The Genius (49 page)

Eugene had never heard of any of these facts in connection with
the Summerfield Company. The idea had been flung at him so quickly
he had no time to think, and besides if he had had time it would
have made no difference. A little experience of life had taught him
as it teaches everyone else to mistrust rumor. He had applied for
the place on hearing and he was hoping to get it. At noon the day
following his visit to Mr. Baker Bates, the latter was speaking for
him to Mr. Summerfield, but only very casually.

"Say," he asked, quite apropos of nothing apparently, for they
were discussing the chances of his introducing his product into
South America, "do you ever have need of an art director over in
your place?"

"Occasionally," replied Summerfield guardedly, for his
impression was that Mr. Baker Bates knew very little of art
directors or anything else in connection with the art side of
advertising life. He might have heard of his present need and be
trying to palm off some friend of his, an incompetent, of course,
on him. "What makes you ask?"

"Why, Hudson Dula, the manager of the Triple Lithographic
Company, was telling me of a man who is connected with the
World
who might make a good one for you. I know something
of him. He painted some rather remarkable views of New York and
Paris here a few years ago. Dula tells me they were very good."

"Is he young?" interrupted Summerfield, calculating.

"Yes, comparatively. Thirty-one or two, I should say."

"And he wants to be an art director, does he. Where is he?"

"He's down on the
World
, and I understand he wants to
get out of there. I heard you say last year that you were looking
for a man, and I thought this might interest you."

"What's he doing down on the
World
?"

"He's been sick, I understand, and is just getting on his feet
again."

The explanation sounded sincere enough to Summerfield.

"What's his name?" he asked.

"Witla, Eugene Witla. He had an exhibition at one of the
galleries here a few years ago."

"I'm afraid of these regular high-brow artists," observed
Summerfield suspiciously. "They're usually so set up about their
art that there's no living with them. I have to have someone with
hard, practical sense in my work. Someone that isn't a plain damn
fool. He has to be a good manager—a good administrator, mere talent
for drawing won't do—though he has to have that, or know it when he
sees it. You might send this fellow around sometime if you know
him. I wouldn't mind looking at him. I may need a man pretty soon.
I'm thinking of making certain changes."

"If I see him I will," said Baker indifferently and dropped the
matter. Summerfield, however, for some psychological reason was
impressed with the name. Where had he heard it? Somewhere
apparently. Perhaps he had better find out something about him.

"If you send him you'd better give him a letter of
introduction," he added thoughtfully, before Bates should have
forgotten the matter. "So many people try to get in to see me, and
I may forget."

Baker knew at once that Summerfield wished to look at Witla. He
dictated a letter of introduction that afternoon to his
stenographer and mailed it to Eugene.

"I find Mr. Summerfield apparently disposed to see you," he
wrote. "You had better go and see him if you are interested.
Present this letter. Very truly yours."

Eugene looked at it with astonishment and a sense of
foregoneness so far as what was to follow. Fate was fixing this for
him. He was going to get it. How strange life was! Here he was down
on the
World
working for fifty dollars a week, and
suddenly an art directorship, a thing he had thought of for years,
was coming to him out of nowhere! Then he decided to telephone Mr.
Daniel Summerfield, saying that he had a letter from Mr. Baker
Bates and asking when he could see him. Later he decided to waste
no time, but to present the letter direct without phoning. At three
in the afternoon he received permission from Benedict to be away
from the office between three and five, and at three-thirty he was
in the anteroom of the general offices of the Summerfield
Advertising Company, waiting for a much desired permission to
enter.

When Eugene called, Mr. Daniel C. Summerfield was in no great
rush about any particular matter, but he had decided in this case
as he had in many others that it was very important that anyone who
wanted anything from him should be made to wait. Eugene was made to
wait a solid hour before he was informed by an underling that he
was very sorry but that other matters had so detained Mr.
Summerfield that it was now impossible for him to see him at all
this day, but that tomorrow at twelve he would be glad to see him.
Eugene was finally admitted on the morrow, however, and then, at
the first glance, Mr. Summerfield liked him. "A man of
intelligence," he thought, as he leaned back in his chair and
stared at him. "A man of force. Young still, wide-eyed, quick,
clean looking. Perhaps I have found someone in this man who will
make a good art director." He smiled, for Summerfield was always
good-natured in his opening relationships—usually so in all of
them, and took most people (his employees and prospective employees
particularly) with an air of superior but genial condescension.

"Sit down! Sit down!" he exclaimed cheerfully and Eugene did so,
looking about at the handsomely decorated walls, the floor which
was laid with a wide, soft, light brown rug, and the mahogany desk,
flat-topped, glass covered, on which lay handsome ornaments of
silver, ivory and bronze. This man looked so keen, so dynamic, like
a polished Japanese carving, hard and smooth.

"Now tell me all about yourself," began Summerfield. "Where do
you come from? Who are you? What have you done?"

"Hold! Hold!" said Eugene easily and tolerantly. "Not so fast.
My history isn't so much. The short and simple annals of the poor.
I'll tell you in two or three sentences."

Summerfield was a little taken back at this abruptness which was
generated by his own attitude; still he liked it. This was
something new to him. His applicant wasn't frightened or apparently
even nervous so far as he could judge. "He is droll," he thought,
"sufficiently so—a man who has seen a number of things evidently.
He is easy in manner, too, and kindly."

"Well," he said smilingly, for Eugene's slowness appealed to
him. His humor was something new in art directors. So far as he
could recall, his predecessors had never had any to speak of.

"Well, I'm an artist," said Eugene, "working on the
World
. Let's hope that don't militate against me very
much."

"It don't," said Summerfield.

"And I want to become an art director because I think I'd make a
good one."

"Why?" asked Summerfield, his even teeth showing amiably.

"Well, because I like to manage men, or I think I do. And they
take to me."

"You know that?"

"I do. In the next place I know too much about art to want to do
the little things that I'm doing. I can do bigger things."

"I like that also," applauded Summerfield. He was thinking that
Eugene was nice and good looking, a little pale and thin to be
wholly forceful, perhaps, he wasn't sure. His hair a little too
long. His manner, perhaps, a bit too deliberate. Still he was nice.
Why did he wear a soft hat? Why did artists always insist on
wearing soft hats, most of them? It was so ridiculous, so
unbusinesslike.

"How much do you get?" he added, "if it's a fair question."

"Less than I'm worth," said Eugene. "Only fifty dollars. But I
took it as a sort of health cure. I had a nervous breakdown several
years ago—better now, as Mulvaney used to say—and I don't want to
stay at that. I'm an art director by temperament, or I think I am.
Anyhow, here I am."

"You mean," said Summerfield, "you never ran an art department
before?"

"Never."

"Know anything about advertising?"

"I used to think so."

"How long ago was that?"

"When I worked on the Alexandria, Illinois,
Daily
Appeal
."

Summerfield smiled. He couldn't help it.

"That's almost as important as the Wickham
Union
, I
fancy. It sounds as if it might have the same wide influence."

"Oh, much more, much more," returned Eugene quietly. "The
Alexandria
Appeal
had the largest exclusively country
circulation of any county south of the Sangamon."

"I see! I see!" replied Summerfield good-humoredly. "It's all
day with the Wickham
Union
. Well, how was it you came to
change your mind?"

"Well, I got a few years older for one thing," said Eugene. "And
then I decided that I was cut out to be the greatest living artist,
and then I came to New York, and in the excitement I almost lost
the idea."

"I see."

"But I have it again, thank heaven, tied up back of the house,
and here I am."

"Well, Witla, to tell you the truth you don't look like a real
live, every day, sure-enough art director, but you might make good.
You're not quite art-y enough according to the standards that
prevail around this office. Still I might be willing to take one
gosh-awful chance. I suppose if I do I'll get stung as usual, but
I've been stung so often that I ought to be used to it by now. I
feel sort of spotted at times from the hornets I've hired in the
past. But, be that as it may, what do you think you could do with a
real live art directorship if you had it?"

Eugene mused. This persiflage entertained him. He thought
Summerfield would hire him now that they were together.

"Oh, I'd draw my salary first and then I'd see that I had the
proper system of approach so that any one who came to see me would
think I was the King of England, and then I'd——"

"I was really busy yesterday," interpolated Summerfield
apologetically.

"I'm satisfied of that," replied Eugene gaily. "And finally I
might condescend, if I were coaxed enough, to do a little
work."

This speech at once irritated and amused Mr. Summerfield. He
liked a man of spirit. You could do something with someone who
wasn't afraid, even if he didn't know so much to begin with. And
Eugene knew a good deal, he fancied. Besides, his talk was
precisely in his own sarcastic, semi-humorous vein. Coming from
Eugene it did not sound so hard as it would have coming from
himself, but it had his own gay, bantering attitude of mind in it.
He believed Eugene could make good. He wanted to try him,
instanter, anyhow.

"Well, I'll tell you what, Witla," he finally observed. "I don't
know whether you can run this thing or not—the probabilities are
all against you as I have said, but you seem to have some ideas or
what might be made some under my direction, and I think I'll give
you a chance. Mind you, I haven't much confidence. My personal
likes usually prove very fatal to me. Still, you're here, and I
like your looks and I haven't seen anyone else, and so——"

"Thanks," said Eugene.

"Don't thank me. You have a hard job ahead of you if I take you.
It's no child's play. You'd better come with me first and look over
the place," and he led the way out into the great central room
where, because it was still noon time, there were few people
working, but where one could see just how imposing this business
really was.

"Seventy-two stenographers, book-keepers, canvassers and writers
and trade-aid people at their desks," he observed with an easy wave
of his hand, and moved on into the art department, which was in
another wing of the building where a north and east light could be
secured. "Here's where you come in," he observed, throwing open the
door where thirty-two artists' desks and easels were ranged. Eugene
was astonished.

"You don't employ that many, do you?" he asked interestedly.
Most of the men were out to lunch.

"From twenty to twenty-five all the time, sometimes more," he
said. "Some on the outside. It depends on the condition of
business."

"And how much do you pay them, as a rule?"

"Well, that depends. I think I'll give you seventy-five dollars
a week to begin with, if we come to an understanding. If you make
good I'll make it a hundred dollars a week inside of three months.
It all depends. The others we don't pay so much. The business
manager can tell you."

Eugene noticed the evasion. His eyes narrowed. Still there was a
good chance here. Seventy-five dollars was considerably better than
fifty and it might lead to more. He would be his own boss—a man of
some consequence. He could not help stiffening with pride a little
as he looked at the room which Summerfield pointed out to him as
his own if he came—a room where a large, highly polished oak desk
was placed and where some of the Summerfield Advertising Company's
art products were hung on the walls. There was a nice rug on the
floor and some leather-backed chairs.

"Here's where you will be if you come here," said
Summerfield.

Eugene gazed round. Certainly life was looking up. How was he to
get this place? On what did it depend? His mind was running forward
to various improvements in his affairs, a better apartment for
Angela, better clothes for her, more entertainment for both of
them, freedom from worry over the future; for a little bank account
would soon result from a place like this.

"Do you do much business a year?" Eugene asked curiously.

"Oh, about two million dollars' worth."

"And you have to make drawings for every ad?"

"Exactly, not one but six or eight sometimes. It depends upon
the ability of the art director. If he does his work right I save
money."

Eugene saw the point.

"What became of the other man?" he asked, noting the name of
Older Freeman on the door.

"Oh, he quit," said Summerville, "or rather he saw what was
coming and got out of the way. He was no good. He was too weak. He
was turning out work here which was a joke—some things had to be
done over eight and nine times."

Eugene discovered the wrath and difficulties and opposition
which went with this. Summerfield was a hard man, plainly. He might
smile and joke now, but anyone who took that chair would hear from
him constantly. For a moment Eugene felt as though he could not do
it, as though he had better not try it, and then he thought, "Why
shouldn't I? It can't hurt me. If worst comes to worst, I have my
art to fall back on."

"Well, so it goes," he said. "If I don't make good, the door for
mine, I suppose?"

"No, no, nothing so easy," chuckled Summerfield; "the coal
chute."

Eugene noticed that he champed his teeth like a nervous horse,
and that he seemed fairly to radiate waves of energy. For himself
he winced the least bit. This was a grim, fighting atmosphere he
was coming into. He would have to fight for his life here—no doubt
of that.

"Now," said Summerfield, when they were strolling back to his
own office. "I'll tell you what you might do. I have two
propositions, one from the Sand Perfume Company and another from
the American Crystal Sugar Refining Company which may mean big
contracts for me if I can present them the right line of ideas for
advertising. They want to advertise. The Sand Company wants
suggestions for bottles, labels, car ads, newspaper ads, posters,
and so on. The American Crystal Company wants to sell its sugar in
small packages, powdered, grained, cubed, hexagoned. We want
package forms, labels, posters ads, and so on for that. It's a
question of how much novelty, simplicity and force we can put in
the smallest possible space. Now I depend upon my art director to
tell me something about these things. I don't expect him to do
everything. I'm here and I'll help him. I have men in the trade aid
department out there who are wonders at making suggestions along
this line, but the art director is supposed to help. He's the man
who is supposed to have the taste and can execute the proposition
in its last form. Now suppose you take these two ideas and see what
you can do with them. Bring me some suggestions. If they suit me
and I think you have the right note, I'll hire you. If not, well
then I won't, and no harm done. Is that all right?"

"That's all right," said Eugene.

Mr. Summerfield handed him a bundle of papers, catalogues,
prospectuses, communications. "You can look these over if you want
to. Take them along and then bring them back."

Eugene rose.

"I'd like to have two or three days for this," he said. "It's a
new proposition to me. I think I can give you some ideas—I'm not
sure. Anyhow, I'd like to try."

"Go ahead! Go ahead!" said Summerfield, "the more the merrier.
And I'll see you any time you're ready. I have a man out
there—Freeman's assistant—who's running things for me temporarily.
Here's luck," and he waved his hand indifferently.

Eugene went out. Was there ever such a man, so hard, so cold, so
practical! It was a new note to him. He was simply astonished,
largely because he was inexperienced. He had not yet gone up
against the business world as those who try to do anything in a big
way commercially must. This man was getting on his nerves already,
making him feel that he had a tremendous problem before him, making
him think that the quiet realms of art were merely the backwaters
of oblivion. Those who did anything, who were out in the front row
of effort, were fighters such as this man was, raw products of the
soil, ruthless, superior, indifferent. If only he could be that
way, he thought. If he could be strong, defiant, commanding, what a
thing it would be. Not to wince, not to quail, but to stand up
firm, square to the world and make people obey. Oh, what a splendid
vision of empire was here before him.