Beaton saw that he would have to speak now. "And what do you want with
me?"

"You? Oh yes," Fulkerson humorously dramatized a return to himself from
a pensive absence. "Want you for the art department."

Beaton shook his head. "I'm not your man, Fulkerson," he said,
compassionately. "You want a more practical hand, one that's in touch
with what's going. I'm getting further and further away from this
century and its claptrap. I don't believe in your enterprise; I don't
respect it, and I won't have anything to do with it. It would-choke me,
that kind of thing."

"That's all right," said Fulkerson. He esteemed a man who was not going
to let himself go cheap. "Or if it isn't, we can make it. You and March
will pull together first-rate. I don't care how much ideal you put into
the thing; the more the better. I can look after the other end of the
schooner myself."

"You don't understand me," said Beaton. "I'm not trying to get a rise
out of you. I'm in earnest. What you want is some man who can have
patience with mediocrity putting on the style of genius, and with genius
turning mediocrity on his hands. I haven't any luck with men; I don't
get on with them; I'm not popular." Beaton recognized the fact with the
satisfaction which it somehow always brings to human pride.

"So much the better!" Fulkerson was ready for him at this point.
"I don't want you to work the old-established racket the reputations.
When I want them I'll go to them with a pocketful of rocks--knock-down