“Not because I don't like them, Mr. Beacon,” March interposed, “but because I like them too much. I find that I look at the pictures in an illustrated article, but I don't read the article very much, and I fancy that's the case with most other people. You've got to doing them so prettily that you take our eyes off the literature, if you don't take our minds off.” “Like the society beauties on the stage: people go in for the beauty so much that they don't know what the play is. But the box-office gets there all the same, and that's what Mr. Dryfoos wants.” Fulkerson looked up gayly at Mr. Dryfoos, who smiled deprecatingly. “It was different,” March went on, “when the illustrations used to be bad. Then the text had some chance.” “Old legitimate drama days, when ugliness and genius combined to storm the galleries,” said Fulkerson. “We can still make them bad enough,” said Beaton, ignoring Fulkerson in his remark to March. Fulkerson took the reply upon himself. “Well, you needn't make 'em so bad as the old-style cuts; but you can make them unobtrusive, modestly retiring. We've got hold of a process something like that those French fellows gave Daudet thirty-five thousand dollars to write a novel to use with; kind of thing that begins at one side; or one corner, and spreads in a sort of dim religious style over the print till you can't tell which is which. Then we've got a notion that where the pictures don't behave quite so sociably, they can be dropped into the text, like a little casual remark, don't you know, or a comment that has some connection, or maybe none at all, with what's going on in the story. Something like this.” Fulkerson took away one knee from the table long enough to open the drawer, and pull from it a book that he shoved toward Beacon. “That's a Spanish book I happened to see at Brentano's, and I froze to it on account of the pictures. I guess they're pretty good.” “Do you expect to get such drawings in this country?” asked Beaton, after a glance at the book. “Such character--such drama? You won't.” “Well, I'm not so sure,” said Fulkerson, “come to get our amateurs warmed up to the work. But what I want is to get the physical effect, so to speak-get that sized picture into our page, and set the fashion of it. I shouldn't care if the illustration was sometimes confined to an initial letter and a tail-piece.” “Couldn't be done here. We haven't the touch. We're good in some things, but this isn't in our way,” said Beaton, stubbornly. “I can't think of a man who could do it; that is, among those that would.” “Well, think of some woman, then,” said Fulkerson, easily. “I've got a notion that the women could help us out on this thing, come to get 'em interested. There ain't anything so popular as female fiction; why not try female art?” “The females themselves have been supposed to have been trying it for a good while,” March suggested; and Mr. Dryfoos laughed nervously; Beaton remained solemnly silent.