Fulkerson read jealousy of Beaton in Mrs. March's face. “Beaton has given us the start because his work appeals to the eye. There's no denying that the pictures have sold this first number; but I expect the literature of this first number to sell the pictures of the second. I've been reading it all over, nearly, since I found how the cat was jumping; I was anxious about it, and I tell you, old man, it's good. Yes, sir! I was afraid maybe you had got it too good, with that Boston refinement of yours; but I reckon you haven't. I'll risk it. I don't see how you got so much variety into so few things, and all of them palpitant, all of 'em on the keen jump with actuality.”
The mixture of American slang with the jargon of European criticism in Fulkerson's talk made March smile, but his wife did not seem to notice it in her exultation. “That is just what I say,” she broke in. “It's perfectly wonderful. I never was anxious about it a moment, except, as you say, Mr. Fulkerson, I was afraid it might be too good.”
They went on in an antiphony of praise till March said: “Really, I don't see what's left me but to strike for higher wages. I perceive that I'm indispensable.”
“Why, old man, you're coming in on the divvy, you know,” said Fulkerson.
They both laughed, and when Fulkerson was gone, Mrs. March asked her husband what a divvy was.
“It's a chicken before it's hatched.”
“No! Truly?”
He explained, and she began to spend the divvy.
At Mrs. Leighton's Fulkerson gave Alma all the honor of the success; he told her mother that the girl's design for the cover had sold every number, and Mrs. Leighton believed him.
“Well, Ah think Ah maght have some of the glory,” Miss Woodburn pouted. “Where am Ah comin' in?”