If people don't see it, they'll think 'Every Other
Week' is some old thing."
March did not know whether Fulkerson was joking or not. He suggested,
"Perhaps they'll think it's an old thing if they do see it."
"Well, get somebody else, then; or else get Maxwell to write under an
assumed name. Or--I forgot! He'll be anonymous under our system, anyway.
Now there ain't a more popular racket for us to work in that first number
than a good, swinging attack on Bevans. People read his books and quarrel
over 'em, and the critics are all against him, and a regular flaying,
with salt and vinegar rubbed in afterward, will tell more with people who
like good old-fashioned fiction than anything else. I like Bevans's
things, but, dad burn it! when it comes to that first number, I'd offer
up anybody."
"What an immoral little wretch you are, Fulkerson!" said March, with a
laugh.
Fulkerson appeared not to be very strenuous about the attack on the
novelist. "Say!" he called out, gayly, "what should you think of a paper
defending the late lamented system of slavery'?"
"What do you mean, Fulkerson?" asked March, with a puzzled smile.
Fulkerson braced his knees against his desk, and pushed himself back, but
kept his balance to the eye by canting his hat sharply forward.
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