argument. But my idea is to deal with the volunteer material. Look at
the way the periodicals are carried on now! Names! names! names! In a
country that's just boiling over with literary and artistic ability of
every kind the new fellows have no chance. The editors all engage their
material. I don't believe there are fifty volunteer contributions
printed in a year in all the New York magazines. It's all wrong; it's
suicidal. 'Every Other Week' is going back to the good old anonymous
system, the only fair system. It's worked well in literature, and it
will work well in art."

"It won't work well in art," said Beaton. "There you have a totally
different set of conditions. What you'll get by inviting volunteer
illustrations will be a lot of amateur trash. And how are you going to
submit your literature for illustration? It can't be done. At any rate,
I won't undertake to do it."

"We'll get up a School of Illustration," said Fulkerson, with cynical
security. "You can read the things and explain 'em, and your pupils can
make their sketches under your eye. They wouldn't be much further out
than most illustrations are if they never knew what they were
illustrating. You might select from what comes in and make up a sort of
pictorial variations to the literature without any particular reference
to it. Well, I understand you to accept?"

"No, you don't."

"That is, to consent to help us with your advice and criticism. That's
all I want. It won't commit you to anything; and you can be as anonymous
as anybody." At the door Fulkerson added: "By-the-way, the new man--the
fellow that's taken my old syndicate business--will want you to keep on;