The Genius (56 page)

"It's a great institution," said Eugene finally, on reaching the
president's office again. "I'll begin now and see what I can
do."

"Good luck, my boy. Good luck!" said Colfax loudly. "I'm laying
great stress on what you're going to do, you know."

"Don't lean too hard," returned Eugene. "Remember, I'm just one
in a great organization."

"I know, I know, but
the one
is all I need up
there—
the one
, see?"

"Yes, yes," laughed Eugene, "cheer up. We'll be able to do a
little something, I'm sure."

"A great man, that," Colfax declared to White as he went away.
"The real stuff in that fellow, no flinching there you notice. He
knows how to think. Now, Florrie, unless I miss my guess you and I
are going to get somewhere with this thing."

White smiled gloomily, almost cynically. He was not so sure.
Eugene was pretty good, but he was obviously too independent, too
artistic, to be really stable and dependable. He would never run to
him for advice, but he would probably make mistakes. He might lose
his head. What must he do to offset this new invasion of authority?
Discredit him? Certainly. But he needn't worry about that. Eugene
would do something. He would make mistakes of some kind. He felt
sure of it. He was almost positive of it.

The opening days of this their second return to New York were a
period of great joy to Angela. Unlike that first time when she was
returning after seven months of loneliness and unhappiness to a
sick husband and a gloomy outlook, she was now looking forward to
what, in spite of her previous doubts, was a glorious career of
dignity, prosperity and abundance. Eugene was such an important man
now. His career was so well marked and in a way almost certified.
They had a good bit of money in the bank. Their investments in
stocks, on which they obtained a uniform rate of interest of about
seven per cent., aggregated $30,000. They had two lots, two hundred
by two hundred, in Montclair, which were said to be slowly
increasing in value and which Eugene now estimated to be worth
about six thousand. He was talking about investing what additional
money he might save in stocks bearing better interest or some sound
commercial venture. When the proper time came, a little later, he
might even abandon the publishing field entirely and renew his
interest in art. He was certainly getting near the possibility of
this.

The place which they selected for their residence in New York
was in a new and very sumptuous studio apartment building on
Riverside Drive near Seventy-ninth Street, where Eugene had long
fancied he would like to live. This famous thoroughfare and show
place with its restricted park atmosphere, its magnificent and
commanding view of the lordly Hudson, its wondrous woods of color
and magnificent sunsets had long taken his eye. When he had first
come to New York it had been his delight to stroll here watching
the stream of fashionable equipages pour out towards Grant's Tomb
and return. He had sat on a park bench many an afternoon at this
very spot or farther up, and watched the gay company of horsemen
and horsewomen riding cheerfully by, nodding to their social
acquaintances, speaking to the park keepers and road scavengers in
a condescending and superior way, taking their leisure in a
comfortable fashion and looking idly at the river. It seemed a
wonderful world to him at that time. Only millionaires could afford
to live there, he thought—so ignorant was he of the financial
tricks of the world. These handsomely garbed men in riding coats
and breeches; the chic looking girls in stiff black hats, trailing
black riding skirts, yellow gloved, and sporting short whips which
looked more like dainty canes than anything else, took his fancy
greatly. It was his idea at that time that this was almost the apex
of social glory—to be permitted to ride here of an afternoon.

Since then he had come a long way and learned a great deal, but
he still fancied this street as one of the few perfect expressions
of the elegance and luxury of metropolitan life, and he wanted to
live on it. Angela was given authority, after discussion, to see
what she could find in the way of an apartment of say nine or
eleven rooms with two baths or more, which should not cost more
than three thousand or three thousand five hundred. As a matter of
fact, a very handsome apartment of nine rooms and two baths
including a studio room eighteen feet high, forty feet long and
twenty-two feet wide was found at the now, to them, comparatively
moderate sum of three thousand two hundred. The chambers were
beautifully finished in old English oak carved and stained after a
very pleasing fifteenth century model, and the walls were left to
the discretion of the incoming tenant. Whatever was desired in the
way of tapestries, silks or other wall furnishing would be
supplied.

Eugene chose green-brown tapestries representing old Rhine
Castles for his studio, and blue and brown silks for his wall
furnishings elsewhere. He now realized a long cherished dream of
having the great wooden cross of brown stained oak, ornamented with
a figure of the bleeding Christ, which he set in a dark shaded
corner behind two immense wax candles set in tall heavy bronze
candlesticks, the size of small bed posts. These when lighted in an
otherwise darkened room and flickering ruefully, cast a peculiar
spell of beauty over the gay throngs which sometimes assembled
here. A grand piano in old English oak occupied one corner, a
magnificent music cabinet in French burnt woodwork, stood near by.
There were a number of carved and fluted high back chairs, a carved
easel with one of his best pictures displayed, a black marble
pedestal bearing a yellow stained marble bust of Nero, with his
lascivious, degenerate face, scowling grimly at the world, and two
gold plated candelabra of eleven branches each hung upon the north
wall.

Two wide, tall windows with storm sashes, which reached from the
floor to the ceiling, commanded the West view of the Hudson.
Outside one was a small stone balcony wide enough to accommodate
four chairs, which gave a beautiful, cool view of the drive. It was
shielded by an awning in summer and was nine storeys above the
ground. Over the water of the more or less peaceful stream were the
stacks and outlines of a great factory, and in the roadstead lay
boats always, war vessels, tramp freighters, sail boats, and up and
down passed the endless traffic of small craft always so pleasant
to look upon in fair or foul weather. It was a beautiful apartment,
beautifully finished in which most of their furniture, brought from
Philadelphia, fitted admirably. It was here that at last they
settled down to enjoy the fruit of that long struggle and
comparative victory which brought them so near their much desired
goal—an indestructible and unchangeable competence which no winds
of ill fortune could readily destroy.

Eugene was quite beside himself with joy and satisfaction at
thus finding himself and Angela eventually surrounded by those
tokens of luxury, comfort and distinction which had so long haunted
his brain. Most of us go through life with the furniture of our
prospective castle well outlined in mind, but with never the
privilege of seeing it realized. We have our pictures, our
hangings, our servitors well and ably selected. Eugene's were real
at last.

The affairs of the United Magazines Corporation, so far as the
advertising, commercial and manufacturing ends at least were
concerned, were not in such an unfortunate condition by any means
as to preclude their being quickly restored by tact, good business
judgment and hard work. Since the accession to power of Florence
White in the commercial and financial ends, things in that quarter
at least had slowly begun to take a turn for the better. Although
he had no judgment whatsoever as to what constituted a timely
article, an important book or a saleable art feature, he had that
peculiar intuition for right methods of manufacture, right buying
and right selling of stock, right handling of labor from the cost
and efficiency point of view, which made him a power to be reckoned
with. He knew a good manufacturing man to employ at sight. He knew
where books could be sold and how. He knew how to buy paper in
large quantities and at the cheapest rates, and how to print and
manufacture at a cost which was as low as could possibly be
figured. All waste was eliminated. He used his machines to their
utmost capacity, via a series of schedules which saved an immense
amount of waste and demanded the least possible help. He was
constantly having trouble with the labor unions on this score, for
they objected to a policy which cut out duplication of effort and
so eliminated their men. He was an iron master, however, coarse,
brutal, foul when dealing with them, and they feared and respected
him.

In the advertising end of the business things had been going
rather badly, for the reason that the magazines for which this
department was supposed to get business had not been doing so well
editorially. They were out of touch with the times to a certain
extent—not in advance of the feelings and emotions of the period,
and so the public was beginning to be inclined to look elsewhere
for its mental pabulum. They had had great circulation and great
prestige. That was when they were younger, and the original
publishers and editors in their prime. Since then days of
weariness, indifference and confusion had ensued. Only with the
accession of Colfax to power had hope begun to return. As has been
said, he was looking for strong men in every quarter of this field,
but in particular he was looking for one man who would tell him how
to govern them after he had them. Who was to dream out the things
which would interest the public in each particular magazine
proposition? Who was to draw great and successful authors to the
book end of the house? Who was to inspire the men who were
directing the various departments with the spirit which would bring
public interest and success? Eugene might be the man eventually he
hoped, but how soon? He was anxious to hurry his progress now that
he had him.

It was not long after Eugene was seated in his advertising
managerial chair that he saw how things lay. His men, when he
gathered them in conference, complained that they were fighting
against falling circulations.

"You can talk all you want, Mr. Witla," said one of his men
gloomily, "but circulation and circulation only is the answer. They
have to keep up the magazines here. All these manufacturers know
when they get results. We go out and get new business all the time,
but we don't keep it. We can't keep it. The magazines don't bring
results. What are you going to do about that?"

"I'll tell you what we are going to do," replied Eugene calmly,
"we're going to key up the magazines. I understand that a number of
changes are coming in that direction. They are doing better
already. The manufacturing department, for one thing, is in
splendid shape. I know that. In a short time the editorial
departments will be. I want you people to put up, at this time, the
best fight you know how under the conditions as they are. I'm not
going to make any changes here if I can help it. I'm going to show
you how it can be done—each one separately. I want you to believe
that we have the greatest organization in the world, and it can be
made to sweep everything before it. Take a look at Mr. Colfax. Do
you think he is ever going to fail? We may, but he won't."

The men liked Eugene's manner and confidence. They liked his
faith in them, and it was not more than ten days before he had won
their confidence completely. He took home to the hotel where he and
Angela were stopping temporarily all the magazines, and examined
them carefully. He took home a number of the latest books issued,
and asked Angela to read them. He tried to think just what it was
each magazine should represent, and who and where was the man who
would give to each its proper life and vigor. At once, for the
adventure magazine, he thought of a man whom he had met years
before who had since been making a good deal of a success editing a
Sunday newspaper magazine supplement, Jack Bezenah. He had started
out to be a radical writer, but had tamed down and become a most
efficient newspaper man. Eugene had met him several times in the
last few years and each time had been impressed by the force and
subtlety of his judgment of life. Once he had said to him, "Jack,
you ought to be editing a magazine of your own."

"I will be, I will be," returned that worthy. Now as he looked
at this particular proposition Bezenah stuck in his mind as the man
who should be employed. He had seen the present editor, but he
seemed to have no force at all.

The weekly needed a man like Townsend Miller—where would he find
him? The present man's ideas were interesting but not sufficiently
general in their appeal. Eugene went about among the various
editors looking at them, ostensibly making their acquaintance, but
he was not satisfied with any one of them.

He waited to see that his own department was not needing any
vast effort on his part before he said to Colfax one day:

"Things are not right with your editorial department. I've
looked into my particular job to see that there is nothing so
radically behindhand there but what it can be remedied, but your
magazines are not right. I wish, aside from salary proposition
entirely, that you would let me begin to make a few changes. You
haven't the right sort of people upstairs. I'll try not to move too
fast, but you couldn't be worse off than you are now in some
instances."

"I know it!" said Colfax. "I know it! What do you suggest?"

"Simply better men, that's all," replied Eugene. "Better men
with newer ideas. It may cost you a little more money at present,
but it will bring you more back in the long run."

"You're right! You're right!" insisted Colfax enthusiastically.
"I've been waiting for someone whose judgment I thought was worth
two whoops to come and tell me that for a long time. So far as I'm
concerned you can take charge right now! The salary that I promised
you goes with it. I want to tell you something, though! I want to
tell you something! You're going in there now with full authority,
but don't you fall or stub your toe or get sick or make any
mistakes. If you do, God help you! if you do, I'll eat you alive!
I'm a good employer, Witla. I'll pay any price for good men, within
reason, but if I think I'm being done, or made a fool of, or a man
is making a mistake, then there's no mercy in me—not a single bit.
I'm a plain, everyday blank, blank, blank" (and he used a term so
foul that it would not bear repetition in print), "and that's all
there is to me. Now we understand each other."

Eugene looked at the man in astonishment. There was a hard, cold
gleam in his blue eyes which he had seen there before. His presence
was electric—his look demoniac.

"I've had a remark somewhat of that nature made to me before,"
commented Eugene. He was thinking of Summerfield's "the coal shute
for yours." He had hardly expected to hear so cold and definite a
proposition laid down so soon after his entry upon his new duties,
but here it was, and he had to face it. He was sorry for the moment
that he had ever left Kalvin.

"I'm not at all afraid of responsibility," replied Eugene
grimly. "I'm not going to fall down or stub my toe or make any
mistakes if I can help it. And if I do I won't complain to
you."

"Well, I'm only telling you," said Colfax, smiling and
good-natured again. The cold light was gone. "And I mean it in the
best way in the world. I'll back you up with all power and
authority, but if you fail, God help you; I can't."

He went back to his desk and Eugene went upstairs. He felt as
though the red cap of a cardinal had been put upon his head, and at
the same time an axe suspended over him. He would have to think
carefully of what he was doing from now on. He would have to go
slow, but he would have to go. All power had been given him—all
authority. He could go upstairs now and discharge everybody in the
place. Colfax would back him up, but he would have to replace them.
And that quickly and effectively. It was a trying hour, notable but
grim.

His first move was to send for Bezenah. He had not seen him for
some time, but his stationery which he now had headed "The United
Magazines Corporation," and in one corner "Office of the Managing
Publisher," brought him fast enough. It was a daring thing to do in
a way thus to style himself managing publisher, when so many able
men were concerned in the work, but this fact did not disturb him.
He was bound and determined to begin, and this stationery—the mere
engraving of it—was as good a way as any of serving notice that he
was in the saddle. The news flew like wild fire about the building,
for there were many in his office, even his private stenographer,
to carry the news. All the editors and assistants wondered what it
could mean, but they asked no questions, except among themselves.
No general announcement had been made. On the same stationery he
sent for Adolph Morgenbau, who had exhibited marked skill at
Summerfield's as his assistant, and who had since become art editor
of
The Sphere
, a magazine of rising importance. He thought
that Morgenbau might now be fitted to handle the art work under
him, and he was not mistaken. Morgenbau had developed into a man of
considerable force and intelligence, and was only too glad to be
connected with Eugene again. He also talked with various
advertising men, artists and writers as to just who were the most
live editorial men in the field at that time, and these he wrote
to, asking if they would come to see him. One by one they came, for
the fact that he had come to New York to take charge not only of
the advertising but the editorial ends of the United Magazines
Corporation spread rapidly over the city. All those interested in
art, writing, editing and advertising heard of it. Those who had
known something of him in the past could scarcely believe their
ears. Where did he get the skill?

Eugene stated to Colfax that he deemed it advisable that a
general announcement be made to the staff that he was in charge. "I
have been looking about," he said, "and I think I know what I want
to do."

The various editors, art directors, advertising men and book
workers were called to the main office and Colfax announced that he
wished to make a statement which affected all those present. "Mr.
Witla here will be in charge of all the publishing ends of this
business from now on. I am withdrawing from any say in the matter,
for I am satisfied that I do not know as much about it as he does.
I want you all to look to him for advice and counsel just as you
have to me in the past. Mr. White will continue in charge of the
manufacturing and distributing end of the business. Mr. White and
Mr. Witla will work together. That's all I have to say."

The company departed, and once more Eugene returned to his
office. He decided at once to find an advertising man who could
work under him and run that branch of the business as well as he
would. He spent some time looking for this man, and finally found
him working for the Hays-Rickert Company, a man whom he had known
something of in the past as an exceptional worker. He was a strong,
forceful individual of thirty-two, Carter Hayes by name, who was
very anxious to succeed in his chosen work, and who saw a great
opportunity here. He did not like Eugene so very well—he thought
that he was over-estimated—but he decided to work for him. The
latter put him in at ten thousand a year and then turned his
attention to his new duties completely.

The editorial and publishing world was entirely new to Eugene
from the executive side. He did not understand it as well as he did
the art and advertising worlds, and because it was in a way
comparatively new and strange to him he made a number of initial
mistakes. His first was in concluding that all the men about him
were more or less weak and inefficient, principally because the
magazines were weak, when, as a matter of fact, there were a number
of excellent men whom conditions had repressed, and who were only
waiting for some slight recognition to be of great value. In the
next place, he was not clear as to the exact policies to be
followed in the case of each publication, and he was not inclined
to listen humbly to those who could tell him. His best plan would
have been to have gone exceedingly slow, watching the men who were
in charge, getting their theories and supplementing their efforts
with genial suggestions. Instead he decided on sweeping changes and
not long after he had been in charge he began to make them.
Marchwood, the editor of the
Review
, was removed, as was
Gailer of the
Weekly
. The editorship of the
Adventure
Story Magazine
was given to Bezenah.

In any organization of this kind, however, great improvements
cannot be effected in a moment, and weeks and months must elapse
before any noticeable change can be shown. Instead of throwing the
burden of responsibility on each of his assistants and leaving it
there, making occasional criticisms, Eugene undertook to work with
each and all of them, endeavoring to direct the policy intimately
in each particular case. It was not easy, and to him at times it
was confusing. He had a great deal to learn. Still he did have
helpful ideas in a score of directions daily and these told. The
magazines were improved. The first issues which were affected by
his judgment and those of his men were inspected closely by Colfax
and White. The latter was particularly anxious to see what
improvement had been made, and while he could not judge well
himself, he had the means of getting opinions. Nearly all these
were favorable, much to his disappointment, for he hoped to find
things to criticize.