ting more
or less industriously and without much care of anything else. They were
thinking, however.

"It's a field," observed Perner, at last.

"_Barri_field," said Van Dorn, who sometimes made puns.

Barrifield became excited. He did this now and then.

"Field! It's _the_ field," he declared fiercely--"the only field!
Everything else is full. There's a ten-cent monthly in every block in
New York! And"--whispering hoarsely--"even then they're getting rich!
Rich! But there's only one high-class family weekly at less than four
dollars in the country, and that's a juvenile! What I propose"--he was
talking fast enough now--"is to establish a high-class family
weekly--for the whole family--at _one dollar a year_!"

He paused again. His words had not been without effect this time. The
three listeners knew thoroughly the field of periodicals, and that no
such paper as he proposed existed. His earnestness and eager whisper
carried a certain weight, and then, as I have said before, he was
strangely persuasive. Perner, who had once been engaged in business, and
had, by some rare fortune, kept out of the bankruptcy court, was first
to speak. His "ten years' successful business experience," which he
referred to on occasion, gave his opinion value in matters of finance,
though at present he was finding it no easy problem to keep up with the
taxes on a certain tract of vacant property located rather vaguely
somewhere in the Southwest and representing the residue of his
commercial triumphs. He was a tall, large-featured man, cleanly shaven,
and, like Van Dorn, wore glasses.

"Can you do it, Barry?" he said, looking up with an expression of wise
and deep reflection. "Won't it cost you more than that to get up the
paper?"

"That," observed Barrifield, calmly, "is the case with every great
magazine in the country. The paper and printing cost more than they get
for it."

"They make it out of the advertising, you know," put in Livingstone,
timidly.

Livingstone was younger than the others, and had a smooth, fresh face.

"Of course," snapped Perner; "I know that! But they've got to have
circulation before they can get the advertising, and it takes time and
money--barrels of it--to get circulation."

"We'll furnish the time," suggested Van Dorn, sawing at his meat, "if
Barry'll put up the capital."

Barrifield looked up quickly.

"I'll do it!" he announced eagerly; "I'll do it!"

The others showed immediate interest. Barr