Chapter 31
The work which Eugene undertook in connection with the art department of the World was not different from that which he had done ten years before in Chicago. It seemed no less difficult for all his experience—more so if anything, for he felt above it these days and consequently out of place. He wished at once that he could get something which would pay him commensurately with his ability. To sit down among mere boys—there were men there as old as himself and older, though, of course, he did not pay so much attention to them—was galling. He thought Benedict should have had more respect for his talent than to have offered him so little, though at the same time he was grateful for what he had received. He undertook energetically to carry out all the suggestions given him, and surprised his superior with the speed and imagination with which he developed everything. He surprised Benedict the second day with a splendid imaginative interpretation of “the Black Death,” which was to accompany a Sunday newspaper article upon the modern possibilities of plagues. The latter saw at once that Eugene could probably only be retained a very little while at the figure he had given him. He had made the mistake of starting him low, thinking that Eugene’s talent after so severe an illness might be at a very low ebb. He did not know, being new to the art directorship of a newspaper, how very difficult it was to get increases for those under him. An advance of ten dollars to anyone meant earnest representation and an argument with the business manager, and to double and treble the salary, which should have been done in this case, was out of the question. Six months was a reasonable length of time for anyone to wait for an increase—such was the dictate of the business management—and in Eugene’s case it was ridiculous and unfair. However, being still sick and apprehensive, he was content to abide by the situation, hoping with returning strength and the saving of a little money to put himself right eventually.
Angela, of course, was pleased with the turn of affairs. Having suffered so long with only prospects of something worse in store, it was a great relief to go to the bank every Tuesday—Eugene was paid on Monday—and deposit ten dollars against a rainy day. It was agreed between them that they might use six for clothing, which Angela and Eugene very much needed, and some slight entertainment. It was not long before Eugene began to bring an occasional newspaper artist friend up to dinner, and they were invited out. They had gone without much clothing, with scarcely a single visit to the theatre, without friends—everything. Now the tide began slowly to change; in a little while, because they were more free to go to places, they began to encounter people whom they knew.
There was six months of the drifting journalistic work, in which as in his railroad work he grew more and more restless, and then there came a time when he felt as if he could not stand that for another minute. He had been raised to thirty-five dollars and then fifty, but it was a terrific grind of exaggerated and to him thoroughly meretricious art. The only valuable results in connection with it were that for the first time in his life he was drawing a moderately secure living salary, and that his mind was fully occupied with details which gave him no time to think about himself. He was in a large room surrounded by other men who were as sharp as knives in their thrusts of wit, and restless and greedy in their attitude toward the world. They wanted to live brilliantly, just as he did, only they had more self-confidence and in many cases that extreme poise which comes of rare good health. They were inclined to think he was somewhat of a poseur at first, but later they came to like him—all of them. He had a winning smile and his love of a joke, so keen, so body-shaking, drew to him all those who had a good story to tell.
“Tell that to Witla,” was a common phrase about the office and Eugene was always listening to someone. He came to lunching with first one and then another, then three or four at a time; and by degrees Angela was compelled to entertain Eugene and two or three of his friends twice and sometimes three times a week. She objected greatly, and there was some feeling over that, for she had no maid and she did not think that Eugene ought to begin so soon to put the burden of entertainment upon their slender income. She wanted him to make these things very formal and by appointment, but Eugene would stroll in genially, explaining that he had Irving Nelson with him, or Henry Hare, or George Beers, and asking nervously at the last minute whether it was all right. Angela would say, “Certainly, to be sure,” in front of the guests, but when they were alone there would be tears and reproaches and firm declarations that she would not stand it.
“Well, I won’t do it any more,” Eugene would apologize. “I forgot, you know.”
Still he wanted Angela to get a maid and let him bring all who would come. It was a great relief to get back into the swing of things and see life broadening out once more.
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.
It was while he was speculating over this almost daily that there came to him one day a young artist who had formerly worked on the World—a youth by the name of Morgenbau—Adolph Morgenbau—who admired Eugene and his work greatly and who had since gone to another paper. He was very anxious to tell Eugene something, for he had heard of a change coming in the art directorship of the Summerville Company and he fancied for one reason and another that Eugene might be glad to know of it. Eugene had never looked to Morgenbau like a man who ought to be working in a newspaper art department. He was too self-poised, too superior, too wise. Morgenbau had conceived the idea that Eugene was destined to make a great hit of some kind and with that kindling intuition that sometimes saves us whole he was anxious to help Eugene in some way and so gain his favor.