The Bread Line.

by Albert Bigelow Paine.

I

THE FIRST DINNER

This is the story of a year, beginning on New Year's eve.

In the main it is the story of four--two artists and two writers--and of a paper which these four started. Three of them--the artists and one of the writers--toiled and dwelt together in rooms near Union Square, and earned a good deal of money sometimes, when matters went well. The fourth--the other writer--did something in an editorial way, and thus had a fixed income; that is, he fixed it every Sat.u.r.day in such manner that it sometimes lasted until Wednesday of the following week. Now and then he sold a story or a poem "outside" and was briefly affluent, but these instances were unplentiful. Most of his spare time he spent in dreaming vague and hopeless dreams. His dreams he believed in, and, being possessed of a mesmeric personality, Barrifield sometimes persuaded others to believe also.

It began--the paper above mentioned--in the cafe of the Hotel Martin, p.r.o.nounced with the French "tang," and a good place to get a good dinner on New Year's eve or in any other season except that of adversity, no recollection of which period now vexed the mind of the man who did something in an editorial way, or those of the two artists and the writer who worked and dwelt together in rooms near Union Square. In fact, that era of prosperity which began in New York for most bohemians in the summer of '96 was still in its full tide, and these three had been caught and borne upward on a crest that as yet gave no signs of undertow and oblivion beneath. But Barrifield, still editing at his old salary, had grown uneasy and begun to dream dreams. He did not write with ease, and his product, though not without excellence, was of a sort that found market with difficulty in any season and after periods of tedious waiting. He had concluded to become a publisher.

He argued that unless publishers were winning great fortunes they could not afford to pay so liberally for their wares.

He had been himself authorized to pay as much as fifteen cents per word for the product of a certain pen. He forgot, or in his visions refused to recognize, the possibility of this being the result of compet.i.tion in a field already thickly trampled by periodicals, many of them backed by great capital and struggling, some of them at a frightful loss, toward the final and inevitable survival of the richest. As for his companions, they were on the outside, so to speak, and swallowed stories of marvelous circulations and advertising rates without question. Not that Barrifield was untruthful. Most of what he told them had come to him on good authority. If, in the halo of his conception and the second bottle of champagne, he forgot other things that had come to him on equally good authority, he was hardly to be blamed. We all do that, more or less, in unfolding our plans, and Barrifield was uncommonly optimistic.

He had begun as he served the roast. Previous to this, as is the habit in bohemia, they had been denouncing publishers and discussing work finished, in hand, and still to do; also the prices and compet.i.tion for their labors. The interest in Barrifield's skill at serving, however, had brought a lull, and the champagne a golden vapor that was fraught with the glory of hope. It was the opportune moment. The publication of the "Whole Family" may be said to have dated from that hour.

Barrifield spoke very slowly, pausing at the end of each sentence to gather himself for the next. Sometimes he would fill a plate as he deliberated. At other times he would half close his eyes and seem to be piercing far into the depths of a roseate future.

"Boys," he began, in a voice that was fraught with possibility, and selecting a particularly tender cut for Perner, who was supposed to have an estate somewhere, "boys,"--he laid the tempting slice on Perner's plate, added a few mushrooms, some brown gravy, and a generous spoonful of potato, then pa.s.sing the plate to Perner and beginning to fill another,--"I've been thinking of--of a--of the--greatest"--pausing and looking across the table with drowsy, hypnotic eyes--"the greatest scheme on--_earth_!"

Amid the silence that followed this announcement he served the next plate. Then Van Dorn, who had been acquainted with him longer than the others, spoke:

"What is it this time, old man?"

Barrifield turned his gaze on Van Dorn and laughed lazily. He was handsome, rather stout, and of unfailing good nature. He pushed back his blond hair and rested his gray, magnetic eyes steadily on the artist.

Then he laughed again and seemed to enjoy it. Van Dorn, who was slender, impulsive, and wore gla.s.ses, laughed, too, and was lost. Barrifield handed him a filled plate as he said:

"You're just right, Van, to say _this_ time--just right. There have been--other times; other--times." He was filling the third plate. He paused and laughed till he shook all over. "Van remembers a pictorial syndicate he and I once started," he said to Livingstone, as he handed his plate. "We spent nearly--nearly a thousand dollars and a lot of time--that is, Van did--getting up some stuff, and then sold one picture to one paper for three dollars!"

He leaned back in his chair to enjoy a laugh, in which, this time, all joined.

"And never got the three dollars," added Van Dorn, at last.

"And never got the three dollars," echoed Barrifield. "It was a beautiful scheme, too; Van knows that--beautiful!" At which statement all laughed again.

Barrifield began to furnish his own plate now, and became serious.

"This scheme is different," he observed at last; "it's been tried. It's been tried and it hasn't. The scheme that's been tried"--he helped himself to the rest of the mushrooms and gravy--"we'll improve on."

The others caught the collective p.r.o.noun, and began to feel the pleasant sense of ownership that comes with the second bottle and a scheme.

"Our scheme will beat it to death." He lowered his voice and shot a cautious glance at the other tables. "Boys," he whispered, "it's a _high-cla.s.s weekly_ at a _low price_!"

He looked from one to the other to note the effect of this startling announcement. It was hardly manifest. The three seemed to be eating more or less industriously and without much care of anything else. They were thinking, however.

"It's a field," observed Perner, at last.

"_Barri_field," said Van Dorn, who sometimes made puns.

Barrifield became excited. He did this now and then.

"Field! It's _the_ field," he declared fiercely--"the only field!

Everything else is full. There's a ten-cent monthly in every block in New York! And"--whispering hoa.r.s.ely--"even then they're getting rich!

Rich! But there's only one high-cla.s.s family weekly at less than four dollars in the country, and that's a juvenile! What I propose"--he was talking fast enough now--"is to establish a high-cla.s.s family weekly--for the whole family--at _one dollar a year_!"

He paused again. His words had not been without effect this time. The three listeners knew thoroughly the field of periodicals, and that no such paper as he proposed existed. His earnestness and eager whisper carried a certain weight, and then, as I have said before, he was strangely persuasive. Perner, who had once been engaged in business, and had, by some rare fortune, kept out of the bankruptcy court, was first to speak. His "ten years' successful business experience," which he referred to on occasion, gave his opinion value in matters of finance, though at present he was finding it no easy problem to keep up with the taxes on a certain tract of vacant property located rather vaguely somewhere in the Southwest and representing the residue of his commercial triumphs. He was a tall, large-featured man, cleanly shaven, and, like Van Dorn, wore gla.s.ses.

"Can you do it, Barry?" he said, looking up with an expression of wise and deep reflection. "Won't it cost you more than that to get up the paper?"

"That," observed Barrifield, calmly, "is the case with every great magazine in the country. The paper and printing cost more than they get for it."

"They make it out of the advertising, you know," put in Livingstone, timidly.

Livingstone was younger than the others, and had a smooth, fresh face.

"Of course," snapped Perner; "I know that! But they've got to have circulation before they can get the advertising, and it takes time and money--barrels of it--to get circulation."

"We'll furnish the time," suggested Van Dorn, sawing at his meat, "if Barry'll put up the capital."

Barrifield looked up quickly.

"I'll do it!" he announced eagerly; "I'll do it!"

The others showed immediate interest. Barrifield looked from one to the other, repeating his a.s.sertion as if signing a verbal contract. Then his gaze wandered off into nowhere, and he absently fed himself and waited for the spirit to move further.

"I'll furnish the capital," he continued deliberately, at length, "and it won't be money, either." The three faces watching him fell. "That is, not much money. It'll take a little, of course. I think I know where I could get all the money I want--a dozen places, yes, fifty of them. But this isn't a money scheme. If it was I could get it. I know any number of men, capitalists, that would jump at it. But that isn't what we want.

We want men who know what a paper is, and can do the work themselves."

"We want a good advertising man first," said Perner the businesslike.

"That's good sense," a.s.sented Barrifield, at which Perner felt complimented and began to a.s.sume proprietary airs.

"Those things we can hire," Barrifield continued. "We shall want several men in clerical and executive positions. The general direction and management of affairs we shall, of course, attend to personally. We could get a business manager with all the money we need if we wanted him, but he'd be some fellow with no appreciation of the kind of a paper we intend to make, and would try to cut down and stick to old methods until he choked the plan, just as many a good plan has been killed before."

The third bottle of champagne had been opened.

"That's exactly right," declared Perner, as he lifted his gla.s.s, while the others nodded. "Half the periodicals running to-day are starved and killed by the business office. Why, MacWilliams of 'Dawn' told me yesterday that he couldn't buy that Easter poem of mine just because there had been a kick down-stairs on the twenty-five he paid me for the Christmas thing, and--"

"What's your scheme, Barry?" interrupted Van Dorn, who did not want Perner to get started on the perennial subject of editorial wrongs.

Barrifield filled his gla.s.s and drained it very slowly. Then he set it down and wiped his lips with his napkin. The waiter brought coffee and cigars. He selected a long, dark Panetela, and lighted it with the air of one making ready to unburden himself of deep wisdom.

"Did any of--you--fellows," he began, puffing the smoke into the air and following it with his eyes, "ever hear of a man named Frisby? Did you, Perny? Did you, Stony?" dropping his eyes from one to the other.