was valuable as an assistant, not because he was a
born leader.

"You'll have to judge for yourself, Eugene," Angela finally said. "I
don't know. It looks fine. You certainly don't want to work for
Mr. Colfax all your life, and if, as you say, they are beginning to plot
against you, you had better prepare to get out sometime. We have enough
now, really, to live on, if you want to return to your art."

Eugene smiled. "My art. My poor old art! A lot I've done to develop my
art."

"I don't think it needs developing. You have it. I'm sorry sometimes I
ever let you leave it. We have lived better, but your work hasn't
counted for as much. What good has it done you outside the money to be a
successful publisher? You were as famous as you are now before you ever
started in on this line, and more so. More people know you even now as
Eugene Witla, the artist, than as Eugene Witla, the magazine man."

Eugene knew this to be so. His art achievements had never forsaken him.
They had grown in fame always. Pictures that he had sold for two hundred
and four hundred had gone up to as high as three and four thousand in
value, and they were still rising. He was occasionally approached by an
art dealer to know if he never intended to paint any more. In social
circles it was a constant cry among the elect, "Why don't you paint any
longer?" "What a shame you ever left the art world!" "Those pictures of
yours, I can never forget them."

"My dear lady," Eugene once said solemnly, "I can't live by painting
pictures as I am living by directing magazines. Art is very lovely. I am
satisfied to believe that I am a great painter. Nevertheless, I made
little out of it, and since then I have learned to live. It's sad, but
it's true. If I could see my way to live in half the comfort I am living
in now and not run the risk of plodding the streets with a picture under
my arm, I would gladly return to art. The trouble is the world is always
so delightfully ready to see the other fellow make the sacrifice for art
or literature's sake. Selah! I won't do it. So there!"

"It's a pity! It's a pity!" said this observer, but Eugene was not
vastly distressed. Similarly Mrs. Dale had reproached him, for she had
seen and heard of his work.

"Some time. Some time," he said grandly; "wait."

Now at length this land proposition seemed to clear the way for
everything. If Eugene embarked upon it, he might gradually come to the
point at which he could take some