Mr. Dryfoos reddened and looked down, as if unable or unwilling to cope with the difficulty of making a polite protest against March’s self-depreciation.  He said, after a moment:  “It’s new business to all of us except Mr. Fulkerson.  But I think it will succeed.  I think we can do some good in it.”

March asked rather absently, “Some good?” Then he added:  “Oh yes; I think we can.  What do you mean by good?  Improve the public taste?  Elevate the standard of literature?  Give young authors and artists a chance?”

This was the only good that had ever been in March’s mind, except the good that was to come in a material way from his success, to himself and to his family.

“I don’t know,” said the young man; and he looked down in a shamefaced fashion.  He lifted his head and looked into March’s face.  “I suppose I was thinking that some time we might help along.  If we were to have those sketches of yours about life in every part of New York—­”

March’s authorial vanity was tickled.  “Fulkerson has been talking to you about them?  He seemed to think they would be a card.  He believes that there’s no subject so fascinating to the general average of people throughout the country as life in New York City; and he liked my notion of doing these things.”  March hoped that Dryfoos would answer that Fulkerson was perfectly enthusiastic about his notion; but he did not need this stimulus, and, at any rate, he went on without it.  “The fact is, it’s something that struck my fancy the moment I came here; I found myself intensely interested in the place, and I began to make notes, consciously and unconsciously, at once.  Yes, I believe I can get something quite attractive out of it.  I don’t in the least know what it will be yet, except that it will be very desultory; and I couldn’t at all say when I can get at it.  If we postpone the first number till February I might get a little paper into that.  Yes, I think it might be a good thing for us,” March said, with modest self-appreciation.

“If you can make the comfortable people understand how the uncomfortable people live, it will be a very good thing, Mr. March.  Sometimes it seems to me that the only trouble is that we don’t know one another well enough; and that the first thing is to do this.”  The young fellow spoke with the seriousness in which the beauty of his face resided.  Whenever he laughed his face looked weak, even silly.  It seemed to be a sense of this that made him hang his head or turn it away at such times.

“That’s true,” said March, from the surface only.  “And then, those phases of low life are immensely picturesque.  Of course, we must try to get the contrasts of luxury for the sake of the full effect.  That won’t be so easy.  You can’t penetrate to the dinner-party of a millionaire under the wing of a detective as you could to a carouse in Mulberry Street, or to his children’s nursery with a philanthropist as you can to a street-boy’s lodging-house.”  March laughed, and again the young man turned his head away.  “Still, something can be done in that way by tact and patience.”