Hazard of New Fortunes - Volume 3 , livre ebook

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42 pages

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. The scheme of a banquet to celebrate the initial success of 'Every Other Week' expanded in Fulkerson's fancy into a series. Instead of the publishing and editorial force, with certain of the more representative artists and authors sitting down to a modest supper in Mrs. Leighton's parlors, 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 departure in magazines; it amounted to something in literature as radical as the American Revolution in politics: it was 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. Depew could be got to come; Mark Twain, he was sure, would come; he was a literary man

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819947905
Langue	English

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PART THIRD
I.
The scheme of a banquet to celebrate the initialsuccess of 'Every Other Week' expanded in Fulkerson's fancy into aseries. Instead of the publishing and editorial force, with certainof the more representative artists and authors sitting down to amodest supper in Mrs. Leighton's parlors, he conceived of a dinnerat Delmonico's, with the principal literary and artistic, peoplethroughout the country as guests, and an inexhaustible hospitalityto reporters and correspondents, from whom paragraphs, propheticand historic, would flow weeks before and after the first of theseries. He said the thing was a new departure in magazines; itamounted to something in literature as radical as the AmericanRevolution in politics: it was the idea of self government in thearts; and it was this idea that had never yet been fully developedin regard to it. That was what must be done in the speeches at thedinner, and the speeches must be reported. Then it would go likewildfire. He asked March whether he thought Mr. Depew could be gotto come; Mark Twain, he was sure, would come; he was a literaryman. They ought to invite Mr. Evarts, and the Cardinal and theleading Protestant divines. His ambition stopped at nothing,nothing but the question of expense; there he had to wait thereturn of the elder Dryfoos from the West, and Dryfoos was stilldelayed at Moffitt, and Fulkerson openly confessed that he wasafraid he would stay there till his own enthusiasm escaped in otheractivities, other plans.
Fulkerson was as little likely as possible to fallunder a superstitious subjection to another man; but March couldnot help seeing that in this possible measure Dryfoos wasFulkerson's fetish. He did not revere him, March decided, becauseit was not in Fulkerson's nature to revere anything; he could likeand dislike, but he could not respect. Apparently, however, Dryfoosdaunted him somehow; and besides the homage which those who havenot pay to those who have, Fulkerson rendered Dryfoos the tributeof a feeling which March could only define as a sort ofbewilderment. As well as March could make out, this feeling wasevoked by the spectacle of Dryfoos's unfailing luck, whichFulkerson was fond of dazzling himself with. It perfectly consistedwith a keen sense of whatever was sordid and selfish in a man onwhom his career must have had its inevitable effect. He liked tophilosophize the case with March, to recall Dryfoos as he was whenhe first met him still somewhat in the sap, at Moffitt, and tostudy the processes by which he imagined him to have dried into thehardened speculator, without even the pretence to any advantage buthis own in his ventures. He was aware of painting the character toovividly, and he warned March not to accept it exactly in thosetints, but to subdue them and shade it for himself. He said thatwhere his advantage was not concerned, there was ever so much goodin Dryfoos, and that if in some things he had grown inflexible, hehad expanded in others to the full measure of the vast scale onwhich he did business. It had seemed a little odd to March that aman should put money into such an enterprise as 'Every Other Week'and go off about other affairs, not only without any sign ofanxiety, but without any sort of interest. But Fulkerson said thatwas the splendid side of Dryfoos. He had a courage, a magnanimity,that was equal to the strain of any such uncertainty. He had facedthe music once for all, when he asked Fulkerson what the thingwould cost in the different degrees of potential failure; and thenhe had gone off, leaving everything to Fulkerson and the youngerDryfoos, with the instruction simply to go ahead and not bother himabout it. Fulkerson called that pretty tall for an old fellow whoused to bewail the want of pigs and chickens to occupy his mind. Healleged it as another proof of the versatility of the Americanmind, and of the grandeur of institutions and opportunities thatlet every man grow to his full size, so that any man in Americacould run the concern if necessary. He believed that old Dryfooscould step into Bismarck's shoes and run the German Empire at tendays' notice, or about as long as it would take him to go from NewYork to Berlin. But Bismarck would not know anything aboutDryfoos's plans till Dryfoos got ready to show his hand. Fulkersonhimself did not pretend to say what the old man had been up tosince he went West. He was at Moffitt first, and then he was atChicago, and then he had gone out to Denver to look after somemines he had out there, and a railroad or two; and now he was atMoffitt again. He was supposed to be closing up his affairs there,but nobody could say.
Fulkerson told March the morning after Dryfoosreturned that he had not only not pulled out at Moffitt, but hadgone in deeper, ten times deeper than ever. He was in a royalgood-humor, Fulkerson reported, and was going to drop into theoffice on his way up from the Street (March understood Wall Street)that afternoon. He was tickled to death with 'Every Other Week' sofar as it had gone, and was anxious to pay his respects to theeditor.
March accounted for some rhetoric in this, but letit flatter him, and prepared himself for a meeting about which hecould see that Fulkerson was only less nervous than he had shownhimself about the public reception of the first number. It gaveMarch a disagreeable feeling of being owned and of being about tobe inspected by his proprietor; but he fell back upon suchindependence as he could find in the thought of those two thousanddollars of income beyond the caprice of his owner, and maintainedan outward serenity.
He was a little ashamed afterward of the resolutionit had cost him to do so. It was not a question of Dryfoos'sphysical presence: that was rather effective than otherwise, andcarried a suggestion of moneyed indifference to convention in thegray business suit of provincial cut, and the low, wide-brimmed hatof flexible black felt. He had a stick with an old-fashioned top ofbuckhorn worn smooth and bright by the palm of his hand, which hadnot lost its character in fat, and which had a history of formerwork in its enlarged knuckles, though it was now as soft asMarch's, and must once have been small even for a man of Mr.Dryfoos's stature; he was below the average size. But what struckMarch was the fact that Dryfoos seemed furtively conscious of beinga country person, and of being aware that in their meeting he wasto be tried by other tests than those which would have availed himas a shrewd speculator. He evidently had some curiosity aboutMarch, as the first of his kind whom he bad encountered; some suchcuriosity as the country school trustee feels and tries to hide inthe presence of the new schoolmaster. But the whole affair was, ofcourse, on a higher plane; on one side Dryfoos was much more a manof the world than March was, and he probably divined this at once,and rested himself upon the fact in a measure. It seemed to be hispreference that his son should introduce them, for he came upstairswith Conrad, and they had fairly made acquaintance before Fulkersonjoined them.
Conrad offered to leave them at once, but his fathermade him stay. “I reckon Mr. March and I haven't got anything soprivate to talk about that we want to keep it from the otherpartners. Well, Mr. March, are you getting used to New York yet? Ittakes a little time. ”
“Oh yes. But not so much time as most places.Everybody belongs more or less in New York; nobody has to belonghere altogether. ”
“Yes, that is so. You can try it, and go away if youdon't like it a good deal easier than you could from a smallerplace. Wouldn't make so much talk, would it? ” He glanced at Marchwith a jocose light in his shrewd eyes. “That is the way I feelabout it all the time: just visiting. Now, it wouldn't be that wayin Boston, I reckon? ”
“You couldn't keep on visiting there your wholelife, ” said March.
Dryfoos laughed, showing his lower teeth in a waythat was at once simple and fierce. “Mr. Fulkerson didn't hardlyknow as he could get you to leave. I suppose you got used to itthere. 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 Bostonian. ”
“She's been a little homesick here, then, ” saidDryfoos, with a smile of the same quality as his laugh.
“Less than I expected, ” said March. “Of course, shewas 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 lip with a sharp sigh. “Butmy girls like it; they're young. You never been out our way yet,Mr. March? Out West? ”
“Well, only for the purpose of being born, andbrought up. I used to live in Crawfordsville, and thenIndianapolis. ”
“Indianapolis is bound to be a great place, ” saidDryfoos. “I remember now, Mr. Fulkerson told me you was from ourState. ” He went on to brag of the West, as if March were anEasterner and had to be convinced. “You ought to see all thatcountry. It's a great country. ”
“Oh yes, ” said March, “I understand that. ” Heexpected the praise of the great West to lead up to some comment on'Every Other Week'; and there was abundant suggestion of that topicin the manuscripts, proofs of letter-press and illustrations, withadvance copies of the latest number strewn over his table.
But Dryfoos apparently kept himself from looking atthese things. He rolled his head about on his shoulders to take inthe character of the room, and said to his son, “You didn't changethe woodwork, after all. ”
“No; the architect thought we had better let it be,unless we meant to change the whole place. He liked its beingold-fashioned. ”
“I hope you feel comfortable here, Mr. March, ” theold man said, bringing his eyes to bear upon him again after theirtour of inspection.
“Too comfortable for a working-man, ” said March,and he thought that this remark must bring them to some talk abouthis work, but the proprietor only smiled again.
“I guess I sha'n't lose much on this h