Iscariot. Lindau makes a first-rate Judas,
and Beaton has got a big thing in that head if he
works the religious people right. But what I was
thinking of was this — it struck me just as I was
going out of the door : Didn't you tell me Lindau
knew forty or fifty different languages 1 "

" Four or five, yes."

" Well, we won't quarrel about the uundjcr. The
question is, why not Avork him in the field of foreign
literature 1 You can't go over all their reviews and
magazines, and he could do the smelling for you, if
you could trust his nose. Would he Icnow a good
thing 1 "

" I think he Avould," said March, on Avhom the
scope of FiUkerson's suggestion gradually opened.
"He used to have good taste, and he must know
the ground. Why, it 's a capital idea, Fulkerson !
Lindau Avrote very fair English, and he could trans-
late, with a little revision."

"And he would probably work cheap. Well,
hadn't you better see him about it ? I guess it '11
be quite a Avindfall for him."

" Yes, it will. I '11 look him up. Thank you for
the suggestion, Fulkerson."

" Oh, don't mention it ! /don't mind doing Everi/
Other Week a sood turn now and then when it comes

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 193

in my Avaj-." Fulkerson went out again, and this
time March was finally left with Mr. Dryfoos.

" Mrs. March was very sorry not to be at home
when your sisters called the other day. She wished
me to ask if they had any afternoon in particular.
There Avas none on your mother's card."

"No, sir," said the young man, with a flush of
embarrassment that seemed habitual with him.
" She has no day. She 's at home almost every day
She hardly ever goes out."

" Might we come some evening ? " March asked.
" We should be very glad to do that, if she would
excuse the informality. Then I could come mth
]\Irs. March."

"Mother isn't very formal," said the young man.
" She would be very glad to see you."

"Then we'll come some night this week, if you
will let us. When do you expect your father back % "

"Not much before Christmas. He's trying to
settle up some things at Moffitt."

" And what do you think of our art editor 1 " asked
March, with a smile, for the change of subject.

"Oh, I don't know much about such things," said
the young man, with another of his embarrassed
flushes. " Mr. Fulkerson seems to feel sure that he
is the one for us."

" Mr. Fulkerson seemed to think that I was the
one for you, too," said March; and he laughed.
" That 's what makes me doubt his infallibility. But
he couldn't do Avorse with Mr, Beaton."

Mr. Dryfoos reddened and looked down, as if
Vol. I.— 9

101 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

unable or unwilling to copo ■with the difficulty of
making a polite protest against ^March's self-de-
preciation. He said after a moment: "It's new
business to all of us except Mr. Fulkcrson. But I
think it will succeed. I think we can do some good
in it."

March asked rather absently, " Some good 1 " Then
ho added : " Oh yes ; I think we can. AVhat do
you mean by good ? Improve the public taste 1
Elevate the standard of literature 1 Give young
authors and artists a chance ? "

This was the only good that had ever been in
^March's mind, except the good that Avas to come in
a material Avay from his success, to himself and to
his family.

" I don't know," said tV.e young man ; and he
looked down in a shamefaced fashion, lie lifted his
head and looked into March's face. " I suppose I
was thinking that some time we might help along.
If we were to have those sketches of yours about life
in every part of New York "

March's authorial vanity was tickled. "Fulkcrson
has been talking to you about them ? He seemed
to think they would be a card. He believes that
there 's no subject so fascinating to the general
average of people throughout the country as life in
NeAV York City ; and he liked my notion of doing
these things." March hoped that Dryfoos woidd
answer that Fulkerson was perfectly enthusiastic
about his notion ; but he did not need this stimulus,
and at any rate he went on without it. " The fact
is, it 's something that struck my fancy the moment

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES, 195

I came here ; I found myself intensely interested in
the place, and I began to make notes, consciously
and unconsciously, at once. Yes, I believe I can
get something quite attractive out of it. I don't in
the least know what it will be j^et, except that it
will be very desultory ; and I couldn't at all say
when I can get at it. If we postpone the first
number till February I might get a little paper into
that. Yes, I think it might be a good thing for us,"
March said, with modest self-appreciation.

" If you can make the comfortable people under-
stand how the uncomfortable people live, it will bo
a very good thing, ^Mr. March. Sometimes it seems
to me that the only trouble is that Ave don't know
one another well enough ; and that the first thing
is to do this." The young fellow spoke Avith the
seriousness in which the beauty of his face resided.
Whenever he laughed his face looked Aveak, even
silly. It seemed to be a sense of this that made
him hang his head or turn it aAA'ay at such times,

" That 's true," said March, from the surface only.
'* And then, those phases of Ioav life are immensely
picturesque. Of course we must try to get the con-
trasts of luxury for the sake of the full effect. That
won't be so easy. You can't penetrate to the dinner-
party of a millionaire under the wing of a detective
as you could to a carouse in Mulberry Street, or to
his children's nursery with a philanthropist as you
can to a street-boy's lodging-house." March laughed,
and again the young man turned his head aAvay.
" Still, something can be done in that Avay by tact
and patience."

VIII.

That evening March went with his Avife to return
the call of the Dryfoos ladies. On their way up-
town in the Elevated he told lier of his talk with
young Dryfoos. " I confess I was a little ashamed
before him afterward for having looked at the matter
so entirely from the aesthetic point of view. But of
course, you know, if I went to work at those things
with an ethical intention explicitly in mind, I should
spoil them."

" Of course," said his Avife. She had always heard
him say something of this kind about such things.

He went on : " But I sujipose that 's just the
point that such a nature as young Dryfoos' can't get
hold of, or keep hold of. "We 're a queer lot, down
there, Isabel — perfect menagerie. If it hadn't been
that Fulkerson got us together, and really seems to
know what he did it for, I should say he was the
oddest stick among us. But when I think of my-
self and my OAvn crankiness for the literary depart-
ment ; and young Dryfoos, who ought really to be
in the pulpit, or a monastery, or something, for pub-
lisher ; and that young Beaton, who probably hasn't
a moral fibre in his composition, for the art man, I

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 197

don't know but we coulJ give Fulkerson odds and
still beat liim in oddity."

His wife heaved a deep sigh of apprehension, of
renunciation, of monition. "Well, I'm glad you
can feel so light about it, Basil."

" Light ? I feel gay ! With Fulkerson at the
helm, I tell you the rocks and the lee shore had
better keep out of the way." He laughed with
pleasure in his metaphor. "Just Avhen you think
Fulkerson has taken leave of his senses he says or
does something that shows he is on the most inti-
mate and inalienable terms with them all the time.
You know how I've been worrying over those
foreign periodicals, and trying to get some transla-
tion from them for the first number ? Well, Ful-
kerson has brought his centipedal mind to bear on
the subject, and he's suggested that old German
friend of mine I was telling you of — the one I met
in the restaurant — the friend of my youth."

" Do you think he could do it 1 " asked Mrs.
March sceptically.

'* He 's a perfect Babel of strange tongues ; and
he 's the very man for the work, and I was ashamed
I hadn't thought of him myself, for I suspect he
needs the work."

" Well, be careful how you get mixed up with
him, then, Basil," said his wife, who had the natural
misgiving concerning the friends of her husband's
youth that all Avives have. "You know the Ger-
mans are so unscrupulously dependent. You don't
know anything about him now."

198 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" I 'm not afraid of Lindau," said March. " lie
Avas tlic best and kindest man I ever saw, the most
liigli-minded, the most generous. He lost a liand in
the var that helped to save us and keep us possible,
and tliat stump of his is character enough for me,"

" Oh, you don't think I could have meant any-
thing against him ! " said Mrs. March, with the
tender fervour that every woman who lived in the
time of the war must feel for those who suffered in
it. " All that I meant Avas that I hoped you would
not get mixed up with him too much. You're so
a})t to be carried away by your impulses."

" They didn't carry me very far away in the direc-
tion of poor old Lindau, I 'm ashamed to tliink,"
said March. "I meant all sorts of fine things by
him after I met him ; and then I forgot him, and I
had to be reminded of him by Fulkerson."

She did not answer him, and he fell into a re-
morseful reverie, in which he rehabilitated Lindau
anew, and provided handsomely for his old age. He
got him buried with military honours, and had a shaft
raised over him, with a medallion likeness by Beaton
and an epitaph by himself, by the time they reached
Forty -second Street ; there Avas no time to write
Lindau's life, however briefly, before the train
stopped.

They had to walk up four blocks and then half a
block across before they came to the indistinctive
brown-stone house where the Dryfooses lived. It
was larger than some in the same block, but the
next neighbourhood of a huge apartment-house

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 199

dwarfed it again. March tliouglit he recognised the
very flat in which he had disciplined the surly
janitor, but he did not tell his wife ; he made her
notice the transition character of the street, Avhich
had heen mostly built up in apartment-houses, with
here and there a single dwelling dropped far down
beneath and beside them, to that jag-toothed effect
on the sky-line so often observable in such New
York streets. " I don't know exactly Avhat the old
gentleman bought here for," he said, as they waited
on the steps after ringing, "unless he expects to
turn it into flats by-and-by. Otherwise, I don't
believe he '11 get his money back."

An Irish serving-man, with a certain surprise that
delayed him, said the ladies were at home, and let
the Marches in, and then carried their cards
upstairs. The drawing-room, where he said they
could sit down while he went on this errand, was
delicately decorated in white and gold, and fur-
nished Avith a sort of extravagant good taste ; there
Avas nothing to object to the satin furniture, the
pale, soft, rich carpet, the pictures, and the bronze
and china bric-a-brac, except that their costliness
was too evident; everything in the room meant
money too plainl}', and too much of it. The
Marches recognised this in the hoarse Avhispers
which people cannot get their voices above when
they try to talk away the interval of waiting in such
circumstances; they conjectured from what they
had heard of the Dryfooses that this tasteful luxury
in nowise expressed their civilisation. *' Though

200 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

Tvlicn you come to that," said March, " I don't know
that ^Irs. Green's gimcrackcry expresses ours."

" Well, Basil, / didn't take the gimcrackcry. That
Avas I/oar "

The rustle of skirts on the stairs without arrested
Mrs. March in the well-merited punishment which
she never failed to inflict upon her Imsband when
the question of the gimcrackcry — they always called
it that — came up. She rose at the entrance of
a bright-looking, pretty-looking, mature, youngish
lady, in black silk of a neutral implication, who put
out her hand to her, and said, with a very cheery,
very lady-like accent, " Mrs. ^March ] " and then
added to both of them, while she shook hands with
March, and before they could get the name out of
their mouths, "No, not Miss Dryfoos ! Neither of
them ; nor Mrs. Dryfoos. Mrs. Mandel. The
ladies will be down in a moment, ^Von't you
throw off your sacque, Mrs. March 1 I 'm afraid it 's
rather warm here, coming from the outside."

" I Avill throw it back, if you '11 allow me," said
Mrs. March, with a sort of provisionality, as if,
pending some uncertainty as to Mrs. Mandel's
quality and authority, she did not feel herself
justified in going further.

But if she did not know about Mrs. Mandel, Mrs.
Mandel seemed to know about her. " Oh, well, do ! "
she said, with a sort of recognition of the propriety
of her caution. " I hope you are feeling a little at
home in New York We heard so much of your
trouble in getting a flat, from Mr. Fulkerson."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 201

" "Well, a true Bostonian doesn't give up quite so
soon," said Mrs. March. " But I will say New York
doesn't seem so far away, now we're here."

"I'm sure you'll like it. Every one does."
Mrs. Mandel added to March, " It 's very sharp out,
isn't it ] "

" Eather sharp. Bat after our Boston winters I
don't know but I ought to repudiate the word."

" Ah, wait till you have been here through March !"
said Mrs. Mandel. She began with him, but skil-
fully transferred the close of her remark, and the
little smile of menace that went with it, to his wife.

"Yes," said Mrs. March, "or April, either. Talk
about our east winds ! "

" Oh, I 'm sure they can't be worse than our
winds,** Mrs. Mandel returned caressingly.

"If we escape New York pneumonia," March
laughed, " it will only be to fall a prey to New York
malaria as soon as the frost is out of the ground."

" Oh, but you know," said Mrs. Mandel, " I think
our malaria has really been slandered a little. It 's
more a matter of drainage — of plumbing. I don't
believe it would be possible for malaria to get into
this house, we 've had it gone over so thoroughly."

Mrs, March said, while she tried to divine Mrs.
Mandel's position from this statement, " It 's certainly
the first duty."

" If Mrs. ]\Iarch could have had her way, we
should have had the drainage of our whole ward put
in order," said her husband, "before we ventured to
take a furnished apartment for the winter."
9"'

202 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

Mrs. Maiidcl looked discreetly at Mrs. March for
permission to laugh at this, hut at the same moment
hoth ladies became preoccupied with a second rust-
ling on the stairs.

Two tall, ■well-dressed young girls came in, and
Mrs. Mandel introduced, "Miss Dryfoos, Mrs. March ;
and Miss Mela Dryfoos, Mr. March," she added, and
the girls shook hands in their several ways Avith the
Marches.

Miss Dryfoos had keen black eyes, and her hair
Avas intensely black. Her face, but for the slight
inward curve of the nose, was reguhir, and the small-
ness of her nose and of her mouth did not weaken
her face, but gave it a curious effect of fieiceness, of
challenge. She had a large black fan in her hand,
which she waved in talking, with a slow, watchful
nervousness. Her sister Avas blonde, and had a profile
like her brother's ; but her chin Avas not so salient,
and the Aveak look of the mouth Avas not corrected
by the spirituality or the fervour of his eyes, though
hers Averc of the same mottled blue. She dropped
into the Ioav seat beside !Mrs. Mandel, and intcr-
tAvined her fingers Avith those of the hand Avhich
Mrs. Mandel let her have. She smiled upon the
Marches, Avhile Miss Dryfoos Avatched them in-
tensely, Avith her eyes first on one and then on the
other, as if she did not mean to let any expression
of theirs escape her.

" My mother will be doAvn in a minute," she said
to Mrs. March.

*' I hope Avc 're not disturbing her. It is so good

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 203

of you to let us come in the evening," ^Mrs. March
replied.

" Oh, not at all," said the girl. " We receiA-o in
the evening."

" When we do receive," Miss Mela put in. " We
don't ahvays get the chance to." She began a laugh,
which she checked at a smile from Mrs. Mandel,
which no one could have seen to be reproving.

Miss Dryfoos looked down at her fan, and looked
up defiantly at ]Mrs. !March. " I suppose you have
hardly got settled. We were afraid we would dis-
turb you Avhen we called."

" Oh no ! We were very sorry to miss your visit.
We are quite settled in our new quarters. Of course,
it 's all very different from Boston."

" I hope it 's more of a sociable place there," Miss
Mela broke in again. " I never saw such an unsoci-
able place as New York. We 've been in this house
three months, and I don't believe that if we stayed
three years any of the neighbours would call."

" I fancy proximity doesn't count for much in
New York," March suggested.

]\Irs. Mandel said : " That's what I tell Miss Mela.
But she is a very social nature, and can't reconcile
herself to the fact."

" No, I can't," the girl pouted. " I think it was
twice as much fun in Moffitt. I wish I was there
now."

" Yes," said March, " I think there 's a great deal
more enjoyment in those smaller places. There 's
not so much going on in the way of public amuse-

20i A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

ments, and so pooijlc make more of one anothor.
There are not so many concerts, theatres, operas "

" Oil, tlicy 'vc got a spendid opera-house in Moffitt.
It's just grand," said ]\liss JNIcla.

" Have you been to the opera here, this winter 1 "
Mrs. March asked of the ckler girl.

She was glaring with a frown at her sister, and
detached her eyes from her with an cfTort. " What
did you say ?" she demanded, with an absent bluiit-
ness. " Oh yes. Yes ! "We went once. Fatlicr
took a box at the ^Metropolitan."

" Then you got a good dose of Wagner, I sup-
pose 1 " said March.

" What 1 " asked the girl.

" I don't think Miss Dryfoos is very fond of
Wagner's music," Mrs. Mandel said. " I believe
you are all great Wagnerites in Boston 1 "

" I 'm a very bad Bostonian, !Mrs. Mandel. I
suspect myself of preferring Verdi," J^Iarch answered.

Miss Dryfoos looked down at her fan again, and
said, " I like Trovatore the best."

"It's an opera I never get tired of," said March,
and Mrs. March and Mrs. Mandel exchanged a smile
of compassion for his simplicity. He detected it,
and added, " But I dare say I shall come down with
the AVagner fever in time. I've been exposed to
some malignant cases of it."

"That night we were there," said Miss Mela,
" they had to turn the gas down all through one
part of it, and the papers said the ladies were awful
mad because they couldn't show their diamonds. I

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 205

don't wonder, if they all had to pay as much for
their boxes as we did. We had to pay sixty dollars."
She looked at the Marches for their sensation at this
expense.

March said : " Well, I think I shall take my box
by the month, then. It must come cheaper, whole-
sale."

" Oh no, it don't," said the girl, glad to inform
him. " The people that own their boxes, and that
had to give fifteen or twenty thousand dollars apiece
for them, have to pay sixty dollars a night whenever
there 's a performance, whether they go or not."
" Then I should go every night," March said.

" Most of the ladies were low neck "

March interposed, " Well, I shouldn't go low nech."
The girl broke into a fondly approving laugh at
his drolling. " Oh, I guess you love to train ! Us
girls wanted to go low neck, too ; but father said we
shouldn't, and mother said if we did she wouldn't
come to the front of the box once. Well, she didn't,
anyway. We might just as well 'a' gone Ioav neck.
She stayed back the whole time, and Avhen they had
that dance — the ballet, you know — she just shut her
eyes. Well, Conrad didn't like that part much,
either ; but us girls and Mrs. Mandel, we brazened
it out right in the front of the box. We were about
the only ones there that went high neck. Conrad
had to Avear a swallow-tail ; but father hadn't any,
and he had to patch out with a white cravat. You
couldn't see what he had on in the back o' the box,
anyway."

206 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

Mrs. March looked at Miss Dryfoos, who was
•waving her fan more and more slowly up and down,
and who, when she felt herself looked at, returned
]\Irs. ]\Iarch's smile, which she meant to be ingratiat-
ing and perhaps sympathetic, with a flash that made
her start, and then ran her fierce eyes over March's
face. " Here comes mother," she said, with a sort
of breathlessness, as if speaking her thought aloud,
and through the open door the Marches could see
the old lady on the stairs.

She paused half-Avay down, and turning, called
up : " Coonrod ! Coonrod ! You bring my shawl
down with you."

Her daughter Mela called out to her, "Now,
mother, Christine '11 give it to you for not sending
Mike."

" Well, I don't know where he is, Mel}', child,"
the mother answered back. " He ain't never around
when he 's wanted, and when he ain't, it seems like a
body couldn't git shet of him, nohow."

"Well, you ought to ring for him," cried Miss
Mela, enjoying the joke.

Her mother came in with a slow step ; her head
shook slightly as she looked about the room, perhaps
from nervousness, perhaps from a touch of palsy.
In either case the fact had a pathos which Mrs.
March confessed in the affection with which she
took her hard, dry, large, old hand when she was
introduced to her, and in the sincerity which she
put into the hope that she was well.

"I'm just middlin'," Mrs. Dryfoos rei^lied. "I

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 207

ain't never so well, nowadays. I tell fawther I
don't believe it agrees with me very well here ; but
he says I '11 git used to it. He 's away now, out at
Moffitt," she said to March, and wavered on foot a
moment before she sank into a chair. She was a
tall Avoman, who had been a beautiful girl, and her
grey hair had a memory of blondeness in it like
Lindau's, March noticed. She wore a simple silk
gown, of a Quakerly grey, and she held a handker-
chief folded square, as it had come from the laun-
dress. Something like the Sabbath quiet of a little
wooden meeting-house in thick Western woods ex-
pressed itself to him from her presence.

" Laws, mother ! " said Miss Mela ; " what you
got that old thing on for ? If I 'd 'a' known you 'd
'a' come down in that ! "

" Coonrod said it was all right, Mely," said her
mother.

Miss Mela explained to the Marches : " ]\Iother
was raised among the Dunkards, and she thinks it 's
wicked to wear anything but a grey silk even for
dress up."

" You hain't never beared o' the Dunkards, I
reckon," the old woman said to Mrs. March.
" Some folks calls 'em the Beardy Men, because
they don't never shave ; and they wash feet like
they do in the Testament. Isly uncle was one. He
raised me."

" I guess pretty much everybody 's a Beardy Man
nowadays, if he ain't a Dunkard ! "

Miss Mela looked round for applause of her sally.

208 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

but March was saying to his wife : " It's a Pennsyl-
vania German sect, I believe — something like the
Quakers. I used to see them when I was a boy."

" Aren't they something like the Mennists 1 "
asked Mrs. Mandel.

" They 're good people," said the old woman,
" and the world 'd be a heap better off if there
Avas more like 'em."

Her son came in and laid a soft shawl over her
shoulders before he shook hands with the visitors.
" I am glad you found your way here," he said to
them.

Christine, who had been bending forward over
her fan, now lifted herself up with a sigh and leaned
back in her chair.

" I 'm sorry my father isn't here," said the young
man to Mrs. March. " He 's never met you yet 1 "

" No ; and I should like to see him. "We hear a
great deal about your father, you know, from Mr.
Fulkerson."

" Oh, I hope you don't believe everything Mr.
Fulkerson says about people," Mela cried. "He's
the greatest person for carrying on when he gets
going / ever saw. It makes Christine just as mad
Avhen him and mother get to talking about religion ;
she says she knows he don't care anything more
about it than the man in the moon. I reckon he
don't try it on much Avith father."

" Your fawther ain't ever been a perfessor," her
mother interposed ; "but he's always been a good
church-goin' man."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 209

" Not since we come to New York," retorted the
girl.

" He 's been all broke up since he come to New
York," said the old Avoman, with an aggrieved look.

Mrs. Mandel attempted a diversion. " Have you
heard any of our great New York preachers yet,
Mrs. March 1 "

"No, I haven't," Mrs. March admitted; and she
tried to imply by her candid tone that she intended
to begin hearing them the very next Sunday.

"There are a great many things here," said
Conrad, "to take your thoughts off the preaching
that you hear in most of the churches. I think the
ci*^y itself is preaching the best sermon all the time."

" I don't know that I understand you," said March.

Mela answered for him. " Oh, Conrad has got a
lot of notions that nobody can understand. You
ought to see the church he goes to Avhen he does go.
I 'd about as lief go to a Catholic church myself ; I
don't see a bit o' difference. He 's the greatest
crony with one of their preachers ; he dresses just
like a priest, and he says he is a priest." She
laughed for enjoyment of the fact, and her brother
cast down his eyes.

Mrs. March, in her turn, tried to take from it the
personal tone which the talk was always assuming.
"Have you been to the fall exhibition 1" she asked
Christine ; and the girl drew herself up out of the
abstraction she seemed sunk in.

" The exhibition 1 " She looked at Mrs. Mandel.

" The pictures of the Academy, you know," Mrs.

210 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

Maiulcl cx'itlainccl. " Where I wanted you to go tlie
day you had your dress tried on."

" No ; vro haven't been yet. Is it good 1 " She
had turned to Mrs. ]\Iarch again.

*' I believe the fall exhibitions are never so good
as the spring ones. But there arc some good
pictures."

" I don't believe I care much about pictures," said
Cliristine. "I don't understand them."

'■' Ah, that 's no excuse for not caring about them,"
said March lightly. " The painters themselves
don't, half the time."

Tlie girl looked at him with that glance at once
defiant and appealing, insolent and anxious, which
ho had noticed before, especially when she stole it
toward himself and his wife during her sister's
babble. In the light of Fulkcrson's history of the
family, its origin and its ambition, he interpreted
it to mean a sense of her sister's folly and an
ignorant will to override his 0})inion of anything
incongruous in themselves and their surroundings.
He said to himself that she was deathly proud — too
proud to try to palliate anything, but capable of
anything that would put others under her feet. Her
eyes seemed hopelessly to question his Avife's social
quality, and he fancied, with not vmkindly interest,
the inexperienced girl's doubt whether to treat them
with much or little respect. He lost himself in
fancies about her and her ideals, necessarily sor-
did, of her possibilities of suffering, of the triumphs
and disappointments before her. Her sister woukl

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 211

accept both with a lightness that -would keep no
trace of eitlier ; but in her they would sink lastingly
deep. He came out of his reverie to find ]\Irs.
Dryfoos saying to him in her hoarse voice —

"I think it's a shame, some of the pictur's a body
sees in the Avinders. They say there 's a law aginst
them things ; and if there is, I don't understand
why the police don't take up them that paints 'em.
I hear tell, since I been here, that there's women
that goes to have pictur's took from them that way by
men painters." The j^oint seemed aimed at !March,
as if he were personally responsible for the scandal,
and it fell with a silencing effect for the moment.
Nobody seemed willing to take it up, and Mrs.
Dryfoos went on, with an old woman's severity : " I
say they ought to be all tarred and feathered and
rode on a rail. They 'd be drummed out of town in
Moffitt."

Miss Mela said, with a crowing laugh : " I should
think they would ! And they wouldn't anybody go
low neck to the opera-house there, either — not low
neck the way they do here, anyway."

" And that pack of worthless hussies," her mother
resumed, " that come out on the stage, and begun to
kick "

" Laws, mother ! " the girl shouted, " I thouglit
you said you had your eyes shut ! "

All but these two simpler creatures were abashed
at the indecorum of suggesting in Avords the com-
mon-places of the theatre and of art.

" Well, I did, Mely, as soon as I could believe my

212 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

eyes. I don't know wliat they 're doin' in all their
churches, to let such things go on," said the old
Avoman. " It 's a sin and a shame, / think. Don't
you, Coonrod ] "

A ring at the door cut short Avhatever answer he
was about to deliver.

" If it 's going to be company, Coonrod," said his
mother, making an effort to rise, " I reckon I better
go upstairs."

"It's Mr. Fulkerson, I guess," said Conrad. "lie
thought he might come ; " and at the mention of
this light si^irit Mrs. Dryfoos sank contentedly back
in her chair, and a relaxation of their painful ten-
sion seemed to pass through the whole company.
Conrad Avenfc to the door himself (the serving-man
tentatively appeared some minutes later) and let in
Fulkerson's cheerful voice before his cheerful person.

" Ah, how d' ye do, Conrad 1 Brought our friend,
Mr. Beaton, with me," those within heard him say ;
and then, after a sound of putting off overcoats, they
saw him fill the doorway, with his feet set square
and his arms akimbo.

IX.

"Ah! hello! hello!" Fulkerson said, in recognition
of the Marches. " Regular gathering of the clans.
How are you, Mrs. Dryfoos ? How do you do, Mrs.
IMandel, Miss Christine, Mela, Aunt Hitty, and all
the folks 1 How you wuz ? " He shook hands
gaily all round, and took a chair next the old lady,
whose hand he kept in his own, and left Conrad to
introduce Beaton. But he would not let the shadow
of Beaton's solemnity fall upon the company. He
began to joke with Mrs. Dryfoos, and to match
rheumatisms with her, and he included all the
ladies in the range of appropriate pleasantries.
"I've brought Mr. Beaton along to-night, and I
want you to make him feel at home, like you do mc,
Mrs. Dryfoos. He hasn't got any rheumatism to
speak of ; but his parents live in Syracuse, and he 's
a kind of an orphan, and we 've just adopted him
down at the office. "When you going to bring the
young ladies down there, Mrs. Mandel, for a cham-
pagne lunch 1 I will have some hydro-Mela, and
Christine it, heigh 1 How 's that for a little starter 1
We dropped in at your place a moment, Mrs. March,
and gave the young folks a few pointers about their

214 A U.VZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

studies. My goodness ! it docs me good to sec a
boy like that of yours ; business, from the word go ;
and your girl just scoops my youthful affections.
She 's a beauty, and I guess she 's good too. Well,
well, what a Avorld it is ! Miss Christine, won't you
show Mr. Beaton that seal ring of yours ? He
knows about such things, and I brought him here
to see it as much as anything. It 's an intaglio I
brought from the other side," ho explained to Mrs.
March, '• and I guess you '11 like to look at it. Tried
to give it to the Dryfoos family, and when I couldn't,
I sold it to 'em. Bound to see it on Miss Christine's
hand somehow ! Hold on ! Let him see it where
it belongs, first ! "

He arrested the girl in the motion she made to
take off the ring, and let her have the pleasure of
showing her hand to the company with the ring on
it. Tlicu he left her to hear the painter's words
about it, wliich he continued to deliver dissyllabically
as he stood with her under a gas jet, twisting his
clastic figure and bending his head over the ring.

"Well, Mely, child," Fulkerson went on, with an
open travesty of her mother's habitual address,
" and how are you getting along 1 Mrs. Mandel
hold you up to the proprieties pretty strictly 1 Well,
that 's right. You know you 'd be roaming all over
the pasture if she didn't."

The girl gurgled out her pleasure in his funning,
and everybody took him on his own ground of
privileged character. He brought them all together
in their friendliness for himself, and before the

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 215

evening was over he had inspired Mrs. Mandel to
liave them served with coffee, and had made both
the girls feel that they had figured brilliantly in
society, and that two young men had been devoted
to them.

" Oh, I think he 's just as lovely as he can live ! "
said Mela, as she stood a moment with her sister
on the scene of her triumph, where the others had
left them after the departure of their guests.

" Who 1 " asked Christine deeply. As she
glanced down at her ring, her eyes burned with a
softened fire. She had allowed Beaton to change
it himself from the finger where she had Avorn it to
the finger on which he said she ought to wear it.
She did not know whether it Avas right to let him,
but she was glad she had done it.

" Who 1 Mr. Fulkersou, goosie-poosie ! Not
that old stuck-up Mr. Beaton of yours ! "

"He is proud," assented Christine, with a throb
of exultation.

Beaton and Fulkerson went to the elevated
station with the Marches ; but the painter said he was
going to walk home, and Fulkerson let him go alone.

" One way is enough for me," he explained.
" When I walk up, I don't walk down, By-by, my
son ! " He began talking about Beaton to the
Marches as they climbed the station stairs together.
" That felloAV puzzles me. I don't know anybody
that I have such a desire to kick, and at the same
time that I want to flatter up so much. Affect you
that way 1 " he asked of March.

216 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" Well, as far as the kicking goes, yes."

" And how is it with 3^011, Mrs. March 1 "

" Oh, I want to flatter him up."

" No ; really ] Why ?— Hold on ! I 've got the
change."

Fulkerson pushed March away from the ticket-
office window, and made them his guests, with the
inexorable American hospitality, for the ride down-
town. " Three ! " he said to the ticket-seller ; and
wlien he had walked them before him out on the
platform and dropped his tickets into the urn, he
persisted in his inquiry, " Why ? "

**Why, because you always want to flatter con-
ceited people, don't you 1 " Mrs. March answered,
with a laugh.

"Do you? Yes, I guess you do. You think
Beaton is conceited 1 "

" Well, sUghthj, Mr. Fulkerson."

"I guess you're partly right," said Fulkerson,
with a sigh, so unaccountable in its connection that
they all laughed.

"An ideal 'busted' ?" March suggested.

" No, not that, exactly," said Fulkerson. " But I had
a notion may be Beaton wasn't conceited all the time."

"Oh!" Mrs. March exulted, "nobody could be
so conceited all the time as Mr. Beaton is most of
the time. He must have moments of the direst
modesty, when he 'd be quite flattery-proof."

"Yes, that's what I mean. I guess that's what
makes me want to kick him. He 's left compliments
on my hands that no decent man would."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 217

" Oh ! that 's tragical," said March.

" Mr. Fulkerson," Mrs. March began, with change
of subject in her voice, " who is Mrs. Mandel 1 "

" Who ] What do you think of her 1 " he re-
joined. " I '11 tell you about her when we get in the
cars. Look at that thing ! Ain't it beautiful ? "

They leaned over the track, and looked up at
the next station, where the train, just starting,
throbbed out the flame-shot steam into the white
moonlight.

"The most beautiful thing in New York — the
one always and certainly beautiful thing here,"
said March; and his wife sighed, "Yes, yes." She
clung to him, and remained rapt by the sight till
the train drew near, and then pulled him back in
a panic.

" Well, there ain't really much to tell about her,"
Fulkerson resumed, Avhen they were seated in the
car. " She 's an invention of mine."

" Of yours 1 " cried Mrs. March.

" Of course ! " exclaimed her husband.

" Yes — at least in her present capacity. She sent
me a story for the syndicate, back in July some
time, along about the time I first met old Dryfoos
here. It was a little too long for my purpose, and I
thought I could explain better how I wanted it cut
in a call than I could in a letter. She gave a
Brooklyn address, and I went to see her. I found
her," said Fulkerson, with a vague defiance, "a
perfect lady. She was living with an aunt over
there ; and she had seen better days, when she was
Vol. I.— 10

218 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

a girl, and worse ones afterward. I don't mean to
say her husband Avas a bad fellow ; I guess he was
pretty good ; he was her music-teacher ; she met
him in German}', and they got married there, and
got through her property before they came over
here. Well, she didn't strike me like a person that
could make much headway in literature. Her story
was well enough, but it laadn't much sand in it;
kind of — well, academic, you know. I told her so,
and she understood, and cried a little ; but she did
the best she could with the thing, and I took it and
syndicated it. She kind of stuck in my mind, and
the first time I went to see the Dryfooses — they
were stopping at a sort of family hotel then till they
could find a house " Fulkerson broke ofF alto-
gether, and said, "I don't know as I know just how
the Dryfooses struck you, ]\Irs. March 1 "

" Can't you imagine ? " she answered, with a
kindly smile.

"Yes; but I don't believe I could guess how they
would have struck you last summer when I first saw
them. My ! oh my ! there was the native earth for
you. Mely is a pretty Avild colt now, but you
ought to have seen her before she was broken to
harness. And Christine ? Ever see that black
leopard they got up there in the Central Park 1
That was Christine. "Well, I saw what they wanted.
They all saw it — nobody is a fool in all directions,
and the Dryfooses are in their right senses a good
deal of the time. Well, to cut a long story short, I
got Mrs. Mandel to take 'em in hand — the old lady

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 219

as well as the girls. She was a born lady, and
always lived like one till she saw Man del ; and that
something academic that killed her for a writer was
just the very thing for them. She knows the world
well enough to know just how much polish they can
take on, and she don't try to put on a hit more. Sec 1 "

" Yes, I can see," said Mrs. March.

" Well, she took hold at once, as ready as a
hospital-trained nurse ; and there ain't anything
readier on this planet. She runs the whole concern,
socially and economically, takes all the care of
house-keeping off the old lady's hands, and goes
round with the girls. By-the-by, I 'm going to take
my meals at your widow's, March, and Conrad's
going to have his lunch there. I 'm sick of brows-
ing about."

" Mr. March's widow 1 " said his Avife, looking at
him with provisional severity.

"I have no widow, Isabel," ho said, "and never
expect to have, till I leave you in the enjoyment of
my life insurance. I suppose Fulkerson means the
lady with the daughter, who wanted to take us
to board."

"Oh yes. How are they getting on, I do
wonder 1 " Mrs. March asked of Fulkerson.

" Well, they 've got one family to board ; but it 's
a small one. I guess they '11 pull through. They
didn't Avant to take any day boarders at first, the
Avidow said ; I guess they have had to come to it."

" Poor things ! " sighed Mrs. March. " I hope
they '11 go back to the country."

220 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" Well, I don't know. When you 've once tasted

New York You Avouldn't go back to Boston,

would you ] "

"Instantly."

Fulkerson laughed out a tolerant incredulity.

X.

Beaton lit his pipe when he found himself in his
room, and sat down before the dull fire in his grate
to think. It struck him there was a dull fire in his
heart a great deal like it, and he worked out a
fanciful analogy with the coals, still alive, and the
ashes creeping over them, and the dead clay and
cinders. He felt sick of himself, sick of his life and
of all his works. He was angry with Fulkerson for
having got him into that art department of his, for
having bought him up ; and he was bitter at fate
because he had been obliged to use the money to
pay some pressing debts, and had not been able to
return the check his father had sent him. He pitied
his poor old father ; he ached with compassion for
him ; and he set his teeth and snarled with con-
tempt through them for his own baseness. This
was the kind of world it was ; but he washed his
hands of it. The fault was in human nature, and
he reflected with pride that he had at least not in-
vented human nature ; he had not sunk so low as
that yet. The notion amused him ; he thought he
might get a Satanic epigram out of it some way.
But in the meantime that girl, that wild animal,

222 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

she kept visibly, tangibly before him ; if he put out
his hand he might touch hers, he might pass his arm
round her waist. In Paris, in a set he knew there,
Avhat an effect she would be with that look of hers,
and that beauty, all out of drawing ! They would
recognise the flame quality in her. He imagined a
joke about her being a fiery spirit, or nymph, naiad,
whatever, from one of her native gas wells. He
began to sketch on a bit of paper from the table at
his elbow vague lines that veiled and revealed a
level, dismal landscape, and a vast flame against an
empty sky, and a shape out of the flame that took
on a likeness, and floated detached from it. The
sketch ran up the left side of the sheet and stretched
across it. Beaton laughed out. Pretty good to let
Fulkerson have that for the cover of his first number!
In black and red it would be effective ; it Avould
catch the eye from the news stands. He made a
motion to throw it on the fire, but held it back, and
slid it into the table drawer, and smoked on. He
saw the dummy Avith the other sketch in the open
drawer, which he had brought away from Fulker-
son's in the morning and slipped in there, and he
took it out and looked at it. He made some criticisms
in line with his pencil on it, correcting the drawing
here and there, and then he respected it a little
more, though he still smiled at the feminine quality
— a young lady quality.

In spite of his experience the night he called upon
the Leightons, Beaton could not believe that Alma
no longer cared for him. She played at having

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 223

forgotten him admirably, but he knew that a few
months before she liad been very mindful of him.
He knew he had neglected them since they came to
New York, where he had led them to expect interest,
if not attention ; but he was used to neglecting
people, and he was somewhat less used to being
punished for it — punished and forgiven. He felt
that Alma had punished him so thoroughly that she
ought to have been satisfied with her M-ork and to
have forgiven him in her heart afterward. He bore
no resentment after the first tingling moments were
past ; he rather admired her for it ; and ho would
have been ready to go back half an hour later, and
accept pardon, and be on the footing of last summer
agaia Even now he debated with himself whether
it was too late to call ; but decidedly a quarter to ten
seemed late. . The next day he determined never to
call upon the Leightons again ; but he had no reason
for this ; it merely came into a transitory scheme of
conduct, of retirement from the society of women
altogether ; and after dinner he went round to see
them.

He asked for the ladies, and they all three received
him, Alma not without a surprise that intimated itself
to him, and her mother with no appreciable relent-
ing ; Miss "Woodburn, with the needlework which
she found easier to be voluble over than a book,
expressed in her welcome a neutrality both cordial
to Beaton and loyal to Alma.

*' Is it snowing out-do's 1 " she asked briskly, after
the irreetincrs were transacted. "Mali goodness!"

224 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

she said, in answer to his apparent surprise at the
question. "Ah mahght as Avell have stayed in the
Soath, for all the winter Ah liave seen in New York

yet."

"We don't often have snow much before New-
Year's," said Beaton.

" Miss Woodburn is wild for a real Northern
winter," Mrs. Leighton explained.

"The othah naght Ah woke up and looked oat
of the window and saw all the roofs covered with
snow, and it turned oat to be nothing but moonlaght.
I was never so disajipointed in mah lahfe," said Miss
"Woodburn.

" If you '11 come to St. Barnaby next summer, you
shall have all the winter you want," said Alma.

"I can't let you slander St. Barnaby in that way,"
said Beaton, with the air of wishing to be understood
as meaning more than he said.

" Yes 1 " returned Alma coolly. " I didn't know
you were so fond of the climate."

" I never think of it as a climate. It 's a landscape.
It doesn't matter whether it's hot or cold."

"With the thermometer twenty below, you'd
find that it mattered," Alma persisted.

" You don't mean it goes doan to that in the
summah ] " Miss Woodburn interposed.

" Well, not before the Fourth of the July after,"
Alma admitted.

"Is that the way you feel about St. Barnaby
too, Mrs. Leighton 1 " Beaton asked, with affected
desolation.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES 225

" I shall be glad enough to go back in the summer,"
Mrs. Leighton conceded.

" And I should be glad to go now," said Beaton,
looking at Alma. He had the dummy of Every Oilier
TFeek in his hand, and he saw Alma's eyes wandering
toward it whenever he glanced at her. " I should
be glad to go anywhere to get out of a job I 've
undertaken," he continued, to Mrs. Leighton.
"They're going to start some sort of a new
illustrated magazine, and they've got me in for
their art department. I 'm not fit for it ; I 'd like to
run away. Don't you want to advise me a little,
Mrs. Leighton ] You know how much I value your
taste, and I 'd like to have you look at the design
for the cover of the first number : they 're going to
have a different one for every number. I don't
know whether you '11 agree with me, but I think
this is rather nice."

He faced the dummy round, and then laid it
on the table before Mrs. Leighton, pushing some
of her work aside to make room for it, and
standing over her while she bent forward to look
at it.

Alma kept her place, away from the table.

" Mah goodness ! Ho' exciting ! " said Miss
Woodburn. " May anybody look 1 "

" Everybody," said Beaton.

" Well, isn't it perfectly chawming ! " Miss Wood-
bum exclaimed. "Come and look at this, Miss
Leighton," she called to Alma, who reluctantly
approached.
10^'

22G A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" What lines arc these 1 " Mrs. Leighton asked,
pointing to Beaton's pencil scratches.

" They 're suggestions of modification," he re-
plied.

" I don't think they improve it much. What do
you think, Alma 1 "

" Oh, I don't know," said the girl, constraining
her voice to an effect of indifference, and glancing
carelessly down at the sketch. " The design might
be improved; but I don't think those suggestions
would do it."

" They 're mine," said Beaton, fixing his eyes upon
her with a beautiful sad dreaminess that he knew
he could put into them ; he spoke with a dreamy
remoteness of tone : his wind-harp stop, Wetmore
called it.

" I supposed so," said Alma calmly.

" Oh, mail goodness ! " cried Miss Woodburn.
" Is that the way you awtusts talk to each othah 1
Well, Ah'm glad Ah'm not an awtust — unless I
could do all the talking."

"Artists cannot tell a fib," Alma said, "or even
act one," and she laughed in Beaton's upturned face.

He did not unbend his dreamy gaze. "You're
quite right. The suggestions are stupid."

Alma turned to Miss Woodburn : " You hear ?
Even when we speak of our own Avork."

" Ah nevah hoad anything lahke it ! "

"And the design itself? " Beaton persisted.

" Oh, I 'm not an art editor," Alma answered,
with a laudi of exultant evasion.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 227

A tall, dark, grave-looking man of fifty, with a
swarthy face, and iron-grey moustache and imperial
and goatee, entered the room. Beaton kncAv the
type ; he had been through Virginia sketching for
one of the illustrated papers, and he had seen such
men in Richmond. Miss Woodburn hardly needed
to say, "May Ah introduce you to mah fathaw,
Co'nel Woodburn, Mr. Beaton ? "

The men shook hands, and Colonel Woodburn
said, in that soft, gentle, slow Southern voice with-
out our Northern contractions : " I am very glad to
meet you, sir; happy to make yo' acquaintance.
Do not move, madam," he said to Mrs. Leighton,
who made a deprecatory motion to let him pass to
the chair beyond her; "I can find my way." He
bowed a bulk that did not lend itself readily to the
devotion, and picked up the ball of yarn she had let
drop out of her lap in half rising. " Yo' worsteds,
madam."

" Yarn, yarn. Colonel Woodburn ! " Alma shouted.
" You 're quite incorrigible. A spade is a spade ! "

"But sometimes it is a trump, my dear young
lady," said the Colonel, with unabated gallantry ;
"and when yo' mothah uses yarn, it is worsteds.
But I respect worsteds even under the name of yarn :
our ladies — my own mothah and sistahs — had to
knit the socks we wore — all we could get — in the
woe."

"Yes, and aftah the woe," his daughter put in.
"The knitting has not stopped yet in some places.
Have you been much in the Soath, Mr. Beaton ? "

228 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

Beaton explained just how much.

" Well, sir," said the Colonel, " tlion you have
seen a country making gigantic struggles to retrieve
its losses, sir. The south is advancing -with enor-
mous strides, sir."

" Too fast for some of us to keep up," said Miss
"Woodburn, in an audible aside. " The pace in
Charlottesboag is pofectly killing, and wc liad to
drop oat into a slow place like New York."

" The progress in the South is material now,''
said the Colonel ; " and those of us whose interests
are in another direction find ourselves — isolated —
isolated, sir. The intellectual centres are still in
the No'th, sir ; the great cities draw the mental
activity of the country to them, sir. Necessarily
New York is the metropolis."

" Oh, everything comes here," said Beaton, im-
patient of the cider's ponderosity. Another sort of
man Avould have sympathised with the Southerner's
willingness to talk of himself, and led him on to
speak of his plans and ideals. But the sort of man
that Beaton was could not do this ; he put up the
dummy into the wrapper he had let drop on the
floor beside him, and tied it round Avith string while
Colonel Woodburn was talking. He got to his
feet with the words he spoke, and offered Mrs.
Leighton his hand.

" Must you go 1 " she asked, in surprise.

" I am on my way to a reception," he said. She
had noticed that ho was in evening dress ; and now
she felt the vague hurt that people invited nowhere

A HAZARD -OF NEW FORTUNES. 229

feel in the presence of those who are going some-
where. She did not feel it for herself, but for her
daughter ; and she knew Alma would not have let
her feel it if she could have prevented it. But Alma
had left the room for a moment, and she tacitly
indulged this sense of injury in her behalf.

"Please say good night to Miss Leighton for me,"
Beaton continued. He bowed to Miss Woodburn,
" Good night, Miss Woodburn," and to her father
bluntly, " Good night."

"Good night, sir," said the Colonel, with a sort of
severe suavity.

" Oh, isn't he chawming ! " Miss Woodburn whis-
pered to Mrs. Leighton when Beaton left the room.

Alma spoke to him in the hall without. " You
knew that was my design Mr. Beaton. Why did
you bring it 1 "

" Why 1 " He looked at her in gloomy hesita-
tion. Then he said : " You know why. I Avished
to talk it over with you, to serve you, please you,
get back your good opinion. But I 've done neither
the one nor the other ; I Ve made a mess of the
whole thing."

Alma interrupted him. " Has it been accepted ? "

"It will be accepted, if you Avill let it."

"Let it?" she laughed. "I shall be delighted."
She saw him swayed a little toward her. "It's a
matter of business, isn't it ? "

" Purely. Good night."

When Alma returned to the room, Colonel Wood-
burn was saying to Mrs. Leighton : " I do not contend

230 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

that it is impossible, madam, but it is very difficult
in a thoroughly commercialised society, like yours,
to have the feelings of a gentleman. How can a
business man, whose prosperity, Avhose earthly salva-
tion, necessarily lies in the adversity of some one
else, be delicate and chivalrous, or even honest ? If
we could have had time to perfect our system at the
South, to eliminate what was evil and develop what
was good in it, we should have had a perfect system.
But the virus of commercialism was in us too ; it
forbade us to make the best of a divine institution,
and tempted us to make the worst. Now the curse
is on the Avhole country ; the dollar is the measure
of every value, the stamp of every success. What
does not sell is a failure; and what sells succeeds."

"The hobby is oat, mah deah," said Miss Wood-
burn, in an audible aside to Alma.

""Were you speaking of me, Colonel Woodburni "
Alma asked.

" Surely not, my dear young lady."

" But he 's been saying that awtusts are just as
greedy aboat money as anybody," said his daughter.

" The law of commercialism is on everything in a
commercial societj^," the Colonel explained, softening
the tone in Avhich his convictions were i)resented.
"The final reward of art is monej^, and not the
pleasure of creating."

" Perhaps they would be willing to take it all oat
in that, if otliah people would let them pay their
bills in the pleasure of creating," his daughter teased.

"They are helpless, like all the rest," said her

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 231

father, with the same deference to her as to other
women. " I do not blame them."

" Oh, mah goodness ! Didn't you say, sir, that
Mr. Beaton had bad manners 1 "

Alma relieved a confusion which he seemed to
feel in reference to her. " Bad manners ] He has
no manners ! That is, when he 's himself. He has
pretty good ones when he 's somebody else."

Miss Woodburn began, " Oh, mah " and then

stopped herself. Alma's mother looked at her with
distressful question, but the girl seemed perfectly
cool and contented ; and she gave her mind pro-
visionally to a point suggested by Colonel Wood-
burn's talk.

" Still, I can't believe it was right to hold people
in slavery, to whip them and sell them. It never
did seem right to me," she added, in apology for
her extreme sentiments to the gentleness of her
adversary.

"I quite agree with you, madam," said the
Colonel. " Those were the abuses of the institution.
But if we had not been vitiated on the one hand and
threatened on the other by the spirit of com-
mercialism from the North — and from Europe too —
those abuses could have been eliminated, and the
institution developed in the direction of the mild
patriarch alism of the divine intention." The Colonel
hitched his chair, which figured a hobby careering
upon its hind legs, a little toward Mrs. Leighton,
and the girls approached their heads, and began to
whisper ; they fell deferentially silent when the

232 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

Colonel paused in his argument, and went on again
^vllcn he went on.

At last they heard Mrs. Leighton saying, ''And
have you heard from the publishers about your book

yetl"

Then Miss Woodburn cut in, before her father
could answer : " The coase of commercialism is on
that too. They are trailing to fahnd oat whethah
it will pay."

" And they are right — quite right," said the
Colonel. " There is no longer any other criterion ;
and even a work that attacks the system must be
submitted to the tests of the system."

"The system won't accept destruction on any
othah tomes," said Miss "Woodburn demurely.

XL

At the recei^tion, where two men in livery stood
aside to let him pass up the outside steps of the
house, and two more helped him off with his over-
coat indoors, and a fifth miscalled his name into
the drawing-room, the Syracuse stone-cutter's son
met the niece of Mrs. Horn, and began at once to
tell her about his evening at the Dryfooses'. He
was in very good spirits, for so far as he could have
been elated or depressed by his parting with Alma
Leighton he had been elated ; she had not treated
his impudence with the contempt that he felt it
deserved ; she must still be fond of him ; and the
warm sense of this, by operation of an obscure .but
well-recognised law of the masculine being, disposed
him to be rather fond of Miss Vance. She was a
slender girl, whose semi-sesthetic dress flowed about
her with an accentuation of her long forms, and
redeemed them from censure by the very frankness
with which it confessed them; nobody could have
said that Margaret Vance was too tall. Her pretty
little head, which she had an effect of choosing to
have little in the same spirit of judicious defiance,
had a good deal of reading in it ; she was proud to

234 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

know literary and artistic fashions as well as society
fashions. She liked being singled out by an exterior
distinction so ob^■ious as Beaton's, and she listened
with sympathetic interest to his account of those
people. He gave their natural history reality by
drawing upon his own ; he reconstructed their
plebeian past from the experiences of his childhood
and his youth of the pre-Parisian period ; and he
had a pang of suicidal joy in insulting their ignorance
of the world.

" "What different kinds of people you meet ! " said
the girl at last, with an envious sigh. Her reading
had enlarged the bounds of her imagination, if not
her knowledge ; the novels nowadays dealt so much
with very common people, and made them seem so
' very much more worth while than the people one met.

She said something like this to Beaton. He
answered: "You can meet the people I'm talking
of very easily, if you want to take the trouble.
It 's what they came to New York for. I fancy it 's
the great ambition of their lives to be met."

"Oh yes," said Miss Vance fashionably, and
looked down; then she looked up and said intel-
lectually: "Don't you think it's a great pity?
How much better for them to have stayed where
they were and what they were ! "

" Then you could never have had any chance of
meeting them," said Beaton. " I don't suppose you
intend to go out to the gas country ] "

"No," said Miss Vance, amused. "Not that I
shouldn't like to go."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 235

" What a daring spirit ! You ought to be on the
staff of Evenj Other JFeeJc," said Beaton.

" The staff— Everi/ Other Week '? AVhat is it ? "

" The missing link ; the long-felt want of a tie
between the Arts and the Dollars." Beaton gave
her a very picturesque, a very dramatic sketch of
the theory, the purpose, and the ])ersonnel of the new
enterprise.

Miss Vance understood too little about business
of any kind to know how it differed from other
enterprises of its sort. She thought it was de-
lightful ; she thought Beaton must be glad to be
part of it, though he had represented himself so
bored, so injured, by Fulkerson's insisting upon
having him. "And is it a secret 1 Is it a thing
not to be spoken of 1 "

" Tutt' altro ! Fulkerson will be enraptured to
have it spoken of in society. He would pay any
reasonable bill for the advertisement."

" What a delightful creature ! Tell him it shall
all be spent in charity."

"He would like that. He would get two para-
graphs out of the fact, and your name would go into
the 'Literary Notes' of all the Newspapers."

" Oh, but I shouldn't want my name used ! " cried
the girl, half horrified into fancying the situa-
tion real.

"Then you'd better not say anything about
Eunj Other Week. Fulkerson is preternaturally
unscrupulous."

March began to think so too, at times. He was

236 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

perpetually suggesting changes in the make-up of
the first number, Avith a view to its greater vividness
of effect. One day he came in and said : " This
tiling isn't going to have any sort of get up and
howl about it, unless you have a paper in the first
number going for Bevans's novels. Better get
Maxwell to do it."

" Why, I thought you liked Bevans's novels 1 "

"So I do; but where the good of Hvery Other
JFceh is concerned I am a Roman father. The
popular gag is to abuse Bevans, and Maxwell is
the man to do it. There hasn't been a new maga-
zine started for the last three years that hasn't had
an article from Maxwell in its first number cutting
Bevans all to pieces. If people don't see it, they '11
think Every Other JVech is some old thing."

March did not know whether Fulkerson was
joking or not. He suggested, " Perhaps they '11
think it 's an old thing if they do see it."

"Well, get somebody else, then; or else get
Maxwell to write under an assumed name. Or —
I forgot ! He '11 be anonymous under our system
anyway. Now there ain't a more popular racket
for us to work in that first number than a good,
swingeing attack on Bevans. People read his books
and quarrel over 'em, and the critics are all against
him, and a regular flaying, with salt and vinegar
rubbed in afterward, will tell more with people Avho
like good old-fashioned fiction than anything else.
/ like Bevans's things, but, dad burn it ! when it
comes to that first number, I 'd offer up anybody."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 237

" What an immoral little wretch you are, Fulker-
son ! " said March, with a laugh.

Fulkerson appeared not to be very strenuous
about the attack on the novelist. " Say ! " he called
out gaily, " what should you think of a paper
defending the late lamented system of slavery ? "

" What do you mean, Fidkerson 1 " asked March,
with a puzzled smile.

Fulkerson braced his knees against his desk, and
pushed himself back, but kept his balance to the eye
by canting his hat sharply forward. "There's an
old cock over there at the widow's that 's written a
book to prove that slavery was and is the only solu-
tion of the labour problem. He 's a Southerner."

" I should imagine," March assented,

*' He 's got it on the brain that if the South could
have been let alone by the commercial spirit and the
pseudo-philanthropy of the North, it Avould have
worked out slavery into a perfectly ideal condition
for the labourer, in Avhicli he would have been
insured against want, and protected in all his
personal rights by the state. He read the introduc-
tion to me last night. I didn't catch on to all the
points — his daughter 's an awfully pretty girl, and I
was carrying that fact in my mind all the time too,
you know — but that's about the gist of it."

" Seems to regard it as a lost opportunity 1 " said
March.

'•' Exactly ! What a mighty catchy title, heigh ?
Look well on the title-page."

" Well written 1 "

238 A II.VZARD OF NEW FORTUNES,

" I reckon so ; I don't know. The Colonel read
it mighty eloquently."

" It mightn't be such bad business," said March,
in a muse. " Could you get mc a sight of it without
committing yourself 1 "

" If the Colonel hasn't sent it off to another
publisher this morning. He just got it back
with thanks yesterday. He likes to keep it travel-
ling."

" Well, try it. I 've a notion it might be a curious
thing."

" Look here, March," said Fulkerson, with the
effect of taking a fresh hold ; " I icish you could let
me have one of those New York things of yours for
the first number. After all, that 's going to be the
great card."

" I couldn't, Fulkerson ; I couldn't, really. I
want to philosophise the material, and I 'm too new
to it all yet. I don't want to do merely superficial
sketches."

" Of course ! Of course ! I understand that.
Well, I don't want to hurry you. Seen that old
fellov.' of yours yet 1 I think wc_ ought to have that
translation in the first number ; don't you 1 Wc
want to give 'em a notion of what we 're going to do
in that line."

"Yes," said March; "and I was going out to look
up Lindau this morning. I 've inquired at ]\Iaroni's,
and he hasn't been there for several days. I 've
some idea perhaps he 's sick. But they gave me his
address, and I 'm going to see."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 239

" Well, that 's right. "We want the first number
to be the key-note in every way."

March shook his head. " You can't make it so.
The first number is bound to be a failure always, as
far as the representative character goes. It 's invari-
ably the case. Look at the first numbers of all the
things you 've seen started. They 're experimental,
almost amateurish, and necessarily so, not only be-
cause the men that are making them up are com-
paratively inexperienced like ourselves, but because
the material sent them to deal with is more or less
consciously tentative. People send their adventur-
ous things to a new periodical because the whole
thing is an adventure. I 've noticed that quality in
all the volunteer contributions ; it 's in the articles
that have been done to order even. No; I've
about made up my mind that if we can get one
good striking paper into the first number that will
take people's minds off the others, we shall be doing
all we can possibly hope for. I should like," March
added, less seriously, " to make up three numbers
ahead, and publish the third one first."

Fulkerson dropped forward and struck his fist on
the desk. " It 's a first-rate idea. "Why not do it 1 "

March laughed. '' Fulkerson, I don't believe
there 's any quackish thing you wouldn't do in this
cause. From time to time I 'm thoroughly ashamed
of being connected with such a charlatan."

Fulkerson struck his hat sharply backward. " Ah,
dad burn it ! To give that thing the right kind of
start I 'd walk up and down Broadway between two

240 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

boards, vnth the title-pago of Every Other Week
facsimiled on one and my name and address on

the " He jumped to his feet and shouted,

" March, riUo it ! "

''JFhat?''

" I '11 hire a lot of fellows to make mud-turtles of
themselves, and I '11 have a lot of big facsimiles of
the title-page, and I '11 paint the town red ! "

March looked aghast at him. " Oh, come, now,
Fulkerson ! "

" I mean it. I was in London when a new man
had taken hold of the old Cornhill, and they were
trying to boom it, and they had a procession of
these mud-turtles that reached from Charing Cross
to Temple Bar. ' Cornhill Magazine. Sixpence.
Not a dull page in it.' I said to myself then that
it was the livest thing I ever saw. I respected the
man that did that thing from the bottom of my
heart. I wonder I ever forgot it. But it shows
what a shaky thing the human mind is at its best."

" You infamous mountebank ! " said March, Avith
great amusement at Fulkerson's access ; " you call
that congeries of advertising instincts of yours the
human mind at its best 1 Come, don't be so diffi-
dent, Fulkerson. Well, I 'm off to find Lindau, and
Avhen I come back I hope Mr. Dryfoos will have you
under control. I don't suppose you '11 be quite sane
again till after the first number is out. Perhaps
public opinion will sober you then."

" Confound it, March ! How do you think they
loill take it ? I swear I 'm crettinc: so nervous I don't

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 241

know half the time which end of me is up. I believe
if we don't get that thing out by the first of February
it '11 be the death of me."

" Couldn't wait till Washington's Birthday 1 I
was thinking it would give the day a kind of distinc-
tion, and strike the public imagination, if "

"No, I'll be dogged if I could!" Fulkerson
lapsed more and more into the parlance of his early
life in this season of strong excitement. "I believe
if Beaton lags any on the art-leg I '11 kill him."

" Well, / shouldn't mind your killing Beaton,"
said March tranquilly, as he went out.

He went over to Third Avenue and took the
Elevated down to Chatham Square. He found the
variety of people in the car as unfailingly entertaining
as ever. He rather preferred the east side to the west
side lines, because they offered more nationalities,
conditions, and characters to his inspection. They
draw not only from the uptown American region,
but from all the vast hive of populations swarming
between them and the East River. He had found
that, according to the hour, American husbands
going to and from business, and American wives
going to and from shopping, prevailed on the Sixth
Avenue road, and that the most picturesque admix-
ture to these familiar aspects of human nature were
the brilliant eyes and complexions of the American
Hebrews, Avho otherwise contributed to the effect of
Avell-clad comfort and citizen-self-satisfaction of the
crowd. Now and then he had found himself in a car
mostly filled with Ne;ipolitans from the constructions
Vol. I.— 11

242 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

far up the lino, whero he had read how they arc
■worked and fed and housed like beasts ; and listen in ti;
to the jargon of their unintelligible dialect, he had
occasion for pensive question within himself as to
what notion these poor animals formed of a free
republic from their experience of life under its con-
ditions ; and whether they found them practically
very different from those of the immemorial
brigandage and enforced complicity with rapine
under which they had been born. But, after all,
this was an infrequent effect, however massive, of
travel on the west side, whereas the east offered him
continual entertainment in like sort. The sort was
never quite so squalid. For short distances the
lowest poverty, the hardest pressed labour, must walk;
but March never entered a car without encountering
some interesting shape of shabby adversity, which
was almost always adversity of foreign birth. New
York is still popularly supposed to be in the control
of the Irish, but March noticed in these east side
travels of his what must strike every observer re-
turning to the city after a prolonged absence : the
numerical subordination of the dominant race. If
they do not out-vote them, the people of Germanic,
of Slavonic, of Pelasgic, of Mongolian stock out-
number the prepotent Celts ; and March seldom
found his speculation centred upon one of these.
The small eyes, the high cheeks, the broad noses, the
puff lips, the bare, cue-fdleted skulls, of Russians,
Poles, Czechs, Chinese ; the furtive glitter of Italians ;
the blonde dulness of Germans ; the cold quiet of

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 2io

Scandinavians — fire under ice — were aspects that he
identified, and that gave him abundant suggestion
for the personal histories he constructed, and for the
more public-spirited reveries in which he dealt with
the future economy of our heterogeneous common-
wealth. It must be owned that he did not take
much trouble about this ; what these poor people
were thinking, hoping, fearing, enjoying, sufl'ering ;
just where and how they lived ; who and what they
individually were — these were the matters of his
waking dreams as he stared hard at them, while the
train raced further into the gay ugliness — the shape-
less, graceless, reckless picturesqueness of the Bowery,
There were certain signs, certain facades, certain
audacities of the prevailing hideousness that always
amused him in that uproar to the eye which the
strident forms and colours made. He was interested
in the insolence with which the railway had drawn
its erasing line across the Corinthian front of an old
theatre, almost grazing its fluted pillars, and flouting
its dishonoured pediment. The colossal effigies of the
fat women and the tuft-headed Circassian girls of
cheap museums; the vistas of shabby cross streets; the
survival of an old hip-roofed house here and there at
their angles ; the Swiss chalet, histrionic decorative-
ness of the stations in prospect or retrospect ; the
vagaries of the lines that narrowed together or
stretched apart according to the width of the
avenue, but always in wanton disregard of the life
that dwelt, and bought and sold, and rejoiced or
sorrowed, and clattered or crawled, around, below,

244 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

jvbove — were features of the frantic panorama that
perpetually touched his sense of humour and moved
his sympathy. Accident and then exigency seemed
the forces at work to this extraordinary eflfcct ; the
play of energies as free and planless as those that
force the forest from the soil to the sky ; and then
the fierce struggle for survival, with the stronger
life persisting over the deformity, the mutilation,
the destruction, the decay of the weaker, The
whole at moments seemed to him lawless, godless ;
the absence of intelligent, comprehensive purpose in
the huge disorder, and the violent struggle to
subordinate the result to the greater good, pene-
trated with its dumb appeal the consciousness of a
man who had always been too self-enwrapt to per-
ceive the chaos to which the individual selfishness
must always lead.

But there was still nothing definite, nothing better
than a vague discomfort, however jDoignant, in his
half recognition of such facts ; and he descended the
station stairs at Chatham Square, with a sense of
the neglected opportunities of painters in that
locality. He said to himself that if one of those
fellows were to see in Naples that turmoil of cars,
trucks, and teams of every sort, intershot with foot-
passengers going and coming to and from the crowded
pavements, under the web of the railroad tracks
overhead, and amidst the spectacular approach of
the streets that open into the square, he would have
it down in his sketch-book at once. He decided
simultaneously that his own local studies must be

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 245

illustrated, and that he must come with the artist
and show him just which bits to do, not knowing
that the two arts can never approach the same
material from tlie same point. He thought he
would particularly like his illustrator to render the
Dickensy, cockneyish quality of the shabby-genteel
ballad-seller of whom he stopped to ask his way
to the street where Lindau lived, and whom he
instantly perceived to be, with his stock in trade,
the sufficient object of an entire study by himself.
He had his ballads strung singly upon a cord against
the house wall, and held down in piles on the pave-
ment with stones and blocks of wood. Their control
in this way intimated a volatility which Avas not
perceptible in their sentiment. They were mostly
tragical or doleful : some of them dealt Avith the
wrongs of the working-man ; others appealed to a
gay experience of the high seas; but vastly the
greater part to memories and associations of an
Irish origin ; some still uttered the poetry of planta-
tion life in the artless accents of the end-man.
Where they trusted themselves, with syntax that
yielded promptly to any exigency of rhythmic art,
to the ordinary American speech, it was to strike
directly for the affections, to celebrate the domestic
ties, and, above all, to embalm the memories of
angel and martyr mothers, whose dissipated sons
deplored their sufferings too late. March thought
this not at all a bad thing in them ; he smiled in
patronage of their simple pathos ; he paid the
tribute of a laugh when the poet turned, as he some-

21G A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

times did, from liis conception of angel and martyr
motherhood, and portrayed the mother in her more
familiar phases of virtue and duty, with the retribu-
tive shingle or slipper in her hand. He bought a
pocketful of this literature, popular in a sense which
the most successful book can never be, and enlisted
the ballad vendor so deeply in the effort to direct
him to Lindau's dwelling by the best way that he
neglected another customer, till a sarcasm on his
absent-mindedness stiing him to retort, "I'm a-try-
ing to answer a gentleman a civil question ; that 's
where the absent-minded comes in."

It seemed for some reason to be a day of leisure
with the Chinese dwellers in Mott Street, which
March had been advised to take first. They stood
about the tops of basement stairs, and walked two
and two along the dirty pavement, with their little
hands tucked into their sleeves across their breasts,
aloof in immaculate cleanliness from the filth around
them, and scrutinising the scene with that cynical
sneer of faint surprise to which all aspects of our
civilisation seem to move their superiority. Their
numbers gave character to the street, and rendered
not them, but what Avas foreign to them, strange
there; so that March had a sense of missionary
quality in the old Catholic church, built long before
their incursion was dreamt of. It seemed to have
come to them there, and he fancied in the statued
saint that looked down from its facade something
not so much tolerant as tolerated, something pro-
pitiatory, almost deprecative. It was a fancy, of

A HAZARD OF NEAV FORTUNES. 247

course ; the street was sufficiently peopled with
Christian children, at any rate, swarming and
shrieking at their games ; and presently a Chris-
tian mother appeared, pushed along by two police-
men on a handcart, with a gelatinous tremor over
the paving and a gelatinous jouncing at the curb-
stones. She lay with her face to the sky, sending
up an inarticulate lamentation ; but the indifference
of the officers forbade the notion of tragedy in her
case. She was perhaps a local celebrity; the children
left off their games, and ran gaily trooping after her;
even the young fellow and young girl exchanging
playful blows in a robust flirtation at the corner of a
liquor store suspended their scuffle with a pleased
interest as she passed. March understood the un-
willingness of the poor to leave the worst conditions
in the city for comfort and plenty in the country
when he reflected upon this dramatic incident, one
of many no doubt which daily occur to entertain
them in such streets. A small town could rarely
off'er anything comparable to it, and the country
never. He said that if life appeared so hopeless to
him as it must to the dwellers in that neighbour-
hood he should not himself be willing to qvut its
distractions, its alleviations, for the vague promise
of unknown good in the distance someAvhere.

But what charm could such a man as Lindau find
in such a place ? It could not be that he lived there
because he was too poor to live elsewhere : with
a shutting of the heart, March refused to believe
this as he looked round on the abounding evidences

248 A HAZARD OF NEW F0RTUNE:S.

of misery, uiid guiltily remembered his neglect of
his old friend. Lindau could i)robably find as cheap
a lodging in some decentcr part of the town ; and
in fact there was some amelioration of the prevailing
squalor in the quieter street which he turned into
from Mott.

A woman with a tied-up face of toothache opened
the door for him when he pulled, Avith a shiver of
foreboding, the bell knob, from Avhich a yard of
rusty crape dangled. But it was not Lindau who
was dead, for the woman said he was at home, and
sent ]\Iarch stumbling up the four or five dark flights
of stairs that led to his tenement. It was quite at the
top of the house, and when ]\Iarch obeyed the
German-English " Komm ! " that followed his knock,
he found himself in a kitchen where a meagre
breakfast Avas scattei'ed in stale fragments on the
table before the stove. The place was bare and
cold; a half-empty beer bottle scarcely gave it a
convivial air. On the left from this kitchen Avas a
room with a bed in it, which seemed also to be a
cobbler's shop : on the right, through a door that
stood ajar, came the German-English voice again,
saying this time, " Hier ! "

XII.

March pushed the door open into a room like
that on the left, but with a writing-desk instead of
a cobbler's bench, and a bed, where Lindau sat
propped up, with a coat over his shoulders and a
skull-cap on his head, reading a book, from which
he lifted his eyes to stare blankly over his spectacles
at March. His hairy old breast showed through the
night-shirt, which gaped apart ; the stump of his
left arm lay upon the book to keep it open.

*' Ah, my tear yo'ng f riendt ! Passil ! Marge !
Iss it you ? " he called out joyously, the next
moment.

" Why, are you sick, Lindau ] " ^March anxiously
scanned his face in taking his hand.

Lindau laughed. " No ; I 'm all righdt. Only a
lidtle lazy, and a lidtle eggonomigal. Idt's jeaper
to stay in pedt sometimes as to geep a fire a-goin'
all the time. Don't wandt to gome too hardt on the
hrafer Mann, you know :

" Braver Mann, er schafft mir zu essen."

You remember 1 Heine 1 You readt Heine still 1
Who is your favourite boet now, Passil ? You write
11*

250 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

some boctry yourself yet 1 No ] "Well, I am gladt
to zee you. Brush those baperss off of that jair.
"Well, idt is goodt for zore eyess. How didt you
findt where I lif 1 "

" They told me at Maroni's," said March. lie
tried to keep his eyes on Lindau's face, and not see
the discomfort of the room, but he was aware of
the shabby and frowsy bedding, the odour of stale
smoke, and the pipes and tobacco shreds mixed
with the books and manuscripts strewn over the leaf
of the writing-desk. He laid down on the mass the
pile of foreign magazines he had brought under his
arm. " They gave me another address first."

" Yes. I have chust gome here," said Lindau.
" Idt is not very cay, heigh ? "

" It might be gayer," March admitted, with a
smile. " Still," he added soberly, " a good many
people seem to live in this part of the town. Appa-
rently they die here too, Lindau. There is crape on
your outside door. I didn't know but it was for you."

" Nodt this time," said Lindau, in the same
humour. " Berhaps some other time. We geep the
ondertakers bretty pusy down here."

""Well," said March, "undertakers must live, even
if the rest of us have to die to let them." Lindau
laughed, and March went on : " But I 'm glad it
isn't your funeral, Lindau. And you say you 're not
sick, and so I don't see why we shouldn't come to
business."

" Business 1 " Lindau lifted his eyebrows. " You
gome on pusiuess ? "

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 251

"And pleasure combined," said March, and he
went on to explain the service he desired at
Lindau's hands.

The old man listened with serious attention, and
with assenting nods that culminated in a spoken
expression of his willingness to undertake the trans-
lations. March waited with a sort of mechanical
expectation of his gratitude for the work put in his
way, but nothing of the kind came from Lindau,
and March was left to say, " Well, everything is
understood, then ; and I don't know that I need
add that if you ever want any little advance on the
work "

" I will ask you," said Lindau quietly, " and I
thank you for that. But I can wait ; I ton't needt
any money just at bresent." As if he saw some
appeal for greater frankness in March's eye, he went
on : "I tidn't gome here begause I was too boor to
lif anywhere else, and I ton't stay in pedt begause
I couldn't haf a fire to gecp Avarni if I wanted it-
I 'm nodt zo padt off as Marmontel Avhen he went to
Paris. 1 'm a lidtle loaxurious, that is all. If I stay
in pedt it's zo I can fling money away on some-
things else. Heigh 1 "

" But what are you living here for, Lindau 1 "
March smiled at the irony lurking in Lindau's
words.

" Well, you zee, I foundt I was begoming a lidtle
too moch of an aristograt. I hadt a room oap in
Creenvidge Willage, among dose pig pugs over on
the west side, and I foundt" — Lindau's voice lost

252 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

its jesting quality, and his face darkened — " that I
was beginning to forget the boor ! "

" I should have thought," said March, with im-
l)artial interest, " that you might have seen poverty
enough, now and then, in Greenwich Village to
remind you of its existence."

" Nodt like here," said Lindau. " Andt you must
zee it all the dtime — zee it, hear it, smell it, dtaste
it — or you forget it. That is what I gome here for.
I was begoming a ploated aristograt. I thought I
was nodt like these beople down here, when I gome
down once to look aroundt ; I thought I must be
somethings else, and zo I zaid I better take myself
in time, and I gome here among my brothers — the
beccars and the tliiefs ! " A noise made itself heard
in the next room, as if the door Avere furtively
opened, and a faint sound of tiptoeing and of hands
clawing on a table. " Thiefs ! " Lindau repeated,
with a shout. "Lidtle thiefs, that gabture your
breakfast. Ah ! ha ! ha ! " A wild scurrying of
feet, joyous cries and tittering, and a slamming door
followed upon his explosion, and he resumed in the
silence: "Idtis the children cot pack from school.
They gome and steal what I leaf there on my daple.
Idt 's one of our lidtle chokes ; we onderstand each
other; that's all righdt. Once the goppler in the
other room there he used to chase 'em ; he couldn't
onderstand their lidtle tricks. Now dot goppler's
teadt, and he ton't chase 'em any more. Ho was a
Bohemian. Gindt of grazy, I cuess."

" Well, it 's a sociable existence," March suggested.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 253

''But perhaps if you let them have the things
without steahng "

" Oh no, no ! Most nodt mage them too gonceitedt.
They mostn't go and feel themselfs petter than
those boor millionairss that hadt to steal their
money."

March smiled indulgently at his old friend's vio-
lence. "Oh, there are fagots and fagots, you
know, Lindau ; perhaps not all the millionaires
are so guilty."

" Let us speak German," cried Lindau, in his own
tongue, pushing his book aside, and thrusting his
skull-cap back from his forehead. " How much
money can a man honestly earn without wronging
or oppressing some other man ? "

" Well, if you '11 let me answer in English," said
March, " I should say about five thousand dollars a
year. I name that figure because it 's my experience
that I never could earn more ; but the experience of
other men may be different, and if they tell me they
can earn ten, or twenty, or fifty thousand a year,
I 'm not prepared to say they can't do it."

Lindau hardly waited for his answer. " Not the
most gifted man that ever lived, in the practice of
any art or science, and paid at the highest rate that
exceptional genius could justly demand from those
who have worked for their money, could ever earn a
million dollars. It is the landlords and the merchant
princes, the railroad kings and the coal barons (the
oppressors to whom you instinctively give the titles of
tyrants) — it is these that make the millions, but no

254 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

mail cams them. "What artist, Avhat physician, Avhat
scientist, "what poet was ever a milHonaire ? "

"I can only think of the poet Rogers," said March,
amused by Lindau's tirade. " But he was as excep-
tional as the other Rogers, the martyr, who died
with warm feet." Lindau had apparently not under-
stood his joke, and he went on, with the American
ease of mind about everything : " But you must
allow, Lindau, that some of those fellows don't do
so badly with their guilty gains. Some of them
give work to armies of poor people "

Lindau furiously interrupted. " Yes, when they
have gathered their millions together from the
hunger and cold and nakedness and ruin and
despair of hundreds of thousands of other men, they
* give work ' to the poor ! They give work ! They
allow their helpless brothers to earn enough to keep
life in them ! They give icork ! Who is it gives toil,
and Avhere will your rich men be when once the
poor shall refuse to give toil ? Why, you have come
to give me work ! "

March laughed outright. " Well, I 'm not a
millionaire, anyway, Lindau, and I hope you won't
make an example of me by refusing to give toil. I
dare say the millionaires deserve it, but I 'd rather
they wouldn't suffer in my person."

" No," returned the old man, mildly relaxing the
fierce glare he had bent upon March. "No man
deserves to suffer at the hands of another. I lose
myself when I think of the injustice in the world.
But I must not forget that I am like the worst of
them."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 255

" You might go up Fifth Avenue and live among
the rich awhile, when you're in danger of that,"
suggested March. "At any rate," he added, by an
impulse which he knew he could not justify to his
wife, "I wish you 'd come some day and lunch with
their emissary. I 've been telling Mrs. March about
you, and I want her and the children to see you.
Come over with these things and report." He put
his hand on the magazines as he rose.

"I Avill come," said Lindau gently.

" Shall I give you your book 1 " asked March.

" No ; I gidt oap bretty soon."

*' And — and — can you dress yourself 1 "

" I vhistle, and one of those lidtle felloAvss comess.
AYe haf to dake gare of one another in a blace like
this, Idt iss nodt like the world t," said Lindau
gloomily,

March thought he ought to cheer him up. " Oh,
it isn't such a bad world, Lindau ! After all, the
average of millionaires is small in it." He added,
" And I don't believe there 's an American living
that could look at that arm of yours and not wish
to lend you a hand for the one you gave us all."
March felt this to be a fine turn, and his voice
trembled slightly in saying it.

Lindau smiled griml}^ " You think zo 1 I
Avouldn't moch like to drost 'em. I've driedt idt
too often." He began to speak German again
fiercely : " Besides, they owe me nothing. Do you
think I knowiugly gave my hand to save this
oligarchy of traders and tricksters, this aristocracy

256 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

of railroad Avicckcrs and stock gamblers and mine-
slave drivers and mill-serf owners ? No ; I gave it
to the slave ; the slave — ha ! ha ! ha ! — whom I
helped to unshackle to the common liberty of
hunger and cold. And you think I would be the
beneficiary of such a state of things ? "

"I'm sorry to hear you talk so, Lindau," said
March ; " very sorry." He stopped with a look of
pain, and rose to go. Lindau suddenly broke into
a laugh and into English.

" Oh, well, it is only dalk, Passil, and it toes me
goodt. My parg is worse than my pidte, I cuess.
I pring these things roundt bretty soon. Good-bye,
Passil, my tear poy. Avf iviedersehen ! "

XIII.

March went away thinking of what Lindau had
said, but not for the impersonal significance of his
words so much as for the light they cast upon
Lindau himself. He thought the words violent
enough, but in connection with what he remembered
of the cheery, poetic, hopeful idealist, they were
even more curious than lamentable. In his own life
of comfortable reverie he had never heard any one
talk so before, but he had read something of the
kind now and then in blatant labour newspapers
which he had accidentally fallen in with, and once at
a strikers' meeting he had heard rich people de-
nounced with the same frenzy. He had made his
own reflections upon the tastelessness of the rhetoric,
and the obvious buncombe of the motive, and ho
had not taken the matter seriously.

He could not doubt Lindau's sincerity, and he
wondered how he came to that way of thinking.
From his experience of himself he accounted for a
prevailing literary quality in it ; he decided it to be
from Lindau's reading and feeling rather than his
reflection. That was the notion he formed of some

258 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

things he had met with in Euskin to much the same
eftect ; he regarded them with amusement as the
chimeras of a rhetorician run away with by his
phrases.

But as to Lindau, the chief thing in liis mind was
a conception of the droll irony of a situation in
which so fervid a hater of millionaires should be
working, indirectly at least, for the prosperity of a
man like Dryfoos, who, as IMarch understood, had
got his money together out of every gambler's
chance in speculation, and all a schemer's thrift
from the error and need of others. The situation
was not more incongruous, however, than all the
rest of the Every Other Week affair. It seemed to
him that there were no crazy fortuities that had not
tended to its existence, and as time went on, and
the day drew near for the issue of the first number,
the sense of this intensified till the whole lost at
moments the quality of a waking fact, and came to
be rather a fantastic fiction of sleep.

Yet the heterogeneous forces did co-operate to
a reality which March could not deny, at least in
their presence, and the first number was representa-
tive of all their nebulous intentions in a tangible
form. As a result, it was so respectable that
March began to respect these intentions, began
to respect himself for combining and embodying
them in the volume which appealed to him with
a novel fascination, when the first advance copy
was laid upon his desk. Every detail of it was
tiresomely familiar already, but the whole had a

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 259

fresh interest now. Ho now saw how extremely
fit and effective ]\Iiss Leighton's decorative design
for the cover Avas, printed in black and brick-red on
the delicate grey tone of the paper. It was at once
attractive and refined, and he credited Beaton with
quite all he merited in working it over to the actual
shape. The touch and the taste of the art editor
were present throughout the number. As Fulker-
son said, Beaton had caught on with the delicacy of
a humming-bird and the tenacity of a bull-dog to
the virtues of their illustrative process, and had
worked it for all it was worth. There were seven
papers in the number, and a poem on the last page
of the cover, and he had found some graphic com-
ment for each. It was a larger proportion than
would afterward be allowed, but for once in a way
it was allowed. Fulkerson said they could not expect
to get their money back on that first number anyway.
Seven of the illustrations were Beaton's ; two or three
he got from practised hands ; the rest were the
work of unknown people which he had suggested,
and then related and adapted with unfailing in-
genuity to the different papers. He handled the
illustrations with such sympathy as not to destroy
their individual quality, and that indefinable
charm which comes from good amateur work in
whatever art. He rescued them from their Aveak-
nesses and errors, while he left in them the evi-
dence of the pleasure with which a clever young
man, or a sensitive girl, or a refined woman had
done them. Inevitably from his manipulation,

2G0 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

however, the art of the number acquired homo-
geneity, and there was nothing casual in its ap-
pearance. The result, March eagerly owned, was
better than the literary result, and lie foresaw that
the number would be sold and praised chiefly for
its pictures. Yet he was not ashamed of the litera-
ture, and he indulged his admiration of it the more
freely because he had not only not written it, but
in a way had not edited it. To be sure, he had
chosen all the material, but he had not voluntarily
put it all together for that number ; it had largely
put itself together, as every number of every
magazine does, and as it seems more and more to
do, in the experience of every editor. There had to
be, of course, a story, and then a sketch of travel.
There Avas a literary essay and a social essay ; there
was a dramatic trifle, very gay, very light ; there
was a dashing criticism on the new pictures, the new
plays, the new books, the neAV fashions ; and then
there was the translation of a bit of vivid Russian
realism, which the editor owed to Lindau's explora-
tion of the foreign periodicals left with him ; Lindau
was himself a romanticist of the Victor Hugo sort,
but he said this fragment of Dostoyevski was good
of its kind. The poem was a bit of society verse,
with a backAvard look into simpler and wholesomer
experiences.

Fulkerson was extremely proud of the number;
but he said it was too good — too good from every
point of view. The cover was too good, and the
paper was too good, and that device of rough edges,

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 261

which got over the objection to uncut leaves -while it
secured their a?sthetic effect, was a thing that he
trembled for, though he rejoiced in it as a stroke of
the highest genius. It had come from Beaton at
the last moment, as a compromise, when the problem
of the vulgar croppiness of cut leaves and the
unpopularity of uncut leaves seemed to have no
solution but suicide. Fulkerson Avas still morally
crawling round on his hands and knees, as he said,
in abject gratitude at Beaton's feet, though he had
his qualms, his questions ; and he declared that
Beaton was the most inspired ass since Balaam's.
"We're all asses, of course," he admitted, in semi-
apology to March ; " but we 're no such asses as
Beaton." He said that if the tasteful decorativeness
of the thing did not kill it with the public outright,
its literary excellence would give it the finishing
stroke. Perhaps that might be overlooked in the
impression of novelty which a first number would
give, but it must never happen again. He implored
March to promise that it should never happen again ;
he said their only hope was in the immediate
cheapening of the whole affair. It was bad enough
to give the public too much quantity for their
money, but to throw in such quality as that was
simply ruinous ; it must be stopped. These were
the expressions of his intimate moods ; every front
that he presented to the public wore a glow of lofty,
of devout exultation. His pride in the number
gushed out in fresh bursts of rhetoric to every one
whom he could cet to talk with him about it. He

2G2 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

Avorkccl the personal kindliness of the i)rcss to the
utmost. He did not mind making himself ridiculous
or becoming a joke in the good cause, as he called it.
He joined in the applause when a humorist at the
club feigned to drop dead from his chair at Fulker-
son's introduction of the topic, and he went on talk-
ing that first number into the surviving spectators.
He stood treat upon all occasions, and he lunched
attaches of the press at all hours. He especially
befriended the correspondents of the newspapers of
other cities, for, as he explained to March, those
fellows could give him any amount of advertising
simply as literary gossip. Many of the fellows
were ladies who could not be so summarily asked
out to lunch, but Fulkerson's ingenuity was equal to
every exigency, and he contiived somehow to
make each of these feel that she had been possessed
of exclusive information. There was a moment
■\vlien March conjectured a willingness in Fulker-
son to work Mrs. March into the advertising depart-
ment, by means of a tea to these ladies and their
friends which she should administer in his apart-
ment, but he did not encourage Fulkerson to be
explicit, and the moment passed. Afterward, when
he told his wife about it, he was astonished to find
that she would not have minded doing it for Ful-
kerson, and he experienced another proof of the
bluntness of the feminine instincts in some direc-
tions, and of the personal favour which Fulkerson
seemed to enjoy with the whole sex. This alone
was enoutch to account for the willingness of these

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 263

correspondents to write about the first number, but
March accused him of sending it to their addresses
■with boxes of Jacqueminot roses and Huyler candy.

Fulkerson let him enjoy his joke. He said that
he would do that or anything else for the good
cause, short of marrying the whole circle of female
correspondents.

March was inclined to hope that if the first
number had been made too good for the country at
large, the more enlightened taste of metropolitan
journalism would invite a compensating favour for
it in New York. But first Fulkerson and then the
event proved him wrong. In spite of the quality of
the magazine, and in spite of the kindness wliich so
many newspaper men felt for Fulkerson, the notices
in the New York papers seemed grudging and pro-
visional to the ardour of the editor. A meiit in the
work was acknowledged, and certain defects in it
for which March had trembled were ignored ; but
the critics astonished him by selecting for censure
points which he was either proud of or had never
noticed ; Avhich being now brought to his notice
he still could not feel were faults. He owned to
Fulkerson that if they had said so and so against it,
he could have agreed Avith them, but that to say
thus and so was preposterous ; and that if the
advertising had not been adjusted with such generous
recognition of the claims of the different papers,
he should have known the counting-room was
at the bottom of it. As it was, he could only-
attribute it to perversity or stupidity. It was

264 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

certainly stupid to condemn a magazine novelty
like Every Other Week for being novel ; and to
augur that if it failed, it would fail through its
departure from the lines on which all the other
prosperous magazines had been built, was in the
last degree perverse, and it looked malicious. The
fact that it was neither exactly a book nor a
magazine ought to be for it and not against it, since
it would invade no other field ; it would prosper on
no ground but its own.

XIV.

The more March thought of the injustice of
the New York press (Avhich had not, however,
attacked the literary quahty of the number) the
more bitterly he resented it ; and his wife's indigna-
tion superheated his own. Every Other JFeeJc had
become a very personal affair with the whole family ;
the children shared their parents' disgust; Bella
was outspoken in her denunciations of a venal press.
Mrs. March saAv nothing but ruin ahead, and began
tacitly to plan a retreat to Boston, and an establish-
ment retrenched to the basis of two thousand a
year. She shed some secret tears in anticipation
of the privations which this must involve ; but
when Fulkerson came to see March rather late the
night of the publication day, she nobly told him
that if the worst came to the worst she could only
have the kindliest feeling toward him, and should
not regard him as in the slightest degree responsible.

"Oh, hold on, hold on!" he protested. "You
don't think we 've made a failure, do you 1 "

"Why, of course," she faltered, while March re-
mained gloomily silent.

" Well, I guess Ave '11 wait for the official count,
Vol. I.— 12

2GG A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

first. Even New York hasn't gone against us, and
I guess there 's a majority coming down to Harlem
Eiver that could sweep everything before it, anyway."

" What do you moan, Fulkerson 1 " ]\Iarch de-
manded sternly.

" Oh, nutln'ng ! Only, the News Company has
ordered ten thousand now ; and you know we had
to give them the first twenty on commission."

" What do you mean 1 " March repeated ; his \vife
held her breath.

" I mean that the first number is a booming
success already, and that it 's going to a hundred
thousand before it stops. That unanimity and
variety of censure in the morning papers, combined
with the attractiveness of the thing itself, has
cleared every stand in the city, and now if the favour
of the countr}^ press doesn't turn the tide against us,
our fortune's made." The Marches remained dumb.
" Why, look here ! Didn't I tell you those criticisms
would be the making of us, when they first began to
turn you blue tliis morning, JNIarch ? "

"He came home to lunch perfectly sick," said Mrs.
March ; " and I wouldn't let him go back again."

" Didn't I tell you so ? " Fulkerson persisted.

March could not remember that he had, or that
he had been anything but incoherently and hysteric-
ally jocose over the papers, but he said, " Yes, yes —
I think so."

" I knew it from the start," said Fulkerson. " The
only other person who took those criticisms in the
right spirit was Mother Dryfoos — I 've just been

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 267

bolstering up the Dryfoos family. She had them
read to her by Mrs. Mandel, and she understood
them to be all the most flattering prophecies of
success. Well, I didn't read between the lines to
that extent, quite ; but I saw that they were going
to help us, if there was anything in us, more than
anything that could have been done. And there
Avas something in us ! I tell you, March, that seven-
shooting self-cocking donkey of a Beaton has given
us the greatest start ! He 's caught on like a mice.
He 's made the thing awfully chic ; it 's jimmy ;
there 's lots of dog about it. He 's managed that
process so that the illustrations look as expensive as
first-class Avood-cuts, and they're cheaper than
chromos. He 's put style into the whole thing."

" Oh yes," said March with eager meekness, " it 's
Beaton that's done it."

Fulkerson read jealousy of Beaton in Mrs. March's
face. " Beaton has given us the start because his
work appeals to the eye. There 's no denying that
the pictures have sold this first number; but I
expect the literature of this first number to sell the
pictures of the second. I 've been reading it all over,
nearly, since I found how the cat was jumping ; I
was anxious about it, and I tell you, old man, it's
good. Yes, sir ! I was afraid may be you had got it
too good, with that Boston refinement of yours; but
I reckon you haven't. I '11 risk it. I don't see how
you got so much variety into so few things, and all
of them palpitant, all of 'em on the keen jump with
actuality." *

268 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

The mixture of American slang with tho jargon
of Europc;ui criticism in Fulkcrson's talk made March
smile, but his Avife did not seem to notice it in her
exultation. " That is just what I say," she broke in.
"It's perfectly wonderful. I never was anxious
about it a moment, except, as you say, Mr. Fulker-
son, I was afraid it might be too good.''

They went on in an antiphony of praise till March
said, " Really, I don't see what 's left me but to
strike for higher wages. I })erceive that I 'm
indispensable."

" Why, old man, you 're coming in on the divvy,
you know," said Fulkcrson.

They both laughed, and when Fulkcrson Avas
gone, Mrs. March asked her husband Avhat a divvy
was.

" It 's a chicken before it 's hatched."

" No ! Truly 1 "

He explained, and she began to spend the divvy.

At Mrs. Leighton's Fulkcrson gave Alma all the
honour of the success ; he told her mother that the
girl's design for the cover had sold every number,
and Mrs. Leighton believed him.

"Well, Ah think Ah maght have some of the
glory," Miss Woodburn pouted. "Where am Ah
comin' in ? "

" You 're coming in on the cover of the next
number," said Fulkcrson. "We're going to have
your face there ; Miss Leighton's going to sketch it
in." He said this reckless of the fact that he had
already shown them the design of the second

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 269

number which was Beaton's weird bit of gas-country
landscape.

"Ah don't sec Avhy ^jou don't wrahte the fiction
for your magazine, Mr. Fulkerson," said the girl.

This served to remind Fulkerson of something.
He turned to her father. "I'll tell you what,
Colonel Woodburn, I want Mr. March to see some
chapters of that book of yours. I 've been talking
to him about it."

" I do not think it would add to the popularity
of your periodical, sir," said the Colonel, with a
stately pleasure in being asked. "My views of a
civilisation based upon responsible slavery Avould
hardly be acceptable to your commercialised society."

" Well, not as a practical thing, of course,"
Fulkerson admitted. "But as something retro-
spective, speculative, I believe it would make a hit.
There's so much going on noAv about social ques-
tions ; I guess people would like to read it."

" I do not know that my work is intended to
amuse people," said the Colonel, with some state.

"Mah goodness! Ah only wish it was, then,"
said his daughter; and she added: "Yes, Mr.
Fulkerson, the Colonel will be very glad to submit
po'tions of his woak to yo' edito'. We want to have
some of the honaw. Perhaps Ave can say we helped
to stop yo' magazine, if we didn't help to stawt it."

They all laughed at her boldness, and Fulkerson
said, " It '11 take a good deal more than that to stop
Every Otiier JFeek. The Colonel's whole book
couldn't do it." Then he looked unhappy, for

270 A HAZARD OF NEW FOIITUNES.

Colonel Woodburn did not seem to enjoy his re-
assuring words ; but Miss Woodburn came to liis
rescue. "You maglit illustrate it Avith the po'ti'ait of
the awthor's daughtaw, if it 's too late for the covali."

"Going to have that in every number, ]\Iiss
Woodburn," he cried,

" Oh, mah goodness ! " she said, with mock
humility.

Alma sat looking at her piquant head, black,
unconsciously outlined against the lamp, as she sat
working by the table. " Just keep still a moment!"

She got her sketch-block and pencils, and began
to draw ; Fulkerson tilted himself forward and
looked over her shoulder ; he smiled outwardly ;
inwardly he was divided between admiration of
Miss Woodburn's arch beauty and appreciation of
the skill wliich reproduced it ; at the same time
he was trying to remember whether March had
authorised him to go so far as to ask for a sight
of Colonel Woodburn's manuscript. He felt that
he had trenched upon March's province, and he
framed one apology to the editor for bringing him
the manuscript, and another to the author for
bringing it back

"Most Ah hold raght still like it was a photo-
graph ? " asked Miss Woodburn. " Can Ah toak 1 "

"Talk all you want," said Alma, squinting her
eyes. " And you needn't be either adamantine, nor
yet — wooden."

"Oh, ho' very good of you! Well, if Ah can
toak — go on, Mr. Fulkerson ! "

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 271

" Me talk 1 I can't breathe till this thing is
done ! " sighed Fulkerson ; at that point of his
mental drama the Colonel was behaving rustily
about the return of his manuscript, and he felt that
he was looking his last on Miss AVoodburn's profile.

"Is she getting it raghtl " asked the girl,

" I don't know which is which," said Fulkerson.

" Oh, Ah hope Ah shall ! I don't want to go
round feelin' like a sheet of papah half the time."

" You could rattle on, just the same," suggested
Alma.

"Oh, now! Jost listen to that, Mr. Fialkerson.
Do you call that any way to toak to people ] "

" You might know which you Avere by the
colour," Fulkerson began, and then he broke off
from the personal consideration with a business
inspiration, and smacked himself on the knee: ""Wo
could p-'tnt it in colour ! "

Mrs. Leighton gathered up her sewing and held
it with both hands in her lap, while she came round,
and looked critically at the sketch and the model
over her glasses. " It 's very good, Alma," she said.

Colonel Woodburn remained restively on his side
of the table. " Of course, Mr. Fulkerson, you were
jesting, sir, when you spoke of printing a sketch of
my daughter."

" Why, I don't know If you object "

" I do, sir — decidedly," said the Colonel.

" Then that settles it, of course," said Fulkerson.
" I only meant "

" Indeed it doesn't ! " cried the girl. " Who 's to

272 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

know who it's from? Ah'm josfc set on liavin' it
printed ! Ah 'm going to appear as the licad of
Slavery — in opposition to the head of Liberty."

" There '11 be a revolution inside of forty-eight
hours, and we '11 have the Colonel's system going
wherever a copy of Eixry Other Week circulates,"
said Fulkerson.

"This sketch belongs to me," Alma interposed.
"I'm not going to let it be printed."

" Oh, mail goodness ! " said Miss Woodburn,
laughing good-humouredly. " That 's bccose you
were brought up to hate slavery."

" I should like Mr. Beaton to see it," said Mrs.
Leighton in a sort of absent tone. She added, to
Fulkerson : '• I rather expected he might be in to-
night."

" Well, if he comes we '11 leave it to Beaton,"
Fulkerson said, Avith relief in the solution, and aii
anxious glance at the Colonel, across the table, to
see how he took that form of the joke. Miss
Woodburn intercepted his glance and laughed, and
Fulkerson laughed too, but rather forlornly.

Alma set her lips primly and turned her head
first on one side and then on the other to look at
the sketch. " I don't tliink we '11 leave it to Mr.
Beaton, even if he comes."

"We left the other design for the cover to
Beaton," Fulkerson insinuated. " I guess you
needn't be afraid of him."

"Is it a question of my being afraid 1" Alma
asked ; she seemed coolly intent on her drawing.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 273

"Miss Leigliton thinks he ought to be afraid of
her," Miss Woodburn explained.

" It 's a question of his courage, then 1 " said Ahna.

"Well, I don't think there are many young ladies
that Beaton 's afraid of," said Fulkerson, giving him-
self the respite of this purely random remark, while
he interrogated the faces of Mrs. Leighton and
Colonel Woodburn for some light upon the tendency
of their daughters' words.

He was not helped by Mrs. Leighton's saying,
with a certain anxiety, "I don't know Avhat you
mean, Mr. Fulkerson."

*•' Well, you 're as much in the dark as I am my-
self, then," said Fulkerson. "I suppose I meant
that Beaton is rather — a — favourite, you know.
The women like him."

Mrs. Leighton sighed, and Colonel Woodburn rose
and left the room.
12*

XV.

In the silence that followed, Fulkerson looked
from one lady to the other with dismay. " I seem to
have put my foot in it, somehow," he suggested, and
Miss Woodburn gave a cry of laughter.

"Poo' Mr. Fulkerson! Pgo' Mr. Fulkerson!
Papa thoat you Avanted him to go."

" Wanted him to go 1 " repeated Fulkerson.

" We always mention Mr. Beaton when we want
to get rid of papa."

"Well, it seems to me that I Jmve noticed that
he didn't take much interest in Beaton, as a general
topic. But I don't know that I ever saw it drive
him out of the room before ! "

"Well, he isn't always so bad," said Miss Wood-
burn. " But it was a case of hate at first sight, and
it seems to be growin' on papa."

" Well, I can understand that," said Fulkerson.
"The impulse to destroy Beaton is something that
everybody has to struggle against at the start."

" I must say, Mr. Fulkerson," said Mrs. Leighton
m the tremor through Avhich she nerved herself to
differ openly with any one she liked, " I never had
to struggle with anything of the kind, in regard to

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES, 275

Mr. Beaton. He has always been most respectful
and — and considerate, with me, whatever he has
been with others,"

" Well, of course, Mrs, Lcighton ! " Fulkerson
came back in a soothing tone, " But you see you 're
the rule that proves the exception. I was speaking
of the way men felt about Beaton, It's different
with ladies ; I just said so."

*' Is it always different 1 " Alma asked, lifting her
head and her hand from her drawing, and staring at
it absently.

Fulkerson pushed his hands both through his
whiskers, " Look here ! Look here ! " he said.
'•' Won't somebody start some other subject ? We
haven't had the weather up yet, have we ? Or the
opera 1 What is the matter with a few remarks
about politics 1 "

" Why I thoat you lahked to toak about the staff
of yo' magazine," said Miss Woodburn.

" Oh, I do ! " said Fulkerson, " But not always
about the same member of it. He gets m^onotonous,
when he doesn't get complicated, I 've just come
round from the Marches'," he added, to Mrs, Leighton,

" I suppose they 've got thoroughly settled in
their apartment by this time." Mrs. Leighton said
something like this whenever the Marches were
mentioned. At the bottom of her heart she had not
forgiven them for not taking her rooms ; she had
liked their looks so much ; and she was alwuj's
hoping that they were uncomfortable or dissatisfied ;
she could not help Avanting them punished a little.

270 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

"Well, yes; as much as they ever will be,"
Fulkerson answered. "The Boston style is pretty
different, you know ; and the Marches are old-
fashioned folks, and I reckon they never Avent in
much for bric-a-brac. They 've put away nine or
ten barrels of dragon candlesticks, but they keep
finding new ones."

** Their landlady has just joined our class," said
Alma. '• Isn't her name Green ? She happened to
see my copy of Every Other JFeek, and said she knew
the editor ; and told me."

" Well, it 's a little world," said Fulkerson. " You
seem to be touching elbows with everybody. Just
think of your having had our head translator for a
model."

" Ah think that your whole publication revolves
aroand the Leighton family," said Miss Woodburn.

"That's pretty much so," Fulkerson admitted.
"Anyhow, the publisher seems disposed to do so."

" Are you the publisher 1 I thought it was Mr,
Dryfoos," said Alma.

"It is."

" Oh ! "

The tone and tlic word gave Fulkerson a dis-
comfort which he pi'omptly confessed. "Missed
again."

The girls laughed, and he regained something of
his lost spirits, and smiled upon their gaiety, which
lasted beyond any apparent reason for it.

Miss Woodburn asked, "And is Mr. Dryfoos
senio' anything like ouah Mr. Dryfoos 1 "

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 277

"Not the least."

" But he 's jost as exemplary 1 "

"Yes; in his way."

" Well, Ah Avish Ah could see all those pinks of
puffection togethath, once."

"Why, look here ! I 've been thinking I 'd celebrate
a little, Avhen the old gentleman gets back. Have a
little supper — something of that kind. How would
you like to let me have your parlours for it, Mrs.
Leighton ? You ladies could stand on the stairs,
and have a peep at us, in the bunch."

"Oh, mall! What a privilege! And Avill Miss
Alma be there, with the othah contributors 1 Ah
shall jost expah of envy ! "

"She won't be there in person," said Fulkerson,
" but she '11 be represented by the head of the art
department."

" Mah goodness ! And who '11 the head of the
publishing department represent ? "

" He can represent you," said Alma.

" Well, Ah want to be represented, someho'."

"We'll have the banquet the night before you
appear on the cover of our fourth number," said
Fulkerson.

" Ah thoat that was doubly fo 'bidden," said Miss
Woodburn. " By the stern parent and the envious
awtust."

" We '11 get Beaton to get round them, somehow.
I guess we can trust him to manage that."

Mrs. Leighton sighed her resentment of the
implication.

278 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" I always feel that Mr. Beaton doesn't do him-
self justice," she began.

Fulkerson could not forego tlic chance of a joke.
" Well, may be he would rather temper justice with
mercy in a case like his." This made both the
younger ladies laugh. " I judge this is my chance
to get off with my life," he added, and he rose as he
spoke. "Mrs. Leighton, I am about the only man
of my sex who doesn't thirst for Beaton's blood
most of the time. But I know him and I don't.
He 's more kinds of a good fellow than people gener-
ally understand. lie don't wear his heart upon his
sleeve — not his iilster sleeve, anyway. You can
always count me on your side Avhen it 's a question
of finding Beaton not guilty if he '11 leave the State."

Alma set her drawing against the wall, in rising
to say good night to Fulkerson. He bent over on
his stick to look at it. "Well, it's beautiful," he
sighed, with unconscious sincerity.

Alma made him a courtesy of mock modesty.
" Thanks to Miss Woodburn."

" Oh no ! All she had to do was simply to
stay put."

" Don't you think Ah might have improved it if
Ah had looked better ? " the girl asked gravely.

" Oh, you couldn't ! " said Fulkerson, and he went
off triumphant in their applause and their cries of
" Which 1 which ? "

Mrs. Leighton sank deep into an accusing gloom
when at last she found herself alone with her
daughter. "I don't know what you arc thinking

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 279

about, Alma Leighton. If you don't like Mr.
Beaton "

" I don't."

" You don't 1 You know better than that. You
know that you did care for him."

" Oh ! that 's a very different thing. That 's a
thing that can be got over."

" Got over ! " repeated Mrs. Leighton, aghast.

" Of course, it can ! Don't be romantic, mamma.
Peoj)le get over dozens of such fancies. They even
marry for love two or three times."

" Never ! " cried her mother, doing her best to
feel shocked, and at last looking it.

Her looking it had no effect upon Alma. "You
can easily get over caring for people ; but you can't
get over liking them— if you like them because they
are sAveet and good. That's what lasts. I was a
simple goose, and he imposed upon me because he
was a sophisticated goose. Now the case is reversed."

" He does care for you, now. You can see it.
Why do you encourage him to come here 1 "

"I don't," said Alma. "I will tell him to keep
away if you like. But whether he comes or goes, it
will be the same."

" Not to him, Alma ! He is in love with you ! "

" He has never said so."

"And you Avould really let him say so, when you
intend to refuse him 1 "

"I can't very well refuse him till he does say so."

This was undeniable. Mrs. Leighton could only
demand in an awful tone, " ]\Iay I ask ivhy—ii you

280 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

cared for him ; and I know you care for him still —
you will refuse him ? "

Alma laughed. "Because — because I'm wedded
to my Art, and I 'm not going to commit bigamy,
whatever I do."

"Alma!"

" Well, then, because I don't lihc him — that is, I
don't believe in him, and don't trust him. He 's
fascinating, but he 's false and he 's fickle. He can't
help it, I dare say."

" And you are perfectly hard. Is it possible that
you were actually pleased to have Mr. Fulkerson
tease you about Mr. Dryfoos 1 "

" Oh, good night, now, mamma ! This is becom-
ing personal."

PART THIRD.
I.

The scheme of a banquet to celebrate the initial
success of Every Other JFeek expanded in Fulkerson's
fancy into a series. Instead of the pubhshing and
editorial force, with certain of the more representa-
tive artists and authors sitting down to a modest
supper in Mrs. Leighton's parlours, he conceived of
a dinner at Delmonico's, with the principal literary
and artistic people throughout the country as guests,
and an inexhaustible hospitality to reporters and
correspondents, from whom paragraphs, prophetic
and historic, would flow weeks before and after the
first of the series. He said the thing was a new de-
parture in magazines ; it amounted to something in
literature as radical as the American Revolution in
politics : it Avas the idea of self-government in the
arts ; and it was this idea that had never yet been
fully developed in regard to it. That was what
must be done in the speeches at the dinner, and the
speeches must be reported. Then it would go like
wildfire. He asked March whether he thought Mr.
DepeAV could be got to come ; Mark Twain, he was

282 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES

sure would come ; he was a literary man. They
ought to invite Mr. Evarts, and the Cardinal and
the leading- Protestant divines. His ambition
stopped at nothing, nothing hut the question of
expense ; there he had to wait the return of the
cider Dryfoos from the West, and Dryfoos was still
delayed at Moffitt, and Fulkerson openly confessed
that he was afraid he would stay there till his own
enthusiasm escaped in other activities, other plans.

Fulkerson was as little likely as possible to fall
under a superstitious subjection to another man ; but
]\Iarch could not help seeing that in this possible
measure Dryfoos was Fulkerson's fetish. He did not
revere him, March decided, because it was not in
Fulkerson's nature to revere anything ; he could like
and dislike, but he could not respect. Apparently,
however, Dryfoos daunted him somehow ; and be-
sides the homage which those who have not pay
to those who have, Fulkerson rendered Dryfoos the
tribute of a feeling which Marcli could only define as
a sort of bewilderment. As well as March could
make out, this feeling was evoked by the spectacle
of Dryfoos's unfailing luck, which Fulkerson was fond
of dazzling himself with. It perfectly consisted with
a keen sense of whatever was sordid and selfish in a
man on Avhom his career must have had its inevitable
effect. He liked to philosophise the case with March,
to recall Dryfoos as he was when he first met him
still somewhat in the sap, at jMofHtt, and to study
the processes by which he imagined him to have
dried into the hardened speculator, without even the

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 283

pretence to any advantage but his own in his ven-
tures. He was aware of painting the character too
vividly, and he Avarned IMarch not to accept it
exactly in those tints, but to subdue them and shade
it for himself. He said that where his advantage
was not concerned, there was ever so much good
in Dryfoos, and that if in some things he had
grown inflexible, he had expanded in others to the
full measure of the vast scale on which he did busi-
ness. It had seemed a little odd to March that a
man should put money into such an enterprise as
Every Other TFeeJc and go off about other affairs, not
only Avithout any sign of anxiety but without any
sort of interest. But Fulkerson said that was the
splendid side of Dryfoos. He had a courage, a
magnanimity, that was equal to the strain of any
such uncertainty. He had faced the music once for
all, when he asked Fulkerson what the thing would
cost in the different degrees of potential failure ; and
then he had gone off, leaving everything to Fulkerson
and the younger Dryfoos, with the instruction simply
to go ahead and not bother him about it. Fulkerson
called that pretty tall for an old fellow who used to
bewail the want of pigs and chickens to occupy his
mind. He alleged it as another proof of the versa-
tility of the American mind, and of the grandeur of
institutions and opportunities that let every man
grow to his full size, so that any man in America
could run the concern if necessary. He believed
that old Dryfoos could step into Bismarck's shoes,
and run the German Empire at ten days' notice, or

284 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

about as long as it would take him to go from New
York to Berlin. But Bismarck would not know
anything about Dryfoos's plans till Dryfoos got
ready to show his hand. Fulkerson himself did not
pretend to say what the old man had been up to,
since he went West. He was at Moffitt first, and
then he was at Chicago, and then he had gone out to
Denver to look after some mines he had out there,
and a railroad or two ; and now he Avns at Moffitt
again. He Avas supposed to be closing up his aflfairs
there, but nobody could say.

Fulkerson told March the morning after Dryfoos
returned that he had not only not pulled out at
]\Ioffitt, but had gone in deeper, ten times deeper
than ever. He was in a royal good-humour, Fulker-
son reported, and Avas going to drop into the office
on his way up from the street (March understood
Wall Street) that afternoon. He Avas tickled to
death Avith Every Other Week so far as it had gone,
and AA'as anxious to pay his respects to the editor.

March accounted for some rhetoric in this, but let
it flatter him, and prepared himself for a meeting
about Avhich he could see that Fulkerson Avas onl}'-
less nervous than he had shoAvn himself about the
public reception of the first number. It gave March
a disagreeable feeling of being OAvned and of being
about to be inspected by his proprietor ; but he fell
back upon such independence as he could find in the
thought of those tAvo thousand dollars of income be-
yond the caprice of his oAvner, and maintained an
outward serenity.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 285

He Avas a little ashamed afterward of the resolu-
tion it had cost him to do so. It was not a question
of Dryfoos's physical presence : that was rather
effective than otherwise, and carried a suggestion of
moneyed indifference to convention in the grey
business suit of provincial cut, and the low, wide-
brimmed hat of flexible black felt. He had a stick
with an old-fashioned top of buck-horn Avorn smooth
and bright by the palm of his hand, which had not
lost its character in fat, and which had a history of
former work in its enlarged knuckles, though it was
now as soft as March's, and must once have been
small even for a man of IVIr. Dryfoos's stature ; he
was below the average size. But what struck March
was the fact that Dryfoos seemed furtively conscious
of being a country person, and of being aware that
in their meeting he was to be tried by other tests
than those which Avould have availed him as a
shrewd speculator. He evidently had some curiosity
about March, as the first of his kind Avhom he had en-
countered ; some such curiosity as the country school
trustee feels and tries to hide in the presence of the
new schoolmaster. But the whole affair was of course
on a higher plane ; on one side Dryfoos was much
more a man of the world than March Avas, and he
probably divined this at once, and rested himself
upon the fact in a measure. It seemed to be his
preference that his son should introduce them, for
he came upstairs Avith Conrad, and they had fairly
made acquaintance before Fulkerson joined them.

Conrad offered to leave them at once, but his

286 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

father made him stay. "I reckon Mr. ]\Iarch and
I haven't got anything so pri^■ate to talk about that
■\ve -want to keep it from the other partners. Well,
Mr. March, are you getting used to New York yet ?
It takes a little time."

" Oh yes. But not so much time as most places.
Everybody belongs more or less in New York ;
nobody has to belong here altogether."

"Yes, that is so. You can try it, and go away
if you don't like it a good deal easier than you could
from a smaller place. "Wouldn't make so much talk,
would it ? " He glanced at IMarch with a jocose
light in his shrewd eyes, " That is the way I feel
about it all the time : just visiting. Now, it
Avouldn't be that way in Boston, I reckon ? "

" You couldn't keep on visiting there your whole
life," said March.

Dryfoos laughed, showing his lower teeth in a
way that was at once simple and fierce. " Mr.
Fulkerson didn't hardly know as he could get you
to leave. I suppose you got used to it there. I
never been in your city."

"I had got used to it; but it was hardly my
city, except by marriage. My wife 's a Bostouian."

"She's been a little homesick here, then," said
Dryfoos, with a smile of the same quality as his
laugh.

" Less than I expected," said March. " Of course
she was very much attached to our old home."

" I guess my wife won't ever get used to New
York," said Dryfoos, and he drew in his lower lij)

A ILVZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 287

with a sharp sigh. "But my girls like it; they're
young. You never been out our way yet, ]\Ir.
March ? Out West ? "

"Well, only for the purpose of being born, and
brought up. I used to live in Crawfordsville, and
then Indianapolis."

"Indianapolis is bound to be a great place," said
Dryfoos. " I remember now, Mr. Fulkerson told mo
you was from our State." He went on to brag of
the West, as if March Avere an Easterner and had to
be convinced, " You ought to sec all that country.
It 's a great country."

"Oh yes," said March, "I understand that." He
expected the praise of the great West to lead up to
some comment on Every Other JFcck ; and there was
abundant suggestion of that topic in the manuscripts,
proofs of letter-press and illustrations, Avith advance
copies of the latest number strewn over his table.

But Dryfoos apparently kept himself from looking
at these things. He rolled his head about on his
shoulders to take in the character of the room, and
said to his son, " You didn't change the woodwork
after all."

'•■ No ; the architect thought we had better let it
be, unless we meant to change the whole place. He
liked its being old-fashioned."

"I hope you feel comfortable here, Mr. March,"
the old man said, bringing his eyes to bear upon him
again after their tour of inspection.

" Too comfortable for a working-man," said March,
and he thousiht that this remark must brinsr them to

288 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

some talk about liis "vvork, but the proprietor only
smiled again.

" I guess I shan't lose much on this house," he
returned, as if musing aloud. "This down-town
property is coming up. Business is getting in on all
these side streets. I thought I paid a pretty good
price for it, too." He went on to talk of real estate,
and March began to feel a certain resentment at his
continued avoidance of the only topic in which they
could really have a common interest. " You live
down this Avay someAvhcre, don't you ? " the old man
concluded.

"Yes. I wished to be near my Avork." March
was vexed with himself for having recurred to it ;
but afterward he Avas not sure l)ut Dryfoos shared
his own ditlidence in the matter, and was Avaitingfor
him to bring it openly into the talk. At times he
seemed Avary and masterful, and then March felt
that he Avas being examined and tested j at others so
simple that ]\Iarch might Avell have fancied that he
needed encouragement, and desired it. He talked of
his Avife and daughters in a Avay that invited March
to say friendly things of his family, Avhich appeared
t^ give the old man first an undue pleasure, and
then a final distrust. At moments he turned, AAdth
an effect of finding relief in it, to his son and spoke
to him across March of matters Avhich he Avas un-
acquainted Avith ; he did not seem aware that this
Avas rude, but the young man must have felt it so ;
he always brought the conversation back, and once
at some cost to himself Avhen his father made it
personal.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 289

"I want to make a regular New York business
man out of that fellow," he said to March, pointing
at Conrad with his stick. "You s'pose I'm ever
going to do it 1 "

"Well, I don't know," said March, trying to fall
in with the joke. "Do you mean nothing but a
business man 1 "

The old man laughed at whatever latent meaning
he fancied in this, and said, " You think he would
be a little too much for me there 1 Well, I 've seen
enough of 'em to know it don't always take a large
pattern of a man to do a large business. But I want
him to get the business training, and then if he
wants to go into something else, he knoAvs what the
Avorld is, anyway. Heigh 1 "

" Oh yes ! " March assented, with some compassion
for the young man reddening patiently under his
father's comment.

Dryfoos went on as if his son were not in hearing.
" Now that boy wanted to be a preacher. What
does a preacher know about the world he preaches
against, Avhen he's been brought up a preacher?
He don't know so much as a bad little boy in his
Sunday-school ; he knows about as much as a girl.
I always told him. You be a man first, and then you
be a preacher, if you want to. Heigh 1 "

" Precisely." March began to feel some compas-
sion for himself in being Avitness of the young fellow's
discomfort under his father's homily.

"When we first come to New York, I told him,
NoAV here's your chance to see the world on a big
Voh. I.— 13

290 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

scale. You know already what work and saving
and steady habits and sense will bring a man to ;
you don't want to go round among the rich ; you
want to go among the poor, and sec Avhat laziness,
and drink, and dishonesty, and foolishness will bring
men to.. And I guess ho knows, about as well as
anybody ; and if he ever goes to preaching he '11
know what he's preaching about." The old man
smiled his fierce, simple smile, and in his sharp eyes
March fancied contempt of the ambition he had
balked in his son. The present scene must have
Ijccn one of many between them, ending in meek
submission on the part of the young man -whom his
father perhaps without realising his cruelty treated as
a child. March took it hard that he should be made
to suffer in the presence of a co-ordinate power like
himself, and began to dislike the old man out of pro-
portion to his offence, which might have been mere
want of taste, or an effect of mere embarrassment
before him. But evidently, Avhatever rebellion his
daughters had carried through against him, he had
kept his dominion over this gentle spirit unbroken.
March did not choose to make any response, but to
let him continue, if he would, entirely upon his
own impulse.

II.

A SILENCE followed, of rather painful length. It
was broken by the cheery voice of Fulkerson, sent
before him to herald Fulkerson's cheery person.
" Well, I suppose you 've got the glorious success of
Every Other JFeeh down pretty cold in your talk by
this time. I should have been up sooner to join you,
but I Avas nipping a man for the last page of the
cover. I guess we '11 have to let the Muse have that
for an advertisement instead of a poem the next
time, March. Well, the old gentleman given you
boys your scolding 1 " The person of Fulkerson had
got into the room long before ho reached this
question, and had planted itself astride a chair.
Fulkerson looked over the chair back, now at March,
and now at the elder Dryfoos as he spoke.

March answered him. "I guess we must have
been waiting for you, Fulkerson. At any rate we
hadn't got to the scolding yet."

*' Why, I didn't suppose Mr. Dryfoos could 'a' held
in so long. I understood he was awful mad at the
way the thing started off, and wanted to give you a
piece of his mind, when he got at you. I inferred
as much from a remark that he made." March and

292 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

Dryfoos looked foolish, as men do when made the
subject of this sort of merry misrepresentation.

" I reckon my scolding will keep awhile yet," said
the old man dryly.

" Well, then, I guess it 's a good chance to give
Mr. Dryfoos an idea of what wc 've really done — just
while we 're resting, as Artemus Ward says. Heigh,
March ? "

" I will let you blow the trumpet, Fulkerson. I
think it belongs strictly to the advertising depart-
ment," said March. He now distinctly resented the
old man's failure to say anything to him of the
magazine ; he made his inference that it was from a
suspicion of his readiness to presume upon a recog-
nition of his share in the success, and he was deter-
mined to second no sort of appeal for it.

"The advertising department is the heart and
soul of every business," said Fulkerson hardily,
" and I like to keep my hand in with a little practice
on the trumpet in private. I don't believe Mr. Dry-
foos has got any idea of the extent of this thing.
He's been out among those Rackensackens, where
we were all born, and he 's read the notices in their
seven by nine dailies, and he's seen the thing selling on
the cars, and he thinks he appreciates what's been
done. But I should just like to take him round in
this little old metropolis awhile, and show him Every
Otlier IFeek on the centre tables of the millionaires
— the Vanderbilts and the Astors — and in the homes
of culture and refinement everywhere, and let
him judge for himself. It 's the talk of the clubs

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 293

and the dinner-tables ; children cry for it ; it 's the
Castoria of literature, and the Pearline of art, the
Won't-be-haiDpy-till-he-gets-it of every enlightened
man, woman, and child in this vast city. I knew
we could capture the country ; but, my goodness !
I didn't expect to have New York fall into our hands
at a blow. But that 's just exactly what New York
has done. £veri/ Other JFeek supplies the long-felt
want that 's been grinding round in New York and
keeping it awake nights ever since the war. It's
the culmination of all the high and ennobling ideals
of the past "

"How much," asked Dryfoos, "do you expect to
get out of it the first year, if it keeps the start it 's
got ? "

" Comes right down to business, every time ! " said
Fulkerson, referring the characteristic to March with
a delighted glance. " Well, sir, if everything works
right, and we get rain enough to fill up the springs,
and it isn't a grasshopper year, I expect to clear
above all expenses something in the neighbourhood
of twenty-five thousand dollars."

" Humph ! And you are all going to Avork a year
— editor, manager, publisher, artists, writers, printers,
and the rest of 'em — to clear twenty-five thousand
dollars 1 — I made that much in half a day in Mofiitt
once. I see it made in half a minute in Wall Street,
sometimes." The old man presented this aspect of
the case with a good-natured contempt, which in-
cluded Fulkerson and his enthusiasm in an obvious
likincr.

294 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

His son suggested, "But ^vllcn wc make that
money here, no one loses it."

"Can you prove that?" His father turned
sliarply upon him. " Wliatever is won is lost. It's
all a game ; it don't make any diiTerence what you
bet on. Business is business, and a business man
takes his risks -with his eyes open."

" Ah, but the glory ! " Fulkerson insinuated
with impudent persiflage. "I hadn't got to the
glory yet, because it 's hard to estimate it ; but put
the glory at the lowest figure, Mr. Dryfoos, and add
it to the twenty-five thousand, and you 've got an
amiual income from Erer>/ Other Week of dollars
enough to construct a silver railroad, double-track,
from this office to the moon. I don't mention any
of the sister planets because I like to keep within
bounds."

Dryfoos showed his lower teeth for pleasure in
Fulkerson's fooling, and said, " That 's what I like
about you, ]\Ir. Fulkerson : you always keep within
bounds."

"Well, I abit a shrinking Boston violet, like
March here. More sunflower in my style of diffi-
dence ; but I am modest, I don't deny it," said Ful-
kerson. " And I do hate to have a thing overstated."

"And the glory — you do really think there's
something in the glory that pays ? "

" Not a doubt of it ! I shouldn't care for the
paltry return in money," said Fulkerson, with a
burlesque of generous disdain, " if it wasn't for the
glory along with it."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 295

" And liow should you feel about the glory, if
there was no money along with it ? "

" Well, sii', I 'm happy to say wc haven't come to
that yet."

"Now, Conrad, here," said the old man, with a
sort of pathetic rancour, " would rather have the
glory alone. I believe he don't even care much for
your kind of glory, either, Mr. Fulkerson."

Fulkerson ran his little eyes curiously over
Conrad's face and then March's, as if searching for a
trace there of something gone before which Avould
enable him to reach Dryfoos's whole meaning. He
apparently resolved to launch himself upon con-
jecture. " Oh, well, we know how Conrad feels
about the things of this world, anyway. I should
like to take 'em on the plane of another sphere, too,
sometimes ; but I noticed a good while ago that this
was the world I was born into, and so I made up my
mind that I would do pretty much what I saw the
rest of the folks doing here below. And I can't see
but what Conrad runs the thing on business prin-
ciples in his department, and I guess you '11 find it so
if you look into it. I consider that we 're a whole
team and big dog under the wagon with you to draw
on for supplies, and March, here, at the head of the
literary business, and Conrad in the counting-room,
and me to do the heavy lying in the advertising part.
Oh, and Beaton, of course, in the art. I 'most for-
got Beaton — Hamlet with Hamlet left out."

Dryfoos looked across at his son. " Wasn't that
the fellow's name that was there last night 1 "

296 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" Yes," said Conrad.

The old man rose. " Well, I reckon I got to be
going. You ready to go up-town, Conrad 1 "

"Well, not quite yet, father."

The old man shook hands Avith March, and went
downstairs, followed by his son.

Fulkerson remained.

" lie didn't jump at tlio chance you gave him to
compliment us all round, Fulkerson," said March,
with a smile not wholly of pleasure.

Fulkerson asked with as little joy, in the grin he
had on, "Didn't he say anything to you before I
came in 1 "

" Not a word."

"Dogged if / know what to make of it," sighed
Fulkerson, " but I guess he 's been having a talk
with Conrad that 's soured on him. I reckon may bo
he came back expecting to find that boy reconciled
to the glory of this world, and Conrad 's showed him-
self just as set against it as ever."

"It might have been that," March admitted pen-
sively. "I fancied something of the kind myself
from words the old man let drop."

Fulkerson made him explain, and then he said,
"That's it, then; an<l it's all right. Conrad '11
come round in time ; and all we 've got to do is to
have patience with the old man till he does. I
know he likes yoii." Fulkerson affirmed this only
interrogatively, and looked so anxiously to March
for corroboration that March laughed.

" He dissembled his love," he said ; but afterward

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 297

in describing to his wife his interview with Mr.
Dryfoos he was less amused with this fact.

When she saw that he was a little cast down by
it, she began to encourage him. "He's just a
common, ignorant man, and probably didn't know
how to express himself. You may be perfectly sure
that he 's delighted with the success of the magazine,
and that he understands as well as you do that he
owes it all to you."

"Ah, I'm not so sure. I don't believe a man's
any better for having made money so easily and
rapidly as Dryfoos has done, and I doubt if he 's any
wiser. I don't know just the point he 's reached in
his evolution from grub to beetle, but I do know
that so far as it's gone the process must have in-
volved a bewildering change of ideals and criterions.
I guess he's come to despise a great many things
that he once respected, and that intellectual ability
is among them-^what %ve call intellectual ability.
He must have undergone a moral deterioration, an
atrophy of the generous instincts, and I don't see
why it shouldn't have reached his mental make-up.
He has sharpened, but he has narrowed ; his sagacity
has turned into suspicion, his caution to meanness,
his courage to ferocity. That 's the Avay I philoso-
phise a man of Dryfoos's experience, and I am not
very proud when I realise that such a man and his
experience are the ideal and ambition of most Ameri-
cans. I rather think they came pretty near being
mine, once."

" No, dear, they never did," his wife protested.
13*

298 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

"Well, they're not likely to be, in the future.
The Dryfoos feature of Every Other JFeek is thoroughly
distasteful to me."

"Why, hut he hasn't really got anything to do
with it, has he, beyond furnishing the money 1 "

"That's the impression that Fulkerson has
allowed us to get. But the man that holds the purse
holds the reins. He may let us guide the horse, but
when he likes he can drive. If we don't like his
driving, then we can get down."

Mrs. March was loss interested in this figure of
speech than in the personal aspects involved. " Then
you think Mr. Fulkerson has deceived you ? "

"Oh no!" said her husband, laughing. " But I
think he has deceived himself, perhaps."

" How 1 " she pursued.

"He may have thought he was using Dryfoos,
Avhen Dryfoos was using him, and he may have
supposed he was not afraid of him when he was
very much so. His courage hadn't been put to
the test, and courage is a matter of proof, like pro-
ficiency on the fiddle, you know : you can't tell
whether you 've got it till you ivy."

" Nonsense ! Do you mean that he would ever
sacrifice yoii, to Mr. Dryfoos ?"

" I hope he may not be tempted. But I 'd rather
be taking the chances with Fulkerson alone, than
with Fulkerson and Dryfoos to back him. Dryfoos
seems somehow to take the i)oetry and the pleasure
out of the thing."

]\Irs. March was a long time silent. Then she

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 299

began, ""Well, my dear, / never wanted to come to
New York "

" Neither did I," March promptly jjut in.

"But now that Ave 're here," she went on, "I'm
not going to have you letting every little thing dis-
courage you. I don't see what there was in Mr.
Dryfoos's manner to give you any anxiety. He 's
just a common, stupid, inarticulate country person,
and he didn't know how to express himself, as I said
in the beginning, and that 's the reason he didn't say
anything."

"Well, I don't deny you 're right about it."

"It's dreadful," his wife continued, "to be mixed
up with such a man and his family, but I don't be-
lieve he 'II ever meddle with your management, and
till he does, all you need do is to have as little to do
with him as possible, and go quietly on your OAvn
way."

" Oh, I shall go on quietly enough," said March.
" I hope I shan't begin going stealthily."

" Well, my dear," said Mrs. March, " just let mo
know when you 're tempted to do that. If ever you
sacrifice the smallest grain of your honesty or your
self-respect to Mr. Dryfoos, or anybody else, I will
simply renounce you."

" In view of that I 'm rather glad the management
of Every Other TFeek involves tastes and not convic-
tions " said March.

III.

That night Dryfoos was wakened from his after-
dinner nap by the sound of gay talk and nervous
giggling in the drawing-room. The talk, which was
Christine's, and the giggling, which was Mela's, Averc
intershot with the heavier tones of a man's voice ;
and Dryfoos lay awhile on the leathern lounge in
his library, trying to make out whether he knew the
voice. His wife sat in a deep chair before the fire,
with her eyes on his face, waiting for him to wake.

" Who is that out there "? " he asked, without
opening his eyes.

"Indeed, indeed I don't know, Jacob," his wife
answered. " I reckon it 's just some visitor of the
girls."

"Was I snoring 1 "

" Not a bit. You was sleeping as quiet ! I did
hate to have 'em wake you, and I was just goin' out
to shoo them. They've been playin' something,
and that made them laugh."

" I didn't know but I had snored," said the old
man, sitting up.

"No," said his wife. Then she asked wistfully,
" Was you out at the old place, Jacob 1 "

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 301

"Yes."

" Did it look natural 1 "

" Yes ; mostly. They 're sinking the wells down
in the woods pasture."

" And — the cliildern's graves 1 "

" They haven't touched that part. But I reckon
we got to have 'cm moved to the cemetery. I bought
a lot."

The old woman began softly to weep. " It does
seem too hard that they can't be let to rest in peace,
pore little things. I wanted you and me to lay there
too, when our time come, Jacob. Just there, back
o' the beehives, and under them shoomakes — my, I
can see the very place ! And I don't believe I '11
ever feel at home anywheres else. I woon't know
where I am when the trumpet sounds. I have to
think before I can tell where the east is in New
York ; and what if I should git faced the wrong
way Avhen I raise 1 Jacob, I wonder you could sell
it ! " Her head shook, and the fire-light shone on
her tears, as she searched the folds of her dress for
her pocket.

A peal of laughter came from the drawing-room,
and then the sound of chords struck on the piano.

" Hush ! Don't you cry 'Liz'beth ! " said Dryfoos.
" Here ; take my handkerchief. I 've got a nice lot
in the cemetery, and I 'm goin' to have a monument,
with two lambs on it — like the one you always liked
so much. It ain't the fashion, any more, to have
family buryin'-grounds ; they're collectin' 'cm into
the cemeteries, all round."

302 A HAZARD OF NFAV FORTUNES.

" I reckon I got to bear it," said his wife, muffling
her face in his handkercliief. " And I suppose the
Lord kin find me, wherever I am. But I always did
Avant to lay just there. You mind how we used to
go out and set there, after milkin', and Avatch the
sun go down, and talk about where their angels was,
and try to figger it out 1 "

" I remember, 'Liz'beth."

The man's voice in the drawing-room sang a snatch
of French song, insolent, mocking, salient ; and then
Christine's attempted the same strain, and another
cry of laughter from Mela followed.

" Well, I always did expect to lay there. But \
reckon it's all right. It won't be a great while,
now, any way. Jacob, I don't believe I 'm agoin' to
live very long. I know it don't agree with mo
here."

"Oh, I guess it does, 'Liz'beth. You're just a
little pulled down with the weather. It's coming
spring, and you feel it ; but the doctor says you 're
all right I stopped in, on the Avay up ; and he says
so."

"I reckon he don't know everything," the old
woman persisted. " I 've been runnin' down ever
since w^e left Mofiitt, and I didn't feel any too well
there, even. It 's a very strange thing, Jacob, that
the richer you git, the less you ain't able to stay
where you want to, dead or alive."

"It's for the children we do it," said Dryfoos.
" We got to give them their chance in the world,"

" Oh, the world ! Thoy ought to bear the yoke

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 303

in their youth, like we done. I know it's what
Coonrod would like to do."

Dry f 003 got upon his feet. "If Coonrod 11 mind
his own business, and do what I want him to, he '11
have yoke enough to bear." He moved from his
wife, without further effort to comfort her, and
pottered heavily out into the dining-room. Beyond
its obscurity stretched the glitter of the deep draw-
ing-room. His feet, in their broad, flat slippers,
made no sound on the dense carpet, and he came
unseen upon the little grouji there near the piano.
Mela perched upon the stool with her back to the
keys, and Beaton bent over Christine, who sat with
a banjo in her lap, letting him take her hands and
put them in the right place on the instrument. Her
face was radiant with happiness, and Mela was
watching her with foolish, unselfish pleasure in her
bliss.

There was nothing wrong in the affair to a man of
Dryfoos's traditions and perceptions, and if it had
been at home in the farm sitting-room, or even in
his parlour at Moffitt, he would not have minded a
j'oung man's placing his daughter's hands on a banjo,
or even holding them there ; it would have seemed
a proper attention from him if he Avas courting her.
But here, in such a house as this, with the daughter
of a man who had made as much money as he had,
he did not know but it was a liberty. He felt the
angry doubt of it which beset him in regard to so
many experiences of his changed life ; he wanted to
show his sense of it, if it was a liberty, but he did

304 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

not know how, and he did not know that it was so.
Besides, he could not help a touch of the pleasure in
Christine's happiness which Mela showed ; and he
would have gone hack to the library, if he could,
without being discovered.

But Beaton had seen him, and Dryfoos, with a
nonchalant nod to the young man, camo forward.
" What you got there, Christine 1 "

" A banjo," said the girl, blushing in her father's
presence.

Mela gurgled. " Mr. Beaton is learnun' her the
first position."

Beaton was not embarrassed. He was in evening
dress, and his face, pointed with its brown beard,
showed extremely handsome above the expanse of
his broad white shirt-front. He gave back as non-
chalant a nod as he had got, and without further
greeting to Dryfoos, he said to Christine, "No, no.
You must keep your hand and arm so." He held
them in position. "There! Now strike with your
right hand. See 1 "

"I don't believe I can ever learn," said the girl,
with a fond upward look at him.

" Oh yes, you can," said Beaton.

They both ignored Dryfoos in the little play of
protests which followed, and he said, half jocosely,
half suspiciously, "And is the banjo the fashion,
now 1 " He remembered it as the emblem of low-
down show business, and associated it with end-men,
and blackened faces, and grotesque shirt collars.

" It 's all the rage," Mela shouted in answer for all.

■ A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 305

"Everybody plays it. Mr. Beaton borrowed this
from a lady friend of his. "

" Humph ! Pity I got you a piano, then," said Dry-
foos. " A banjo would have been cheaper."

Beaton so far admitted him to the conversation as
to seem reminded of the piano by his mentioning it.
He said to Mela, " Oh, won't you just strike those
chords ? " and as Mela wheeled about and beat the
keys, he took the banjo from Christine and sat down
with it. " This way ! " He strummed it, and mur-
mured the tune Dryfoos had heard him singing from
the library, while he kept his beautiful eyes floating
on Christine's. "You try that, now; it's very
simple."

" Where is ]\Irs. IMandel ? ' Dryfoos demanded,
trying to assert himself.

Neither of the girls seemed to have heard him
at first in the chatter they broke into over what
Beaton proposed. Then Mela said absently, "Oh,
she had to go out to see one of her friends that 's
sick," and she struck the piano keys. " Come ; try
it, Chris ! "

Dryfoos turned about unheeded, and went back to
the library. He would have liked to put Beaton out
of his house, and in his heart he burned against him
as a contumacious hand ; he would have liked to dis-
charge him from the art department of Every Other
JFcek at once. But he was aware of not having
treated Beaton with much ceremony, and if the
young man had returned his behaviour in kind, with
an electrical response to his own feeling, had he any

30G A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.'

right to complain 1 After all, there was no harm in
his teaching Christine the banjo.

His wife still sat looking into the fire. " I can't
see," she said, "as we've got a bit more comfort of
our lives, Jacob, because we 've got such piles and
piles of money. I wisht to gracious we was back on
the farm this minute. I wisht you had held out
ag'inst the childcrn about sellin' it ; 'twould 'a' bin
the best thing fur 'cm, I say, I believe in my soul
they '11 git spoiled liere in New York. I kin sec a
change in 'em a'ready — in the girls."

Dryfoos stretched himself on the lounge again.
'•'I can't see as Coonrod is much comfort, either.
Why ain't he here with his sisters ? What does all
that work of his on the East side amount to 1 It
seems as if he done it to cross me, as much as any-
thing." Diyfoos complained to his wife on the basis
of mere affectional habit, which in married life often
survives the sense of intellectual cc^uality. He did
not expect her to reason with him, but there was
help in her listening, and though she could only
soothe his fretfulness with soft answers which were
often wide of the purpose, he still went to her for
solace. " Here, I 've gone into this newspaper busi-
ness, or whatever it is, on his account, and he don't
seem any more satisfied than ever. I can see he
hain't got his heart in it."

" The pore boy tries ; I know he docs, Jacob ; and
he wants to jjleaso you. But he gi\e up a good deal
when he give up bean' a preacher ; I s'pose we ought
remember that."

A HAZARD OF NEAV FORTUNES. 307

"A preacher!" sneered Dryfoos. "I reckon
bein' a preacher wouldn't satisfy liim now. He had
the impudence to tell me this afternoon that he
would like to be a priest ; and he threw it up to me
that he never could be, because I 'd kept him from
studyin'."

"He don't mean a Catholic priest — not a Eoman
one, Jacob," the old woman explained wistfully.
" He's told me all about it. They ain't the kind o'
Catholics Ave been used to; some sort of 'Pisco-
palians ; and they do a heap o' good amongst the
poor folks over there. He says we ain't got any
idea how folks lives in them tenement-houses, hiin-
derds of 'em in one house, and whole families in a
room ; and it burns in his heart to help 'em like
them Fathers, as he calls 'em, that gives their lives
to it. He can't be a Father, he says, because he
can't git the eddication, now ; but he can be a
Brother ; and I can't find a word to say ag'inst it,
Avhen it gits to talkin', Jacob."

"I ain't saying anything against his priests,
'Liz'beth," said Dryfoos. " They 're all well enough
in their Avay ; they 've given up their lives to it, and
it 's a matter of business with them, like any other.
But what I'm talking about now is Coonrod. I
don't object to his doin' all the charity he wants to,
and the Lord knows I've never been stingy with
him about it. He might have all the money he
wants, to give round any way he pleases."

" That 's what I told him once, but he says money
ain't the thing — or not the only thing you got to

308 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

give to them poor folks. You got to give your time,
ami your knowledge, and your love — I don't know
what all — you got to give yourself, if you expect to
help 'em. That 's what Coonrod saj's."

" Well, I can tell him that charity Logins at home,"
said Dryfoos, sitting up, in his impatience. " And
he 'd better give himself to us a little — to his old
father and mother. And his sisters. ^Vllat 's he
doin' goin' off there, to his meetings, and I don't
know what all, an' leavin' them here alone ? "

" Why, ain't Mr. Beaton with 'em 1 " asked the old
woman. " I thought I hcared his voice."

" Mr. Beaton ! Of course, he is ! And who 's Mr.
Beaton, anyway?"

" Why, ain't he one of the men in Coonrod's
office ? I thought I hcared "

"Yes, he is! But w/w is he ] What's he doing
round here ? Is he makin' up to Christine 1 "

" I reckon he is. From Mely's talk, she 's about
crazy over the fellow. Don't you like him, Jacob 1 "

" I don't know him, or what he is. He hasn't got
any manners. Who brought him here 1 How 'd he
come to come, in the first place 1 "

"Mr Fulkerson brung him, I believe," said the old
woman patiently.

"Fulkerson!" Dryfoos snorted. "Where's Mrs.
Mandel, I should like to know 1 He brought Jiei;
too. Does she go trapsein' off this Avay, every even-
ingl"

"No, she seems to be here pretty regular most o'
the time. I don't know how we could ever git alon^

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 309

without her, Jacob ; she seems to know just what to
do, and the girls would be ten times as outbreakin'
without her. I hope you ain't thinkin' o' turnin' her
off, Jacob 1 "

Dryfoos did not think it necessary to answer such
a question. " It 's all Fulkerson, Fulkerson, Fulker-
son. It seems to me that Fulkerson about runs this
family. He. brought Mrs. Mandel, and he brought
that Beaton, and he brought that Boston fellow ! I
guess I give him a dose, though; and I'll learn
Fulkerson that he can't have everything his own way.
I don't want anybody to help me spend my money.
I made it, and I can manage it. I guess Mr. Fulker-
son can bear a little watching, now. He 's been
travelling pretty free, and he 's got the notion he 's
driving, may be. I 'm agoing to look after that book
a little myself."

" You '11 kill yourself, Jacob," said his wife, " tryin'
to do so many things. And what is it all fur 1 I
don't see as we 're better off, any, for all the money.
It 's just as much care as it used to be when we was
all there on the farm together. I wisht we could go
back, Ja "

" We can't go back ! " shouted the old man fiercely.
" There 's no farm any more to go back to. The
fields is full of gas wells and oil wells and hell holes
generally ; the house is tore down, and the barn 's
goin' "

" The harn ! " gasped the old Avoman. " Oh, my ! "

" If I was to give all I 'm worth this minute, we
couldn't go back to the farm, any more than them

310 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

girls iu there could go back and be little children. I
don't say we 're any better ofF, for the money. I 've
got more of it now than I ever had ; and there 's no
end to the luck ; it i)0urs in. But I feel like I was
tied hand and foot. I don't know which way to
move ; I don't know -what 's best to do about any-
thing. The money don't seem to buy anything but
more and more care and trouble. We got a l^ig
house that Ave ain't at home in ; and we got a lot of
hired girls round under our feet that hinder and don't
help. Our children don't mind us, aud we got no
friends or neighbours. But it had to be. I couldn't
hel}) but sell the farm, and we can't go back to it,
for it ain't there. So don't you say anything more
about it, 'Liz'beth."

"Pore Jacob! "said his wife. "Well, I woon't,
dear."

IV,

It was clear to Beaton that Dryfoos distrusted him;
and the fact heightened his pleasure in Christine's
liking for him. He was as sure of this as he was of
the other, though he was not so sure of any reason
for his jileasure in it. She had her charm ; the charm
of wildncss to Avhich a certain Avildness in himself
responded ; and there were times when his fancy
contrived a common future for them, Avhich would
have a prosperity forced from the old fellow's love of
the girl. Beaton liked the idea of this compulsion
better than he liked the idea of the money ; there
was something a little repulsive in that ; he imagined
himself rejecting it ; he almost wished he was
enough in love with the girl to marry her without
it j that would be fine. He was taken with her in a
certain measure, in a certain way ; the question was
in what measure, in what way.

It was partly to escape from this question that ho
hurried down town, and decided to spend with the
Leightons the hour remaining on his hands before it
was time to go to the reception for Avhich he was
dressed. It seemed to him important that he should
sec Alma Leis-hton. After all, it was her charm that

312 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

■was most abiding witli him ; perhaps it was to bo
final. He found himself very happy in his present
relations with her. She had dropped that barrier of
pretences and ironical surprise. It seemed to him
tliat they had gone back to the old ground of com-
mon artistic interest which he had found so pleasant
the summer before. Apparently she and her mother
had both forgiven his neglect of them in the first
months of their stay in New York ; he was sure that
]\Irs. Leighton liked him as well as ever, and if there
was still something a little provisional in Alma's
manner at times, it was something that piqned more
than it discouraged ; it made him curious, not
anxious.

He found the young ladies Avitli Fulkerson when
he rang. He seemed to be amusing them both, and
they were both amused beyond the merit of so small
a pleasantry, Beaton thought, Avhen Fulkerson said,
" Introduce myself, Mr. Beaton : Mr. Fulkerson of
Every Other JFcch. Think I 've met you at our
place." The girls laughed, and Alma explained that
her mother was not very well, and would be sorry
not to see him. Then she turned, as he felt, per-
versely, and Avent on talking with Fulkerson and left
him to ]\Iiss Woodburn.

She finally recognised his disappointment : " Ah
don't often get a chance at you, Mr. Beaton, and
Ah 'm just goin' to toak yo' to death. Yo' have been
Soath yo'self, and yo' know ho' we do toak."

" I 've survived to say yes," Beaton admitted.

"Oh, now, do you think we toak so much mo'

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 313

than you do in the No'th 1 " the young lady depre-
cated.

" I don't know. I only know you can't talk too
much for me. I should like to hear you say Soaih
and hoase and ahoat for the rest of my life."

" That 's what Ah call raght personal, Mr. Beaton.
Isow Ah 'm goin' to be personal, too." Miss Wood-
burn flung out over her lap the square of cloth
she was embroidering, and asked him, "Don't you
think that 's beautiful 1 Now, as an awtust — a great
aAvtust 1 "

"As a great awtust, yes," said Beaton, mimicking
her accent. " If I were less than great I might have
something to say about the arrangement of colours.
You 're as bold and original as Nature."

"Really? Oh, now, do tell mc yo' favo'ite colo',
Mr. Beaton."

"My favourite colour'? Bless my soul, why
should I prefer any 1 Is blue good, or red wicked ]
Do people have favourite colours 1 " Beaton found
himself suddenly interested.

" Of co'se they do," answered the girl. " Don't
awtusts 1 "

" I never heard of one that had — consciously."

" Is it possible ? I supposed they all had. Now
mah favo'ite colo' is gawnet. Don't you think it 's a
pretty colo' 1 "

" It depends upon how it 's used. Do you mean
in neckties 1 " Beaton stole a glance at the one
Fulkerson was wearing.

Miss Woodburn laughed with her face bowed upon
Vol. I.— 14

314 A IIAZ.\RD OF NEW FORTUNES.

her wrist. "Ah do think you gentlemen in the
No'th awe ten tnhms as lahvely as the ladies."

" Strange," said Beaton. " In the South — Soath,
excuse me ! — I made tlie observation that the ladies
were ten times as lively as the gentlemen. What is
that you 're working ? "

"This?" Miss Woodburn gave it another flirt,
and looked at it with a glance of dawning recogni-
tion. "Oh, this is a table-covah. "Wouldn't you
lahke to see where it 's to go 1 "

"Why, certainly."

" Well, if you '11 be raght good I "11 let yo' give me
some professional advass about putting something in
the co'ners or not, when you have seen it on the
table."

She rose and led the way into the other room.
Beaton knew she wanted to talk with him about
something else ; but he waited patiently to let her
play her comedy out. She spread the cover on the
table, and he advised her, as he saw she wished,
against putting anything in the corners ; just run a
line of her stitch around the edge, he said.

"Mr. Fulkerson and Ah, why, we 've been having
a regular faght aboat it," she commented. " But we
both agreed, fahnally, to leave it to you ; Mr. Ful-
kerson said you 'd be sure to be raght. Ah 'm so glad
you took mah sahde. But he 's a great adniahrer of
yours, Mr. Beaton," she concluded demurely, sug-
gestively.

"Is he? Well, I 'm a great admirer of Fulker-
son'.«;," said Beaton, with a capricious willingness to

A HAZARD OF NEW FOllTUNES. 315

humour her wish to talk about Fulkcrson. " He 's a
capital fellow ; generous, magnanimous, with quite
an ideal of friendship, and an eye single to the main
chance all the time. He Avould advertise Every
Other Week on his family vault."

Miss Woodburn laughed, and said she should tell
him what Beaton had said.

" Do. But he 's used to defamation from me, and
he '11 think you 're joking."

"Ah suppose," said Miss Woodbura, "that he's
qualite the talipe of a New York bu.siness man." She
added, as if it followed logically, "He's so different
from what I thought a New York business man
would be."

"It's your Virginia tradition to dcspi.'se business,"
said Beaton rudely.

Miss Woodburn laughed again. " Despahse it ?
Mall goodness ! Ave want to get inlo it, and ' woak it
fo' all it's wo'th,' as Mr. Fulkerson says. Tliat
tradition is all past. You don't know what the
Soath is now. Ah suppose mah fathaw despahses
business, but he 's a tradition himself, as Ah
tell him." Beaton would have enjoyed joining the
young lady in anything she might be going to say in
derogation of her father, but he restrained himself,
and she went on more and more as if she wished to
account for her father's habitual hauteur with
Beaton, if not to excuse it. " Ah tell him he don't
understand the rising generation. He was brought
up in the old school, and he thinks we ""re all just
lahke he Avas when he Avas young, Avith all those

31G A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES,

ahJcals of chivalry and family ; but mail goodness !
it 's money that cyoants no'adays in the Soath, just
lahke it does everywhere else. Ah suppose, if wc
could have slavery back in the fawm mah fathaw
thinks it could have been brought up to, ■when the
commercial spirit wouldn't let it alone, it would be
the best thing ; but we can't have it back, and Ah
tell him we had better have the commercial spirit, as
the next best thing."

^Miss Woodburn Avent on, Avith sufficient loyalty
and piety, to expose the difference of her own and
her father's ideals, but with what Beaton thought
less reference to his own unsympathetic attention than
to a knowledge finally of the j^^f'sonncl and maidriel
of Every Oilier Week, and Mr. Fulkerson's relation to
the enterprise. "You most excuse my asking so
many questions, Mr. Ecaton. You know it's all
mah doing that we awe heah in New York. Ah
just told mah fathaw that if he was CA^ah goin' to do
anything Avith his Avrahtings, he had got to come
No'th, and Ah made him come, ^i believe he 'd
have stayed in the Soath all his lahfe. And noAV
Mr. Fulkerson Avants him to let his editor see some
of his Avrah tings, and Ah Avanted to knoAv something
aboat the magazine. "We aAve a great deal excited
aboat it in this hoase, you knoAv, Mr. Beaton," she
concluded, Avith a look that noAV transferred the
interest from Fulkerson to Alma. She led the Avay
back to the room Avhere they Avere sitting, and Avent
up to triumph over Fulkerson Avith Beaton's decision
about the table-cover.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNE.S, 317

Alma was left with Beaton near the piano, and he
began to talk about the Dryfooscs, as he sat down
on the piano stool. Ho said he had been giving
Miss Dryfoos a lesson on the banjo ; he had borrowed
the banjo of Miss Vance. Then he struck the chord
he had been trying to teach Christine, and played
over the air he had sung.

" How do you like that ? " he asked, whirling
round.

'•It seems rather a disrespectful little tune, some-
how," said Alma placidly.

Beaton rested his elbow on the corner of the jiiano,
and gazed dreamily at her. " Your perceptions are
wonderful. It is disrespectful. I played it, up
there, because I felt disrespectful to them."

" Do you claim that as a merit 1 "

" No, I state it as a fact. How can you respect
such people ?"

"You might respect yourself, then," said the girl.
" Or perhaps that wouldn't be so easy, either."

" No, it wouldn't. I like to have you say these
things to me," said Beaton impartially,

" AVell, I like to say them," Alma returned.

"They do me good."

" Oh, I don't know that that was my motive."

"There is no one like you — no one," said Beaton,
as if apostrophising her in her absence. " To come
from that house, with its assertions of money — you
can hear it chink ; you can smell the foul old bank-
notes ; it stifles you — into an atmosphere like this,
is like comin.fr into another world."

318 A HAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES.

"Thank j'oii," said Alma. "I'm glad there isn't
that unpleasant odour here ; but I Avisli there Avas a
little more of the chinking."

" No, no ! Don't say that 1 " he implored. " I
like to think that there is one soul uncontaminatcd
by the sense of money in this big, bnital, sordid city."

"You mean two," said Alma, Avith modesty. "But
if you stille at the Dryfooscs', Avhy do you go there V

" "Why do I go ] " he nuised. " Don't you believe
in knowing all the natures, the types, you can ?
Those girls are a strange study : the young one is a
simple, earthly creature, as common as an oat-field ;
and the other a sort of sylvan life : fierce, flashing,
feline "

Alma burst out into a laugh. " "What apt allitera-
tion ! And do they like being studied ? I should
think the sylvan life might — scratch."

" No," said Beaton, with melancholy absence, " it
only — purrs."

The girl felt a rising indignation. ""Well, then,
Mr. Beaton; I should hope it tconld scratch, and
bite, too. I think you've no business to go about
studying people, as you do. It 's abominable."

" Go on," said the young man. "That Puritan con-
science of yours ! It appeals to the old Covenanter
strain in me — likeavoice of pre-cxistence. Go on "

" Oh, if I went on I should merely say it was not
only abominable, but contemptible."

"You could be my guardian angel, Alma," said
the young man, making his eyes more and more
slumbrous and dream v.

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 319

" Stuff ! I hope I have a soul above buttons ! "

He smiled, as she rose, and followed her across the
room. " Good night, Mr. Beaton," she said.

Miss Woodburn and Fulkerson came in from tlie
other room. " What ! You 're not going, Beaton ? "

" Yes ; I 'm going to a reception. I stopped in on
my way."

" To kill time," Alma explained.

"Well," said Fulkerson gallantly, "this is the
last place I should like to do it. But I guess I'd
better be going too. It has sometimes occurred to
me that there is such a thing as staying too late.
But with Brother Beaton, here, just starting in for
an evening's amusement, it does seem a little early
yet. Can't you urge me to stay, somebody 1 "

The two girls laughed, and Miss Woodburn said,
"Mr. Beaton is such a butterfly of fashion! Ah
wish ylh was on mah way to a pawty. Ah feel
quahto envious."

"But he didn't say it to viaJ:e you," Alma ex-
plained with meek softness.

" Well, we can't all be swells. Where is your
party, anyway, Beaton ? " asked Fulkerson. " How
do you manage to get your invitations to those
things 1 I suppose a fellow has to keep hinting
round pretty lively, heigh 1 "

Beaton took these mockeries serenely, and shook
hands with Miss Woodburn, with the effect of
having already shaken hands with Alma. She stood
with hers clasped behind her.

V.

Beaton "went away •with tlic smile on his face
■which he had kept in listening to Fulkorson, and
carried it -with him to tlie reception. He believed
that Alma "was vexed "with him for more personal
reasons than she had implied ; it flattered him that
she should have resented -what he told her of the
Dryfooses. She had scolded him in their behalf
apparently; but really because he had made her
jealous by his interest, of ■whatever kind, in some
one else. "What followed, had followed naturally.
Unless she had been quite a simjjleton she could not
have met his provisional love-making on any other
terms ; and the reason "why Beaton chiefly liked
Alma Lcighton Avas that slic "was not a simpleton.
Even up in the country, "when she was overawed by
his acquaintance, at first, she "was not very deeply
overawed, and at times she was not overawed at all.
At such times she astonished him by taking his most
solemn histi ionics Avith fli])pant incredulity, and even
burlesquing them. But he could see, all the same,
that he had caught her fancy, and he admired the
skill with which she punished his neglect Avhcn they
met ill New York. lie had really come very near

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 321

forgetting the Leightons ; the intangible obligations
of mutual kindness which hold some men so fast,
hung loosely upon him ; it would not have hurt him
to break from them altogether ; but when he recog-
nised them at last, he found that it strengthened
them indefinitely to have Alma ignore them so com-
pletely. If she had been sentimental, or softly
reproachful, that would have been the end ; he could
not have stood it ; he would have had to drop her.
But when she met him on his own ground, and
obliged him to be sentimental, the game was in her
hands. Beaton laughed, now, when ho thought of
that, and he said to himself that the girl had grown
immensely since she had come to Xew York ; nothing
seemed to have been lost upon her ; she must have
kept her eyes uncommonly wide open. He noticed
that especially in their talks over her work ; she liad
profited by everything she had seen and heard ; she
had all of Wetmore's ideas pat ; it amused Beaton
to see how she seized every useful word that he
dropped, too, and turned him to technical account
whenever she could. He liked that ; she had a great
deal of talent ; there was no question of that ; if she
were a man there could be no question of her future.
He began to construct a future for her ; it included
provision for himself too ; it was a common future,
in which their lives and work were united.

He was full of the glow of its prosperity when he
met Margaret Yauce at the reception.

The house was one where people might chat a
long time together without publicly committing
14*

322 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

themselves to ;iii interest in eacli other except such
as grew out of each other's ideas. Miss Vance "was
there because she united in her catholic sympathies
or amhitions the ol)jccts of the fashionable people
and of the a3sthetic people who met there on common
ground. It was almost the only house in New York
where this happened often, and it did not happen
very often there. It was a literary house, primarily,
with artistic qv.alifications, and the frequenters of it
were mostly authors and artists ; "Wctmore, who
was always t:}ing to fit everything with a phrase,
said it was the imfrequenters who were fashionable.
There was groat case there, and simplicity ; and if
there was not di.stinction, it was not for want of
distinguished people, but because there seems to be
some solvent in New York life that reduces all men
to a common level, that touches everybody with its
potent magic and brings to the surface the deeply
underlying nobody. The effect for some tempera-
ments, for consciousness, for egotism, is admirable ;
for curiosity, for hero-Avorship, it is rather baffling.
It is the spirit of the street transferred to the draw-
ing-room ; indiscriminating, levelling, but doubtless
finally wholesome, and witnessing the immensity
of the place, if not consenting to the grandeur of
reputations or presences.

Beaton now denied that this house represented a
salon at all, in the old sense ; and he held that the
salon was impossible, even undesirable, with us,
when ]\Iis3 Vance sighed for it. At any rate, he
said that this turmoil of coming and going, this

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES, 323

bubble and babble, this cackling and hissing of con-
versation was not the expression of any such civilisa-
tion as had created the salon. Here, he owned, were
the elements of intellectual delightfulness, but he
said their assemblage in such quantity alone denied
the salon ; there was too much of a good thing.
The French word implied a long evening of general
talk among the guests, crowned with a little chicken
at supper, ending at cock-crow. Here was tea, with
milk or Avith lemon — baths of it — and claret cup for
the hardier spirits throughout the evening. It was
very nice, very pleasant, but it was not the little
chicken — not the salon. In fact, he affirmed, the
salon descended from above, out of the great world,
and included the esthetic Avorld in it. But our
great world — the rich people, Avere stupid, Avith no
Avish to be otherAvise ; they Avere not even curious
about authors and artists. Beaton fancied himself
speaking impartially, and so he alloAved himself to
speak bitterly ; he said that in no other city in the
Avorld, except Vienna, perhaps, were such people so
little a part of society.

"It isn't altogether the rich people's fault," said
Margaret; and she spoke impartiallj-, too. "I
don't believe that the literary men and the artists
Avould like a salon that descended to them. ]\Iadame
GeofTrin, you knoAV, Avas very plebeian ; her husband
Avas a business man of some sort."

"He AA'ould have been a hoAvling swell in New
York," said Beaton, still impartially.

Wctmore came up to their corner, Avith a scroll

324 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

of bread and butter in one hand and a cup of tea in
the other. Large and fat, and clean shaven, he
looked like a monk in evening dress.

"Wo were talking about salons," said Margaret.

" Why don't you open a saloon yourself 1 " asked
Wetmore, breathing thickly from the anxiety of
getting through the crowd without spilling his tea.

" Like poor Lady Barberina Lemon ? " said the
girl, with a laugh. " What a good story ! That
idea of a woman Avho couldn't be interested in any
of the arts because she was socially and traditionally
the material of them ! AVc can never reach that
height of nonchalance in this countr3\"

" Not if we tried seriousl}- ] " suggested the painter.
" I 'vc an idea that if the Americans ever gave their
minds to that sort of thing, they could take the
palm — or the cake, as Beaton here would say — just
as they do in everything else. When wc do have
an aristocracy, it will be an aristocracy that will go
ahead of anything the world has ever seen. Why
don't somebody make a beginning, and go in openl}'
for an ancestry, and a lower middle class, and an
hereditary legislature, and all the rest ? We 'vc got
liveries, and crests, and palaces, and caste feeling.
We 're all right as far as wc 've gone, and we 'vc got
the money to go any length."

" Like your natural-gas man, Mr. Beaton," said tiie
girl, with a smiling glance round at him.

" Ah ! " said Wetmore, stirring his tea, " has
Beaton got a natural-gas man 1 "

"My natural-gas man," said Beaton, ignoring

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 325

"Wetmore's question, "doesn't know how to live in
his palace yet, and I doubt if he has any caste feeling.
I fancy his family believe themselves victims of it.
They say — one of the young ladies does — that she
never saw such an unsociable place as New York ;
nobody calls."

" That 's good ! " said Wetmorc. " I suppose
they 're all ready for company too : good cook, furni-
ture, servants, carriages 1 "

"■ Galore," said Beaton.

" Well, that 's too bad. There 's a chance for you,
Miss Vance. Doesn't your pliilanthropy embrace the
socially destitute as well as the financially ? Just
think of a family like that, without a friend, in a
great city ! I should think common charity had a
duty there — not to mention the uncommon."

He distinguished that kind as Margaret's by a
glance of ironical deference. She had a repute for
good works which was out of proportion to the
works, as it always is, but she was really active in
that Avay, under the vague obligation, which we now
all feel, to be helpful. She was of the church which
seems to have found a reversion to the imposing
ritual of the past the way back to the early ideals of
Christian brotherhood.

"Oh, they seem to have Mr. Beaton," Margaret
answered, and Beaton felt obscurely flattered by her
reference to his patronage of the Dryfooses.

He explained to Wetmore, " They have me because
they partly own me. Dryfoos is Fulkerson's financial
backer in Every Other JFcek."

326 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

"Is tliat sol Well, that's interesting too. Aren't
you rather astonished, Miss Vance, to see what a
pretty thing Beaton is malcing of that magazine of
his 1 "

"Oh," said ^largaret, ''it's so very nice, every
Avay ; it makes you feel as if you did have a countiy,
after all. It 's as chic— that detestable little Avord I —
as those new French books."

" Beaton modelled it on them. But you mustn't
suppose he does everything about Every Other JFeeJ: ;
ho 'd like 3'ou to. Beaton, you haven't come up to
that cover of your first number, since. That Avas the
design of one of my pupils. Miss Vance — a little girl
that Beaton discovered down in New Hampshire last
summer."

" Oh yes. And have you great liopes of her, Mr,
AVetmore ? "

" She seems to have more love of it and knack for
it than any one of her sex I 'vc seen yet. It really
looks like a case of art for art's sake, at times. But
you can't tell. They 're liable to get married at any
moment, you know. Look here, Beaton, when your
natural-gas man gets to the ])icture-buying stage in
his development, just remember your old friends,
will you 1 You know, ]\Iiss Vance, those new fellows
have their regular stages. They never know what
to do with their money, but they find out that
people buy pictures, at one point. They shut your
things up in their houses where nobody comes ; and
after a while they overeat themselves — they don't
know Avhat else to do— and die of apoplexy, and

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 327

leave your pictures to a gallery, and then they see
tlie light. It 's slow, but it 's pretty sure. AVell, I
see Beaton isn't going to move on, as he ought to do ;
and so / must. He always teas an unconventional
creature."

Wetmore went away, but Beaton remained, and
he outstayed several other people who came up to
speak to JMiss Vance. She was interested in every-
body, and she liked the talk of these clever literary,
artistic, clerical, even theatrical people, and she liked
the sort of court with which they recognised her
fashion as Avell as her cleverness ; it was A'ery
pleasant to be treated intellectually as if she were
one of themselves, and socially as if she Avas not
habitually the same, but a sort of guest in Bohemia,
a distinguished stranger. If it Avas Arcadia rather
Ihan Bohemia, still she felt her quality of distin-
guished stranger. The flattery of it touched her
fancy, and not her vanity ; she had very little vanity.
Beaton's devotion made the same sort of ajjpeal ; it
was not so much that she liked him as she liked
being the object of his admiration. She was a girl
of genuine sympathies, intellectual rather than
sentimental. In fact she was an intellectual person,
Avhom equalities of the heart saved from being dis-
agreeable, as they saved her on the other hand from
being Avorldl}'' or cruel in her fashionableness. She
had read a great many books, and had ideas about
them, cpiite courageous and original ideas; she knew
about pictures — she had been in Wetmore 's class;
she Avas fond of music; she Avas Avilling to under-

328 A IIAZAKD OF NEW FORTUNES.

stand even politics ; in Boston she might have been
agnostic, but in New York she vas sincerely religious;
she "was very accomplished, and pcrhai)S it Avas her
goodness that prevented her feeling -what "was not
best in Beaton.

" Do you think," she said, after the retreat of one
of the comers and goers left her alone with him
again, " that those young ladies "would like mc to
call on them ] "

"Those young ladies?" Beaton echoed. "Miss
Leighton and "

*' No ; I have been there vith my aunt's cards
already."

"Oh yes," said Beaton, as if he had kno"wn of it;
lie admired the pluck and pride with which Alma
had refrained from ever mentioning the fact to him,
and had kept her mother from mentioning it, which
must have been difficult.

" I mean the ]\Iiss Dryfooses. It seems really
barbarous, if nobody goes near them. AVe do all
kinds of things, and help all kinds of people in some
ways, but we let strangers remain strangers unless
they know how to make their way among us."

" The Dryfooses certainly Avouldn't know how to
make their Avay among you," said Beaton, with a
sort of dreamy absence in his tone.

Miss Vance went on, speaking out the process of
reasoning in her mind, rather than any conclusions
she had reached. "We defend ourselves by trying
to believe that they must have friends of their own,
or that they would think us i)atronising, and

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 329

■wouldn't like being made the objects of social
charity ; but they needn't really suppose anything of
the kind."

" I don't imagine they Avould," said Beaton. " I
think they 'd be only too happy to have you come.
But you wouldn't know what to do with each other,
indeed, Miss Yance."

"Perhaps Ave shall like each other," said the girl
bravely, " and then we shall know. "What church
are they oil"

" I don't believe they 're of any," said Beaton.
" The mother Avas brought up a Dimkard."

" A Dunkard 1 "

Beaton told what he knew of the primitive sect,
with its early Christian polity, its literal interpretation
of Christ's ethics, and its quaint ceremonial of foot-
washing ; he made something picturesque of that.
"The father is a Mammon-worshipper, pure and
simple. I suppose the young ladies go to church,
but I don't know where. They haven't tried to con-
vert me."

" I '11 tell them not to despair — after I 've con-
verted them," said Miss Yance, " \Yill you let mo
use you as tx. point cVappid, Mr. Beaton 1 "

" Any way you like. If you 're really going to see
them, perhaps I 'd better make a confession. I left
your banjo with them, after I got it put in order."

" HoAV very nice ! Then we have a common in-
terest already."

"Do you mean the banjo, or 1 "

" The banjo, decidedly. Which of them plays ? "

330 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

" Neither. But tlie eldest heard tliat the hanjo
"Nvas * all the rage,' as the youngest says. Perhaps you
can persuade theni that good ■works are the rage too."

Beaton had no very lively belief that ]\Iargarct
would go to sec the Dryfooses ; he did so few of the
things he proposed that he -went upon the theory
that others must be as faithless. Still, he had a cruel
amusement in figuring the i)Ossi])le encounter between
Margaret Vance, ■with her intellectual elegance, her
eager s^-mpathies and generous ideals, and those
girls with their rude past, their false and distorted
perspective, their sordid and hungry selfishness, and
their faith in the omnipotence of their father's
wealth wounded by their experience of its present
social impotence. At the bottom of his heart he
sympathised with them rather than with her ; he
Avas more like them.

People had ccasrd coming, and some of them Avere
going. ]\Iiss Vance said she must go too, and she
Avas about to rise, Avhen the host came up with
IVIarch ; Beaton turned Siwuy.

" Miss Vance, I want to introduce !Mr. jMarch, the
editor of Every Other jrccl: You oughtn't to be
restricted to the art department. AVe literary fellows
think that arm of the service gets too much of the
glory noAvadays." His banter was for Beaton, but
he Avas already beyond car-shot, and the host went
on : " Mr. INIarch can talk Avitli you about your
favourite Boston. He 's just turned his back on it."

"Oh, I hope not!" said Miss Vance. "I can't
imagine anybody voluntarily leaving Boston."

A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. 331

" I don't say he 's so bad as that," said tlie host,
committing March to her. " He came to ISTew York
because he couldn't help it— like the rest of us. I
never know whether that 's a compliment to New
York or not."

They talked Boston a little while, without finding
that they had common acquaintance there ; Miss
Vance must have concluded that society was much
larger in Boston than she had supposed from her
visits there, or else that ]\Iarch did not know many
people in it. But she was not a girl to care much
for the inferences that might be drawn from such
conclusions ; she rather prided herself upon despising
them ; and she gave herself to the pleasure of being
talked to as if she Avere of March's own age. In the
glow of her sym})athetic beauty and elegance he
talked his best, and tried to amuse her Avith his jokes,
which he had the art of tingeing with a little serious-
ness on one side. He made her laugh ; and he flat-
tered her by making her think ; in her turn she
charmed him so much by enjoying what he said that
ho began to brag of his wife, as a good husband
always does when another woman charms him ; and
she asked. Oh, was ISIrs. ^March there ; and would ho
introduce her ?

She asked Mrs. March for her address, and
whether she had a day ; and she said she would
come to see her, if she would let her. Mrs. IMarch
could not be so enthusiastic about her as March
was, but as they walked home together they talked
the girl over, and agreed about her beauty and

332 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES.

her amiability. Mrs. March said she seemed very
unspoiled for a person who must have been so much
spoiled. They tried to analyse her charm, and they
succeeded iu formulating it as a combination of
intellectual fishionablcness and -worldly innocence.
"I think," said Mr.s, March, " that city girls, brought
up as she must have been, are often the most
innocent of all. They never imagine the •wickedness
of the world, and if they marry happily they go
through life as innocent as children. Everything
combines to keep them so ; the very hollowness of
society shields them. They are the loveliest of the
human race. But perhaps the rest have to pay too
much for them."

" For such an exquisite creature as Miss Vance,"
said March, "we couldn't pay too much."

A wild laughing cry suddenly broke upon the air
at the street-crossing in front of them. A girl's
voice called out, •' Eun, run, Jen ! The copper is
after you." A w^oman's figure rushed stumbling
across the way and into the shadow of the houses,
pursued by a burly policeman.

" Ah, but if that 's part of the price ? "

They went along fallen from the gay spirit of their
talk into a silence which he broke Avith a sigh.
" Can that poor wretch and the radiant girl we left
yonder really belong to the same system of things 1
How impossible each makes the other seem ! "

END OF VOL. I.

Date Due

AUG

5l36!i

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1

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