it, and I tell you, old man, it's good. Yes, sir! I was afraid
maybe you had got it too good, with that Boston refinement of yours; but
I reckon you haven't. I'll risk it. I don't see how you got so much
variety into so few things, and all of them palpitant, all of 'em on the
keen jump with actuality."

The mixture of American slang with the jargon of European criticism in
Fulkerson's talk made March smile, but his wife did not seem to notice it
in her exultation. "That is just what I say," she broke in. "It's
perfectly wonderful. I never was anxious about it a moment, except, as
you say, Mr. Fulkerson, I was afraid it might be too good."

They went on in an antiphony of praise till March said: "Really, I don't
see what's left me but to strike for higher wages. I perceive that I'm
indispensable."

"Why, old man, you're coming in on the divvy, you know," said Fulkerson.

They both laughed, and when Fulkerson was gone, Mrs. March asked her
husband what a divvy was.

"It's a chicken before it's hatched."

"No! Truly?"

He explained, and she began to spend the divvy.

At Mrs. Leighton's Fulkerson gave Alma all the honor of the success; he
told her mother that the girl's design for the cover had sold every
number, and Mrs. Leighton believed him.

"Well, Ah think Ah maght have some of the glory," Miss Woodburn pouted.
"Where am Ah comin' in?"

"You're coming in on the cover of the next number," said Fulkerson."
We're going to have your face there; Miss Leighton's going to sketch it
in." He said this reckless of the fact that he had already shown them the
design of the second number, which was Beaton's weird bit of gas-country
landscape.

"Ah don't see why you don't wrahte the fiction for your magazine, Mr.
Fulkerson," said the girl.

This served to remind Fulkerson of something. He turned to her father.
"I'll tell you what, Colonel Woodburn, I want Mr. March to see some
chapters of that book of yours. I've been talking to him about it."

"I do not think it would add to the popularity of your periodical, sir,"
said the Colonel, with a stately pleasure in being asked. "My views of a
civilization based upon responsible slavery would hardly be acceptable to
your commercialized society."

"Well, not as a practical thing, of course," Fulkerson admitted. "But as
something retrospective, speculative, I believe it would make a hit.
There's so much going on now about social questions; I guess people would
like to rea