A Hazard of New Fortunes | Page 6

was the well-known street in its Saturday-evening
solitude. He asked himself, with prophetic homesickness, if it were an
omen of what was to be. But he only said, musingly: "A fortnightly.
You know that didn't work in England. The fortnightly is published
once a month now."
"It works in France," Fulkerson retorted. "The 'Revue des Deux
Mondes' is still published twice a month. I guess we can make it work
in America--with illustrations."
"Going to have illustrations?"
"My dear boy! What are you giving me? Do I look like the sort of
lunatic who would start a thing in the twilight of the nineteenth century
without illustrations? Come off!"
"Ah, that complicates it! I don't know anything about art." March's look
of discouragement confessed the hold the scheme had taken upon him.
"I don't want you to!" Fulkerson retorted. "Don't you suppose I shall
have an art man?"
"And will they--the artists--work at a reduced rate, too, like the writers,
with the hopes of a share in the success?"
"Of course they will! And if I want any particular man, for a card, I'll
pay him big money besides. But I can get plenty of first-rate sketches
on my own terms. You'll see! They'll pour in!"
"Look here, Fulkerson," said March, "you'd better call this fortnightly
of yours 'The Madness o f the Half-Moon'; or 'Bedlam Broke Loose'
wouldn't be bad! Why do you throw away all your hard earnings on
such a crazy venture? Don't do it!" The kindness which March had
always felt, in spite of his wife's first misgivings and reservations, for
the merry, hopeful, slangy, energetic little creature trembled in his
voice. They had both formed a friendship for Fulkerson during the
week they were together in Quebec. When he was not working the
newspapers there, he went about with them over the familiar ground
they were showing their children, and was simply grateful for the
chance, as well as very entertaining about it all. The children liked him,
too; when they got the clew to his intention, and found that he was not
quite serious in many of the things he said, they thought he was great
fun. They were always glad when their father brought him home on the
occasion of Fulkerson's visits to Boston; and Mrs. March, though of a
charier hospitality, welcomed Fulkerson with a grateful sense of his

admiration for her husband. He had a way of treating March with
deference, as an older and abler man, and of qualifying the freedom he
used toward every one with an implication that March tolerated it
voluntarily, which she thought very sweet and even refined.
"Ah, now you're talking like a man and a brother," said Fulkerson.
"Why, March, old man, do you suppose I'd come on here and try to talk
you into this thing if I wasn't morally, if I wasn't perfectly, sure of
success? There isn't any if or and about it. I know my ground, every
inch; and I don't stand alone on it," he added, with a significance which
did not escape March. "When you've made up your mind I can give you
the proof; but I'm not at liberty now to say anything more. I tell you it's
going to be a triumphal march from the word go, with coffee and
lemonade for the procession along the whole line. All you've got to do
is to fall in." He stretched out his hand to March. "You let me know as
soon as you can."
March deferred taking his hand till he could ask, "Where are you
going?"
"Parker House. Take the eleven for New York to-night."
"I thought I might walk your way." March looked at his watch. "But I
shouldn't have time. Goodbye!"
He now let Fulkerson have his hand, and they exchanged a cordial
pressure. Fulkerson started away at a quick, light pace. Half a block off
he stopped, turned round, and, seeing March still standing where he had
left him, he called back, joyously, "I've got the name!"
"What?"
"Every Other Week."
"It isn't bad."
"Ta-ta!"

II.
All the way up to the South End March mentally prolonged his talk
with Fulkerson, and at his door in Nankeen Square he closed the parley
with a plump refusal to go to New York on any terms. His daughter
Bella was lying in wait for him in the hall, and she threw her arms
round his neck with the exuberance of her fourteen years and with
something of the histrionic intention of her sex. He pressed on, with her
clinging about him, to the library, and, in the glow of his decision

against Fulkerson, kissed his wife, where she sat by the study lamp
reading the Transcript through her first pair of eye-glasses: it was
agreed in