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The Genius by Theodore Dreiser

“I see.”

“But I have it again, thank heaven, tied up back of the house, and here I am.”

“Well, Witla, to tell you the truth you don’t look like a real live, every day, sure-enough art director, but you might make good. You’re not quite art-y enough according to the standards that prevail around this office. Still I might be willing to take one gosh-awful chance. I suppose if I do I’ll get stung as usual, but I’ve been stung so often that I ought to be used to it by now. I feel sort of spotted at times from the hornets I’ve hired in the past. But, be that as it may, what do you think you could do with a real live art directorship if you had it?”

Eugene mused. This persiflage entertained him. He thought Summerfield would hire him now that they were together.

“Oh, I’d draw my salary first and then I’d see that I had the proper system of approach so that any one who came to see me would think I was the King of England, and then I’d——”

“I was really busy yesterday,” interpolated Summerfield apologetically.

“I’m satisfied of that,” replied Eugene gaily. “And finally I might condescend, if I were coaxed enough, to do a little work.”

This speech at once irritated and amused Mr. Summerfield. He liked a man of spirit. You could do something with someone who wasn’t afraid, even if he didn’t know so much to begin with. And Eugene knew a good deal, he fancied. Besides, his talk was precisely in his own sarcastic, semi-humorous vein. Coming from Eugene it did not sound so hard as it would have coming from himself, but it had his own gay, bantering attitude of mind in it. He believed Eugene could make good. He wanted to try him, instanter, anyhow.

“Well, I’ll tell you what, Witla,” he finally observed. “I don’t know whether you can run this thing or not—the probabilities are all against you as I have said, but you seem to have some ideas or what might be made some under my direction, and I think I’ll give you a chance. Mind you, I haven’t much confidence. My personal likes usually prove very fatal to me. Still, you’re here, and I like your looks and I haven’t seen anyone else, and so——”

“Thanks,” said Eugene.

“Don’t thank me. You have a hard job ahead of you if I take you. It’s no child’s play. You’d better come with me first and look over the place,” and he led the way out into the great central room where, because it was still noon time, there were few people working, but where one could see just how imposing this business really was.

“Seventy-two stenographers, book-keepers, canvassers and writers and trade-aid people at their desks,” he observed with an easy wave of his hand, and moved on into the art department, which was in another wing of the building where a north and east light could be secured. “Here’s where you come in,” he observed, throwing open the door where thirty-two artists’ desks and easels were ranged. Eugene was astonished.

“You don’t employ that many, do you?” he asked interestedly. Most of the men were out to lunch.

“From twenty to twenty-five all the time, sometimes more,” he said. “Some on the outside. It depends on the condition of business.”

“And how much do you pay them, as a rule?”

“Well, that depends. I think I’ll give you seventy-five dollars a week to begin with, if we come to an understanding. If you make good I’ll make it a hundred dollars a week inside of three months. It all depends. The others we don’t pay so much. The business manager can tell you.”

Eugene noticed the evasion. His eyes narrowed. Still there was a good chance here. Seventy-five dollars was considerably better than fifty and it might lead to more. He would be his own boss—a man of some consequence. He could not help stiffening with pride a little as he looked at the room which Summerfield pointed out to him as his own if he came—a room where a large, highly polished oak desk was placed and where some of the Summerfield Advertising Company’s art products were hung on the walls. There was a nice rug on the floor and some leather-backed chairs.

“Here’s where you will be if you come here,” said Summerfield.

Eugene gazed round. Certainly life was looking up. How was he to get this place? On what did it depend? His mind was running forward to various improvements in his affairs, a better apartment for Angela, better clothes for her, more entertainment for both of them, freedom from worry over the future; for a little bank account would soon result from a place like this.

“Do you do much business a year?” Eugene asked curiously.

“Oh, about two million dollars’ worth.”

“And you have to make drawings for every ad?”

“Exactly, not one but six or eight sometimes. It depends upon the ability of the art director. If he does his work right I save money.”

Eugene saw the point.

“What became of the other man?” he asked, noting the name of Older Freeman on the door.

“Oh, he quit,” said Summerville, “or rather he saw what was coming and got out of the way. He was no good. He was too weak. He was turning out work here which was a joke—some things had to be done over eight and nine times.”

Eugene discovered the wrath and difficulties and opposition which went with this. Summerfield was a hard man, plainly. He might smile and joke now, but anyone who took that chair would hear from him constantly. For a moment Eugene felt as though he could not do it, as though he had better not try it, and then he thought, “Why shouldn’t I? It can’t hurt me. If worst comes to worst, I have my art to fall back on.”

“Well, so it goes,” he said. “If I don’t make good, the door for mine, I suppose?”

“No, no, nothing so easy,” chuckled Summerfield; “the coal chute.”

Eugene noticed that he champed his teeth like a nervous horse, and that he seemed fairly to radiate waves of energy. For himself he winced the least bit. This was a grim, fighting atmosphere he was coming into. He would have to fight for his life here—no doubt of that.

“Now,” said Summerfield, when they were strolling back to his own office. “I’ll tell you what you might do. I have two propositions, one from the Sand Perfume Company and another from the American Crystal Sugar Refining Company which may mean big contracts for me if I can present them the right line of ideas for advertising. They want to advertise. The Sand Company wants suggestions for bottles, labels, car ads, newspaper ads, posters, and so on. The American Crystal Company wants to sell its sugar in small packages, powdered, grained, cubed, hexagoned. We want package forms, labels, posters ads, and so on for that. It’s a question of how much novelty, simplicity and force we can put in the smallest possible space. Now I depend upon my art director to tell me something about these things. I don’t expect him to do everything. I’m here and I’ll help him. I have men in the trade aid department out there who are wonders at making suggestions along this line, but the art director is supposed to help. He’s the man who is supposed to have the taste and can execute the proposition in its last form. Now suppose you take these two ideas and see what you can do with them. Bring me some suggestions. If they suit me and I think you have the right note, I’ll hire you. If not, well then I won’t, and no harm done. Is that all right?”

“That’s all right,” said Eugene.

Mr. Summerfield handed him a bundle of papers, catalogues, prospectuses, communications. “You can look these over if you want to. Take them along and then bring them back.”

Eugene rose.

“I’d like to have two or three days for this,” he said. “It’s a new proposition to me. I think I can give you some ideas—I’m not sure. Anyhow, I’d like to try.”

“Go ahead! Go ahead!” said Summerfield, “the more the merrier. And I’ll see you any time you’re ready. I have a man out there—Freeman’s assistant—who’s running things for me temporarily. Here’s luck,” and he waved his hand indifferently.

Eugene went out. Was there ever such a man, so hard, so cold, so practical! It was a new note to him. He was simply astonished, largely because he was inexperienced. He had not yet gone up against the business world as those who try to do anything in a big way commercially must. This man was getting on his nerves already, making him feel that he had a tremendous problem before him, making him think that the quiet realms of art were merely the backwaters of oblivion. Those who did anything, who were out in the front row of effort, were fighters such as this man was, raw products of the soil, ruthless, superior, indifferent. If only he could be that way, he thought. If he could be strong, defiant, commanding, what a thing it would be. Not to wince, not to quail, but to stand up firm, square to the world and make people obey. Oh, what a splendid vision of empire was here before him.

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