It was not so long after he had grown exceedingly weary of his underpaid relationship to the _World_ that he heard of something which promised a much better avenue of advancement. Eugene had been hearing for some time from one source and another of the development of art in advertising. He had read one or two articles on the subject in the smaller magazines, had seen from time to time curious and sometimes beautiful series of ads run by first one corporation and then another, advertising some product. He had always fancied in looking at these things that he could get up a notable series on almost any subject, and he wondered who handled these things. He asked Benedict one night, going up on the car with him, what he knew about it. "Why so far as I know," said Benedict, "that is coming to be quite a business. There is a man out in Chicago, Saljerian, an American Syrian--his father was a Syrian, but he was born over here--who has built up a tremendous business out of designing series of ads like that for big corporations. He got up that Molly Maguire series for the new cleaning fluid. I don't think he does any of the work himself. He hires artists to do it. Some of the best men, I understand, have done work for him. He gets splendid prices. Then some of the big advertising agencies are taking up that work. One of them I know. The Summerville Company has a big art department in connection with it. They employ fifteen to eighteen men all the time, sometimes more. They turn out some fine ads, too, to my way of thinking. Do you remember that Korno series?"--Benedict was referring to a breakfast food which had been advertised by a succession of ten very beautiful and very clever pictures. "Yes," replied Eugene. "Well, they did that." Eugene thought of this as a most interesting development. Since the days in which he worked on the Alexandria _Appeal_ he had been interested in ads. The thought of ad creation took his fancy. It was newer than anything else he had encountered recently. He wondered if there would not be some chance in that field for him. His paintings were not selling. He had not the courage to start a new series. If he could make some money first, say ten thousand dollars, so that he could get an interest income of say six or seven hundred dollars a year, he might be willing to risk art for art's sake. He had suffered too much--poverty had scared him so that he was very anxious to lean on a salary or a business income for the time being.