The young man leaned forward, all eager attention. Brainard smoked thoughtfully, then began.
“You’ve written plays—got one in your pocket this minute, probably.”
“You don’t mean you are going to write plays!” Farson said disgustedly.
“No, my boy—not now. I tried it once. But I hope to make it possible for you and other young men to write their plays and get them put on the stage. I’m going to build theaters, here and in other cities. I shall found a national society of dramatic art. That’s the way I’m going to blow in the money from the sulfur stream as long as it flows!”
“Whew!” The magazine man whistled dubiously. “Another uplift movement for the poor drama?”
“Let me explain,” Brainard continued.
With much more eagerness than he had shown over his exploits with copper and sulfur, he sketched the story of his great idea, which had first taken possession of him that last night of his week’s stay in Paris, while he wandered through the silent streets. He told of the vision that had come to him in the snowy heights of the Arizona mountains, in the silence of earth and sky—a vision of beautiful art that might be created into reality by the aid of the wealth which he could give it. He had set himself earnestly to the task of getting the necessary gold out of the ground, and all through these years, in the vigils of his lonely nights in the mining camp, he had nursed his vision.
He poured out his heart freely to Farson, because he was young and a would-be dramatist, and could understand; and Farson, listening to the story of this idea, became warmed with the enthusiasm of the other and forgot his habitual journalistic skepticism.
“It’s big!” he murmured.
“And now it will no longer be just an idea. It’s to become fact! I have the money—at least, it’s mine for the present.” Brainard corrected himself. “One can do something with half a million or so a year.”