H. R.

There the article abruptly ended.

"Weinie," said Max, exultingly, "this makes you. Be very nice to Mr. Rutgers. You'll have to pay him thousands of dollars—"

"Then, you vas in league mit him?"

"No. But he's a genius!"

"I thought he was German," said C. Weinpusslacher, controversially.

"Get busy, Weinie. The crowd will be here in a minute. And don't ask Mr. Rutgers to pay for his dinner."

"Why not?" growled Weinie. He was on his way to a sure million. That made the growl natural.

"What is thirty dollars for their dinner to thirty thousand dollars worth of free advertising?"

"Thirty dollars," observed C. Weinpusslacher, thriftily, "is thirty dollars!"

"Bah!"

"I tell you, it is, mister." C. Weinpusslacher frowned pugnaciously.

But Onthemaker knew his man. So he said: "I'll get Meyer Rabinowitz to give us an option on the property to-night before he reads the newspapers. As Rutgers said, once your place is a success, you'll have to pay any price the landlord wants. Meyer's got you! I can hear your squeals of agony already!"

Max shook his head so gloomily that C. Weinpusslacher actually began to tremble with joy. The thought of making money did not move him. The thought of losing the money he had not made, did. Oh yes; born money-makers!

By the time H. Rutgers arrived at the Colossal Restaurant Caspar Weinpusslacher, Esq., and the Hon. Maximilian Onthemaker had constituted themselves into a highly enthusiastic reception committee, for the crowd that came with H. Rutgers filled the street so that all you heard was the squealing and cursing of persons that were pressed against iron newel-posts of the old-fashioned stoops or precipitated into basements and cellars. Sixty policemen, impartially cursing the Mayor, Epictetus, and H. Rutgers, and yearning for the days of Aleck Williams, when clubs were made to be used and not to be fined for, endeavored to keep the crowd moving.

"You'll find everything ready, Mr. Rutgers," said M. Onthemaker. "Here is one of my cards. The name, you will see," he almost shouted, "is spelled with a k not h—O-n-t-h-e-m-a-k-e-r. Everything is ready, Mr. Secretary." He looked at the reporters out of a corner of his eye.

"And it won't cost you nothing, not one cent," interjected C. Weinpusslacher, eagerly and distinctly. "Any feller wot's smart like you, Mr. Rutchers—"

"And the poor starving men," quickly interjected M. Onthemaker, not wishing for character-analyses yet, "who are the victims of a ruthless industrial system—"

"Yah, sandwiches!" put in C. Weinpusslacher.

M. Onthemaker grimaced horribly, and C. Weinpusslacher was silent for a minute. Presently he told Rutgers, "They get enough to eat here, anyways, I bet you."

He glared with a sort of malevolent triumph at M. Onthemaker, until he heard the boss say in stern accents:

"That, of course, Weinpusslacher, includes a couple of beers apiece."

"Of course! Of course!" put in M. Onthemaker, hastily. "The representatives of the press will sit at their own table, at which I am to have the honor of presiding, Max Onthemaker—O-n-t-h-e-m—"

"We got it down," the Evening Journal man assured him, amiably.

C. Weinpusslacher was so angry that anybody should help him to make money, when half the pleasure is in making it yourself out of your fellow-men, that he said, spitefully, "There will be free beer!"

Hendrik Rutgers took an innkeeper's notion and made of it the most remarkable platform in the history of party government. He said, sternly, "Everything free for free men!"

A grunting murmur ran down the line of derelicts—the inarticulate tribute of great thirst to great leadership. In a hundred pairs of eyes a human hope kindled its fire for the first time in two hundred years!

Great indeed was Hendrik Rutgers!

His faithful sandwiches would go through fire for him! A man who can get free beer for Sahara throats could put out the fire—with more beer.

The boards were hung around the great hall in plain sight of the reporters, who copied the legends, that all America might read. While they were writing, Caspar was hiring thirty extra waiters and turning people away. Hendrik went from man to man, sternly warning that no one must begin to eat until he gave the order. A violation of his order would entail the loss of the dinner and most of the scalp. He also said they must not linger over their victuals, and told them that two extra beers apiece would be awarded to the ten men who finished first.

He had made up his mind that the cold and callous world should be told how starving men eat.

What do people who get enough to eat know about starving men?

Nothing!

They impede the world's progress by being content. Human pigs!

In a surprisingly short time one hundred complete dinners were in front of one hundred starving men. Six bartenders were busy filling schooners—in plain sight of the starving men. But the boss's awful frown held them in check. Each man began to tremble in advance—fearing he might not be one of the ten to win the extra schooners.

The reporters looked at the hundred faces and began to write like mad.

Hendrik rose. There was an awed silence. The reporters stopped writing. One hundred inferior maxillaries began to castanet away like mad. The boss held up a hand. Then he said in measured tones:

"May God be good to us sandwich-men again this year! Eat!"

When he said eat, men ate. Don't forget the moral effect of commanding and being obeyed!

They flung themselves on the food like wild beasts, and made animal noises in their throats. They disdained forks, knives, and spoons. They used claws and jaws on meat, coffee, bread, potatoes, soup, or pie whichever was nearest.

No man wanted to be the last to finish.

"My God!" exclaimed the Evening Post man. "This is absolutely horrible!"

"Pippin!" said the creative artist from the Sun.

All of them would treat it as a Belasco production. That is, they would impart to it all the dignity and importance of a political convention.

At 8 p.m. Hendrik Rutgers, man of destiny, rose to speak. He never even glanced at the reporters. He said, very earnestly, to his tattered cohorts:

"Comrades! Ours is beyond question the only labor union in the United States, and, for all I know, in the entire world, that is not monopolistic in its tendencies. We are individualists because advertising is not a science nor a trade, but an art, and we are artists. When the advertisers' greed saw the artists' hunger, the result was that!" He pointed to five score dehumanized faces before him.

"Great!" murmured the Sun man.

"Hereafter watch the sandwich-man, and in one corner of the sign look for the union label—a skeleton carrying a coffin, to remind us that no matter what a man is when he is born, he goes to his Maker between boards. In death all men are equal, and in his coffin a man is the Ultimate Sandwich!"

"That's literature!" muttered the serious young man from the Journal.

"We refuse to be thieves. Therefore we decline to do any sandwiching for patent medicines, banks, quack cures, fraudulent stores, immoral books, coal-dealers, fake doctors, suburban real estate, bum chiropodists, or disreputable people of any kind, class, or nature whatsoever. We start with professional ethics, which is where most professions end. We who have been the lowest of the low class that work for their daily bread are now the S. A. S. A.—the Society of American Sandwich Artists. All we ask is permission to live! Our headquarters will be in the Allied Arts Building on Fifth Avenue."

His speech had quotable phrases. A country that once cast the biggest vote in its history for the square deal, that makes minions of dollars out of asking you if you see that hump, and from promising to do the rest if you push the button, and boasts of the thorn that made a rose famous, is bound to be governed by phrases. The only exceptions are the Ten Commandments. They are quotable, but not memorable.

All the newspapers spread themselves on that story. In their clubs the managing editors heard their fellow-members talk about the parade, and this made each M. E. telephone to the city editor to play it up. It was too picturesque not to be good reading, and since good reading is always easy writing, both reporters and editorial writers enjoyed themselves. That made them artists instead of wage-earners.

Hendrik Rutgers possessed the same quality of political instinct that nearly made the luckiest man in the world President of the United States. By blindly following it, young Mr. Rutgers jumped into the very heart of a profound truth. And once he landed, the same sublimated sagacity impelled him to stamp with both feet hard. Then, unemotionally perceiving exactly what he had done, he proceeded very carefully to pick out his own philosophical steps, in order to be able later on to prove that he had been coldly logical. Impulsive humanity always distrusts impulsiveness in others. Leaders, therefore, always call them carefully considered plans.

In all irreligious countries, as Hendrik Rutgers, astutely arguing backward, told himself, the people who buy, sell, and vote are alive only to To-day and therefore dare not take heed of the Hereafter. This has exalted news to the dignity of a sacred commandment.

In such communities success is necessarily a matter of skilful publicity.

Who is the greatest of all press agents, working while you sleep and even when you blunder?

The People!

The front page of the newspaper is therefore the arena of to-day!

To live in that page, all you have to do is to become News.

Once you become News all the king-making reporters of all the nation-making newspapers become your press agents. The public does the rest and pays all salaries.

Thrilled by his discovery, Hendrik called Max Onthemaker to one side and, with the air of a man risking one hundred and two millions of cash, said to him: "I have decided to make you chief counsel of my society. Your services will entitle you to represent me."

Never had man been so lavishly overpaid for breathing since the dawn of historical time. Hendrik went on, still imperial in bounty:

"I have in mind some great things. Every one of them will be worth as much space as the newspapers will give to this dinner. Do you see your chance?"

"I can't live on newspaper articles," began Max, elated but dissembling.

"You can die without them. Chronic obscurity; acute starvation," said Hendrik Rutgers in his clinical voice. "I not only do not propose to pay you a cent, but I expect you to pay all necessary expenses out of your privy purse without a murmur—unless said murmur is intended to express your legal opinion and your gratitude. I shall give you an opportunity to represent my society"—you would have sworn he was saying my regiment—"in actions involving the most famous names in America."

"For instance?" asked M. Onthemaker, trying to speak skeptically, that his eagerness might not show too plainly.

Hendrik Rutgers named six of the mightiest.

"You're on, Mr. Rutgers," said Max, enthusiastically. "Now, I think—"

"Wait!" interrupted Hendrik, coldly. "Never forget that I am not your press agent. You are mine."

"There will be glory enough to go around," said Max Onthemaker in his police-court voice. "When do we begin?"

"To-morrow."

"Yes, sir. And now—"

"My now is your when! Your job is to find the legal way of helping the Cause."

"I will!" promised Onthemaker, heartfully. The Cause would be his Cause. He'd fix it so they couldn't leave out his name.

But Hendrik saw the gleam in the lawyer's eye.

That's the worst of all thoughts of self. They invariably are undisguisable.

"The Cause, Onthemaker," said Hendrik, sternly, "is the cause of the Society of American Sandwich Artists. We are not associated to make money for ourselves, but for our employers. This is revolutionary. Moreover, we are not working-men, but artists. Therefore our men not only love their work, but are law-abiding. This will make the employers helpless to retaliate. We shall never do anything without invoking the aid of the law, for I believe that the law will help the poor not less than the rich if properly—"

"Advertised," prompted Max. "I get you. In the forum of the people's liberties—the daily papers—is the place to try—"

Hendrik held up a hand. He had chosen the right lawyer. The interpretation of the law depends exclusively upon the tone of voice. All reporters are trained to be judges of elocution. They have to be, in republics.

"To-morrow—" Here Hendrik paused.

Max's face paled slightly as he waited. What was coming?

Hendrik finished: "I shall telephone to you!"

Max drew in his breath sharply.

Hendrik then nodded. It meant, "You have my permission to retire!"

"Thank you, Mr. Rutgers," said Max, respectfully, and withdrew from the presence on tiptoe.

Hendrik then beckoned to his sandwich lieutenant. "Fleming!" he said, sternly.

Fleming threw up an arm defensively from force of habit—the slave's immemorial salute. Then he grinned sheepishly. Then he said, eagerly, "Yes, boss!"

"I'm going to make you chief of the Meal Ticket Department, and I expect you to maintain discipline. But if I ever hear of any graft, such as accepting bonuses—" He closed his jaws and his fists. When you close both at the same time you inevitably win the debate. It is, however, difficult.

"Honest, b-boss," stammered Fleming, his eyes on Hendrik's right fist. "Honest, I—"

The boss's right unclenched itself. Fleming drew in a deep breath.

"Get the names and addresses of all the men here—in their own writing. Ask Onthemaker for a blank-book, and when the men have signed give the book back to him. They've got to sign!"

Fleming's face was pale but resigned. Signatures are lethal weapons in all industrial democracies. Ask the note-teller in any bank. But the boss had said, "Sign!"

Kismet!

"And you keep a book of your own so that when I want ten or twenty men of a certain type and appearance you will know where to find them. I hold you responsible!"

Poor Fleming almost collapsed. Responsibility in a republic really means accountability. Our entire system of law, as a great psychologist has pointed out, is based upon the same confusion of definitions.

Hendrik saw the fear of statutory punishment seep into his lieutenant's soul. He stopped it at exactly the right point.

"Fleming," he said, kindly, "I trust you!"

Fleming felt himself decorated with the Grand Cross of the Order of Unearned Food. It made him into an active citizen.

"I'll get the men when you shout, boss!" he promised, proudly, realizing the meaning of the duty of a voter.

However, it would never do to have your creatures think they also have the power to create. Therefore Hendrik said, "If you don't—"

"I'll get 'em for you, b-boss. Honest, I will!" meekly promised Fleming, taking his place in the ranks. He was an ideal cabinet officer.

Hendrik Rutgers did not know men. He guessed them. He thus saved himself the fatigue of thinking.

Weinpusslacher swaggered by, counting his millions. He had begun to feel haughty. Hendrik stopped him by lifting his right forefinger and then smartly moving it Hendrikward.

"Weinie, I guess you're famous. You give the free meal tickets to Onthemaker. And don't try to cheat!"

"I never do such—" began Caspar, angrily.

"You never will to me," interrupted Hendrik, making Weinie's unuttered words his own. It took away from Weinie all sense of proprietorship in his own property.

This also is called genius. Such men should be tax-collectors instead of railroad bankers.

Hendrik glanced toward the reporters and saw that Mr. Onthemaker was talking to them and looking at him—looking at him both ingratiatingly and proudly. He therefore knew that Max was being quoted by the newspaper men, and the only subject on which they would quote him was Hendrik Rutgers. He also knew that the desire for reflected glory, in all newspaper-reading countries, is so strong that Max would be a great political historian. The best way to blow your own horn is to lend it to an obscure friend.

Hendrik Rutgers left the Colossal Restaurant certain that he was News, and that his job consisted of continuing to be News.

To become News and then to continue to be News a man must be plausible, persistent, and picturesque.

There was no altitude of success to which he might not climb, provided he lost six-sevenths of his name and mutilated his surname in like degree.

He must become two letters: H. R.

He thus would become an immortal during his own lifetime, which was immortality enough for any man who merely wished to acquire fame, wealth, and one wife in his own country.

So brightly lighted was his road that he knew exactly where to plant each foot—in the front page!

He must do it all. Therefore he must make others do the work. But this man who now was a million miles beyond all bank clerks knew exactly what he needed, which made it easy for him to know exactly whom he needed. This knowledge would establish the basis on which the workers must work.

He sought a newspaper-advertising agency; ordered the manager to insert in all the morning papers the same advertisement, in large type, with triple spacing, to show that money was no object.

This always impresses people who wish to make money.

The advertisement read:

H. R.
ALLIED ARTS BLDG.

It was the first time that an advertisement for "Help Wanted" had contained a postscriptum. H. R. did it because he knew that the unusualness of it would make professional people talk. Every experienced advertising man must realize that H. R. had not written an advertisement, but had dictated a brief letter to him. The signer was too busy and too much in earnest to compose a regular advertisement.

Genius neglects no opportunity, however slight. Consider the small but efficient yellow-fever microbe.

V

He was confronting his first crisis—the selection of a man who must not only be highly competent, but must be made to realize that H. R. was a pioneer, a man to whom tradition, precedents, and custom were less than nothing. H. R. studied the situation and then went out to the anteroom and looked at the waiting dozen slowly.

There are a few men in the world who can look a crowd from head to foot and manage to make each man in it feel guilty. After H. R. had so looked at them, he asked, skeptically, "Are all of you first-class men?"

To their honor be it said, not one of them answered No. Men collectively may be cruel or blind, but seldom petty or egotistical. Observe mobs.

H. R. turned his back on the crowd and returned to his private office. He did it on purpose. Men usually follow those who act as if they do not care whether they have a following or not. It is wiser to be wrong and not hesitate than to vacillate and be right. Besides, much quicker.

At the threshold he half turned and, without looking at any one in particular, said: "I need only four first-class men. The others might as well go away."

Twelve men heard him. Twelve men followed him.

He sat down at his new desk, put the unpaid bill for same in a drawer, and confronted them.

"Eight of you can go," he observed, and waited.

Each man cast a glance of pity at his neighbor.

"Don't be so modest," H. R. told them, kindly.

"You said first-class men?" politely inquired a young man, smooth-shaven, blond, blue-eyed, and very clean-looking.

"Yes," answered H. R.

"That's what I understood," said the young man, extending his hand. "Barrett's my name."

H. R. ignored the outstretched hand and stared at the clean-looking young man.

On the faces of eleven Christian gentlemen came a fraternal look of self-conscious modesty. But young Mr. Barrett, unabashed, said, cheerily:

"Keep on looking. I know you want me. When you discover it, we'll do business."

"Go to the foot of the class," said H. R., impassively. You could tell nothing from his voice. It is a valuable gift.

The young man eyed H. R. shrewdly, then walked to a corner of the room, sat down, pulled a memorandum-book from his pocket, and began to count his contracts in advance.

"Your last name, please," said H. R., looking as if what he had asked for was the right name. The assumption of guilt has the effect of putting even the innocent on the defensive. The strategic inferiority of the defensive is always acknowledged by the defeated—even before the defeat.

He jotted down the replies, one after another. Within one and three-quarter minutes these men felt themselves deprived of their individual entities. They had been turned into a list of surnames, a fragment of the rabble.

The leader stood alone—he alone had a first name! Smith merely votes; John Smith has his own opinion. H. R. had acted instinctively. He never would have had the conscious wisdom of an editorial writer. There are many editorial writers in all republics. Hence, practical politics.

"Where did you see my advertisement?" asked H. R. "One at a time, please. Also, state why you looked in that particular newspaper?"

They told him, one at a time, in the hearing of the others, thereby intensifying their own feeling of having been lumped into an electorate. He made notes as they answered. Some had seen it in the Herald. Others blamed the World or the Times or the Sun, or the Tribune. Three gave two papers; one had seen three. They expressed their professional opinion of that particular advertising medium, feeling that said opinion was a qualification of fitness.

Young Mr. Barrett from his chair answered: "In all the papers. I also looked in the German, Yiddish, and Italian papers; in the Courier des Etats-Unis, and in the first morning edition of every afternoon paper. I did it to get a line on you."

H. R. did not look as if he had heard Barrett. He said to the others: "I thank you all for coming. I shall not need Wilson, Streeter, Manley, Hill, Roberts, Smith, Jenks, or MacDuffy."

One of the rejected came forward, scowling. He was naturally a robust-looking person. He said, "Say, this is—"

H. R. did not allow the full expression of individual opinion—a form of salutary discipline which explains why people are governed. He snarled in a tone of voice that made his shoulders look a yard wide: "Mr. Book Agent, I've picked the men I want. What I don't want is to hear any remarks. Talk them into a dictagraph and send the cylinders by parcels post to my secretary."

He had risen. But when he finished speaking, as though the unarmed proletariat were in full retreat, he sat down again. It was the way he did it.

Men always do what they are expected to do. The eight non-successfuls went out. It was only when they were outside, where the female was typewriting away, that they began to talk loudly.

H. R. had judged rightly. They were not first-class men. He turned to the others and asked:

"Can you sell advertising?"

Young Mr. Barrett came forward. The four answered, "Yes!"

"Then you can sell anything!"

He stood up suddenly, when they were not expecting such a thing. This is always subtly disconcerting. Business men and beautiful women invariably resent it.

He asked, sharply, "What is the one thing none of you can sell to me?"

He looked challengingly at the first. The man stared back at H. R. and, with the canvasser's professional look of congratulation, replied, "A gold brick!"

"Good answer! Not the answer. And you?" he asked the second man.

"Newspaper space—not to you."

"Still better answer. But not the answer."

He looked at the third man, who promptly said: "Opinions!"

"Excellent. But not the answer. And you, young man?"

The accusation of youth is never successfully repulsed. Young Mr. Barrett, ingeniously admitting his youth to remove the sting from his humor, replied triumphantly, "Smallpox!"

"The tendency of American youth is toward the clown. It keeps us in an attitude of perennial apology toward the perennial juvenility of our nation. What none of you can sell me is—"

He paused. They were looking at him with the intentness with which all men look at an armed lunatic—or at their master.

After the second minute of suspense they exclaimed in chorus:

"What?"

They couldn't help it!

"Cold feet!" said H. R. calmly.

They looked relieved. Then they looked anxious. The reason the ruled masses never win is because they inflict upon themselves their own doubts.

"How many times your own salary do you wish to earn for me?" asked H. R. in the tone of voice in which a philanthropist asks strangers for subscriptions to his pet charity. This always makes people feel that extravagance is a sin.

"I'd expect to earn for you—" began one of the victims.

"Not what you would expect, but what you would like," corrected H. R. He spoke so kindly that they at once knew it was a trap. A look of brotherhood always is, to all clever men of an editorial type of mind.

"Four or five times," answered No. 1.

"And you?"

"I don't want to work for you at all," answered No. 2, feeling that his answer was sure not to be right.

"Good morning," said H. R. in such a voice and with such a look that No. 2 instantly ceased to exist. When he walked out he didn't hear his own footsteps.

"And you?"

"It depends," answered No. 3 in the earnest voice of a man trying to be fair at all costs, "upon what the work will be."

"I sha'n't need you. Please don't ask me questions. Good day, sir."

"I have a right—"

"None whatever. It would be cruelty if I told you."

Mr. Barrett laughed. No. 3 said, angrily, "You can't come that on me and get away with it, you damned—"

"Go while the going is good, friend." H. R. spoke with the cold kindness of a man warning an objectionable inebriate. Then, when the loss of patience of a prize-fighter who, however, has not quite lost sight of the electric chair: "Get out! D'ye hear?"

The man left. H. R. stared out of the window. They could see it was to cool off. It gave the remaining pair a great respect for him and also a resolve not to stimulate the heat verbally. At length H. R. turned to No. 1 and said, "Wolverton is your name?"

"Yes," answered Wolverton. Then he added, "Sir."

"Do you always get what you want?"

"I get my share."

"Barrett, do you get what you want?"

"Always!" promptly answered Barrett. "But I've got to be sure I want it."

"The more money you two wish to make the better you please me. It will give you something to brag of. In working for me you will receive your share of prosperity and the pleasure of becoming somebody."

He looked as if the three of them stood in the plain sight of two and one-half millions of spectators. He went on, even more impressively, "You will now go on Fifth Avenue and graciously permit the swellest shops to employ our union sandwich-men to advertise their wares."

Wolverton rose to his feet. His color also rose.

"You didn't want me to waste your time, did you?"

"No, but you have. Good day. Now, Barrett, listen to me. I never repeat."

Mr. Wolverton opened his mouth, perceived that H. R. was not looking at him, closed his mouth and went out. He was a well-dressed man with a determined chin. If it had not been for that chin he would have been a bookkeeper. Determination minus imagination equals stubbornness.

Mr. Wolverton therefore walked out unbleeding.

"Barrett, do you see the possibilities?"

"Do I? Didn't I see the parade? Say, I can only think when I talk. Trust me! Speaking of terms—" He looked at H. R., nodded amiably, and said, "After you, kind friend."

"You will ask our clients five dollars per day per man, they to pay for the boards, which must be artistic and approved by me. The union label will be on them. Forty per cent. goes to the artist, forty per cent. to you, and ten per cent. to the society. Don't try Valiquet's. Tackle everybody else first. I'll be here all the afternoon. Barrett, I expect you to do your damnedest!"

He rose, shook hands with young Mr. Andrew Barrett, escorted him to the door, and returned to his desk.

He sat there, thinking. He intended Barrett should fail in order that when H. R. made him succeed, later, Barrett should know to whom the credit should go, though the commissions would fall into Barrett's pocket. That would make the young man really useful.

The telephone people had not yet installed the apparatus in his office, so he went downstairs and called up Mr. Maximilian Onthemaker.

"Onthemaker?... This is H. R. speaking.... Of course I saw the papers.... Yes, all of them. Come up to my office. At once!... I can't help it; I need you—this means the front page again. If you don't want the job.... I thought you would! Remember, I'm waiting. Do you hear me? Waiting!"

The greatest stroke of political genius on the part of Louis XIV. was his rebuke: "I almost have been made to wait!"

What, wait?—H. R.?

If it had not been that taxicabs cost actual money, M. Onthemaker would have taken one. But he knew he soon would have one of his own—if the newspapers did their share.

Before Max could decide whether he ought to say good morning to H. R. in a sulky tone of voice at being called from an important conference, or smile pleasantly, H. R. said:

"Onthemaker, I am going to advertise a shop without permission and without pay."

"Another restaurant, like—"

"Like nothing. Don't interrupt again, not even to approve. I am going to have Valiquet's, the jewelers, brought to the notice of Fifth Avenue through the medium of our sandwich-men. I anticipate objections. The statute clearly says we must not use a person's name for purposes of trade without his consent. But I'm not going to use the name of a person, but of a corporation, for its own trade and profit. There is no law that can prevent me from putting money into a corporation's treasury—"

"A commission of lunacy—"

"Be quiet. They can't stop me legally, if you are our counsel." Max bowed, opened his mouth, and promptly closed it when he saw H. R.'s face. "They might try to get out an injunction, but you must beat them to it. They will probably try to get the police to stop us by alleging breach of the peace, disorderly conduct, or some violation of a city ordinance. I want you to prepare in advance restraining orders or applications for injunctions or whatever is needed to prevent interference with us. You are the counsel of the Society of American Sandwich Artists. Prepare papers also in the names of individual members. The poor sandwich artist, working for a mere pittance, without money to pay his able but charitable and indignant counsel, will fight the richest jewelry-shop in the world. The pearl showcase alone would feed one hundred and eighty-six thousand, four hundred and fifty-one men one week. Do you get that?"

"Do I?" Max Onthemaker, able and indignant, was rushing to embrace H. R., on whose face he saw ten thousand front-page head-lines, when H. R. said, coldly:

"Sit down. This is only the beginning."

Max sat down. He felt very much more like kneeling in adoration before this god of success.

"Yes, sir," he murmured, prayerfully, and looked with his very soul.

"Be ready with the papers for the papers."

Perceiving a puzzled look on the lawyer's face, H. R. explained: "Draw the legal papers up so they will be news. And remember that I am the society. You are merely a lawyer lucky enough to be its lawyer. If you don't know what the reporters like to print, bring the injunctions and typewritten argument to me this afternoon. Go away now. I'm going to Valiquet's."

"Not to—"

"Not to anything you may think."

Max Onthemaker walked away, and even as he walked he began to fear that the newspapers would not let him have more than twenty-eight columns. It behooved him to be brief. What with the immemorial wrongs of the poor, and the inalienable rights of American citizens, and the abuse of wealth, and the arrogance of unconvicted millionaires, and the supine subservience of the police and the politicians to Big Business, how could he use less than three pages? How?

But he must do it. He asked himself what steps he would take to prevent the sandwich-men, or anybody, from advertising him, and he could find no objection. But he had imagination. He indignantly put himself in the place of Valiquet's and hired M. Onthemaker, Esq., to stop the beasts. And then he proceeded to make the able counsel of the S. A. S. A. punch the great jewelers' case full of holes—such holes as would let out the law in the way the reporters would like. This would make said holes the kind that no judge, thinking of re-election and the recall, would dare to plug up. When your client is poor and doesn't use dynamite, sympathy is the best law with juries. And when it came to picking out jurors, Max had inherited a vision for dollars which enabled him to tell the contents of a juror's inside pocket to the penny, and therefore the exact hatred of riches of each of the twelve peers.

VI

He moved on, reluctantly, six feet farther and examined, with a little more insistence, the emeralds, the fashionable gems of the season.

"Very fair! Very fair, indeed!" he seemed to be saying encouragingly to the dazzling green things.

The well-trained clerks looked at him, took a respectfully eager step toward him as if to place themselves unreservedly at his orders, and then abruptly immobilized themselves in their tracks—their tribute to expert knowledge!

He did not look up, but, as if he were aware that the world was looking on, ready to obey, he rested his finger-tip on the showcase immediately above an eighteen-carat cabochon emerald surrounded by very white diamonds set in platinum. By instinct he had picked out the best.

A clerk opened the case, took out the emerald, and respectfully laid it before the connoisseur. H. R. fumbled in his waistcoat pockets, then in his coat, allowed himself to look annoyed at having forgotten his pocket magnifying-glass, picked up the jewel, looked at it closely for flaws, then at arm's-length for general effect.

He laid it on the velvet mat, raised his eyes and met the clerk's.

The clerk smiled uncertainly. H. R. unsmilingly raised his eyebrows—very slightly.

"Sixty-eight thousand five hundred, Mr.—eh—"

H. R. hesitated. Then he shook his head resolutely. Having mastered the temptation, he nodded to the clerk, and said, kindly, "Thank you."

"Not at all, sir," gratefully said the clerk.

H. R. walked on, a marked man, high in the estimation of the clerks because he had not bought a sixty-eight-thousand-dollar emerald.

Don't you wonder how they do it? What is it? Intuition? Genius?

A floor-walker who had taken in H. R.'s introduction of himself to Valiquet's bowed deferentially to H. R. and blamed his memory for not remembering the name. He was certain he knew the gentleman well.

H. R. nodded and asked: "I wish to have a bronze statuette designed and cast for me. Which department, please?"

"Up-stairs, Mr.—er— Second floor, sir. Mr. Gwathmey is in charge, and—"

"Oh, Gwathmey!" H. R. was obviously much relieved.

"Yes, sir. He's still with us, sir. Elevator on the left."

"Thank you," said H. R., and the man smiled gratefully.

You don't have to buy to be treated politely in New York. The mere suspicion of the power of purchase is enough. It is thus that the principle "Politeness pays" has been established among stock-brokers and jewelers.

H. R. was directed to the head of the department, to whom he said, with a sort of boyish eagerness, "Mr. Gwathmey, I'm very much interested in the Movement, as you probably know, and I wish my little society to have a very artistic emblem."

He looked expectantly at Mr. Gwathmey, who thereupon bowed at the implied compliment, but, not knowing what to say, said nothing.

"You read in the papers about the parade my poor fellows had Saturday?"

"Not the—er—sandwich-men's parade?"

"Yes!" H. R. smiled so gratefully and congratulatory that Mr. Gwathmey felt himself enrolled among the honorary vice-presidents. "That's it. The society emblem is a skeleton and the sandwich-boards are a coffin—"

"Yes, I read that," and Mr. Gwathmey smiled at the delightful humor of the conceit.

H. R. instantly frowned at the levity—all very rich men frown at all smiles aimed at their pet hobbies.

Mr. Gwathmey, knowing the ways of millionaires, hastened to explain, gravely, "There is a great deal to that idea!"

"Nobody helped me!" H. R. spoke eagerly, as all youthful aristocrats speak when they speak of their own ideas. "The Ultimate Sandwich! What you and I shall be at least once. I am glad you agree with me. Now, I wish statuettes made in bronze in three sizes, two, four, and six inches high, so they can be used by my friends as desk ornaments. And can you put on a nice patine?"

"Oh yes! And—er—Mr.—ah—" Gwathmey looked ashamed of himself.

But H. R. smiled pleasantly and said: "It is easy to see you are not a Rutgers College man. I'm Mr. Rutgers. My father—" He stopped—naturally.

"I'm sorry to say I'm Harvard, Mr. Rutgers," said Mr. Gwathmey, contritely. "But don't you think it would be a little gruesome for a desk ornament?"

"Not at all. The Egyptians used to bring in a skeleton at their feasts so that the timid guests should cease to fear dyspepsia. And the Memento Mori of later centuries had its raison d'être. I have a Byzantine ivory carving of a skull that is a gem. Holbein's 'Dance of Death' is not inartistic. It is up to you people to keep my skull from being repulsive. I wish to get something that will drive home the fact to us careless Americans that the richest is no better than the poorest. For we are not!" H. R. said this decisively. When the aristocrat tells you that you and he are not a bit better than the proletariat, what you understand him to say is that you also are an aristocrat. A democratic aristocracy is invincible.

"No," agreed Mr. Gwathmey, proudly, "we are not!"

"Let me have a sketch as soon as possible. It is to raise funds for our superannuated sandwiches."

Mr. Gwathmey saw no humor in either the intention or the phrase. As an alert business man who studied the psychology of customers, he knew that society leaders had advocated the cause of the shirtwaist workers and of certain educational movies—especially society leaders who had reached the age when their looks and their pearls no longer entitled them to the pictorial supplements. How else could they stay in the newspapers except by indignation over the wrongs of social inferiors? By espousing the cause of the lower classes, the latter also remained lower.

Mr. Gwathmey smiled tolerantly and nodded. Then he looked dreamy and murmured: "I see! I see exactly what you want: a skeleton carrying a coffin as sandwich-boards. The Ultimate Sandwich."

He saw it in the air, two feet from the tip of his nose; he was a creative artist. Then he became a salesman.

"We can submit designs to you, Mr. Rutgers—"

"To-day?"

"Oh, gracious, no! We couldn't—"

"To-morrow, then. You have grasped the idea completely. No, Mr. Gwathmey; no!" And H. R. held up a hand—the hand of Fate. "To-morrow, at the latest! Must have it! I hate waiting. That's why I came to Valiquet's instead of Shoreham's. And now," he went on before Mr. Gwathmey could protest, "I wish also a series of designs for sandwich-boards—heraldic shields, scutcheons and bucklers, spade-shapes, rectangular boards of the right proportion, circles, and a keystone for use by the Pennsylvania Railroad. I propose to raise the sandwich to the highest form of art. I shall experiment with various materials—wood, metal, and composition, with raised as well as with sunken letters, in divers colors, vert antique and beautiful soft grays, and iridescent-glass mosaic. Can't you imagine a sandwich being made artistic, if I get competent experts to design them?" H. R. looked anxiously at the competent expert.

"Indeed I can," replied Mr. Gwathmey, with conviction. "Indeed I can, Mr. Rutgers. It is an excellent idea!"

"Thank you. Do you know, I thought so, too!"

Mr. Gwathmey, being a kindly man, was so pleased at having suggested, evolved, and improved a great idea that he filled with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm always made him take out his pencil and reach for a pad. He did so now.

"For instance—" he said, and he began to design.

"Exactly! Exactly!" said H. R., with such eager admiration that Mr. Gwathmey was inspired by love of the young man. "I'd give everything I own, Mr. Gwathmey, to have your gift!"

Mr. Gwathmey modestly felt his talents overcapitalized. Everything this eccentric but clever scion of the Knickerbockers owned? Mr. Gwathmey almost saw the old Rutgers farm! It must have had at least one hundred and fifty acres bounded by Broadway, Wall, Fulton, and the East River. A very nice young man, with agricultural ancestors in New Amsterdam.

"Won't you give me these, Mr. Gwathmey?" pleaded H. R.

"We never send out such rough—"

"These are not the firm's, but Gwathmey's. Just sign your name and let me keep these as souvenirs. Please!" And H. R. smiled with boyish eagerness.

Mr. Gwathmey signed his initials, and reluctantly gave the drawings to H. R., shaking his modest head deprecatingly.

H. R. reverently put the precious sheets in his pocket and said: "Thank you very much. Now you get your best sculptor to model my Ultimate Sandwich by to-morrow, won't you?" Then he proceeded to contradict in advance—a purely feminine habit, sometimes used with great effect by masculine leaders—"Oh yes, he can. I'm sure you can make him do it if you wish to be nice!"

What reply could Mr. Gwathmey possibly make? He made it. "I'll do my best, Mr. Rutgers; but—"

"Then it's done," said H. R., with such conviction that Mr. Gwathmey filled his own lungs with oxygen. "And the designs for the various kinds of sandwich-boards, in color, with the different materials indicated. Send them to me, Allied Arts Building, won't you?"

H. R. forgot to say anything about costs. Only the nobility forget such things, for the nobility know that Valiquet's work is perfect. Mr. Gwathmey therefore forgot to be cautious. He said, "Very well, Mr. Rutgers."

"Thank you so much!" That little phrase of gratitude in that same tone of voice has often made plebeians feel like dying to prove their gratitude. Then H. R. hesitated, looked at Mr. Gwathmey, and, recklessly vaulting over all caste-barriers, said, "I wish to shake hands with the man who designed my sandwiches!"

Mr. Gwathmey actually blushed as he shook hands warmly. The moment H. R. left, Mr. Gwathmey rushed to his office to take steps to please young Mr. Rutgers.

Rutgers College—culture; Hendrik—Knickerbocker; no question about price—inherited wealth; newspaper front page—somebody!

A nice boy, bless him!

Mr. Gwathmey at that moment was the only man who really knew H. R. Like a book!

Thus are historic characters analyzed by intimate friends. Invaluable testimony! Interesting side-lights!

H. R. went back to his office and began to copy Mr. Gwathmey's designs. He had barely finished when Andrew Barrett entered. He looked humorous. Young men always do when they are angry at having failed but do not wish to call it failure, and therefore must not look angry. Defeat is never a joke. Therefore a joke can never be an acknowledgment of defeat. Very easy! Origin: U. S. A. Reason: national juvenility.

Before Barrett could speak H. R. asked, "Nobody would be first?"

"No; nor second."

"They will. Did you properly play up the wisdom and glory of being first?"

"Of course."

"Go back and tell them that Valiquet's will advertise with our sandwiches as soon as they have prepared artistic boards. The other men have lost the chance to be first. They are asses. Tell them so and book them for second place. Dwell strongly on the fact that the commercial standing of each shop will be determined by the richness of the sandwich-boards. Tell them confidentially that Valiquet's will do some wonderful stunts with real bronze and iridescent-glass mosaics valued at ten thousand dollars. The firm are taking big chances with breakage in a crowded avenue, but that's why they are on top of the heap. The department stores might try real lace edging and gold-thread hand-embroidery on Genoese velvet."

Valiquet's advertising campaigns were models of ultra-conservatism and costly refinement. And now, sandwiches!

"Have you—" began young Mr. Barrett in awed tones.

"I have. Get busy! Tell them to watch. On next Monday begins the greatest revolution in advertising this country ever experienced. We are making history! Pledge them to advertise through us, if we deliver the goods. It will be the only swell way. Get that?"

"Betcherlife!" And Mr. Andrew Barrett rushed off.

VII

H. R. looked at his men. They looked away uneasily. Was this to be their last free meal?

H. R. turned to Andrew Barrett and said in a voice that did not reach the members and therefore increased their uneasiness:

"Barrett, in unionizing these men, thereby making them free sandwiches, I had in mind several things; one of them was the absolute control of the New York papers."

"How?" asked Barrett in utter non-comprehension.

"By organizing my men into a Public Sentiment Corps. Their duty will be to write letters to the newspapers. I figure that one bona-fide letter to each thirteen thousand one hundred and eighty-six circulation creates an irresistible demand. The Evening Post, of course, needs about one to five hundred readers. I think eleven letters will be enough there. Our men already have names, and hereafter they will have permanent addresses."

"And then?"

"I furnish the paper, the stamps, and the literature. The men copy the letters. The newspapers will do the rest. Did you bring the pads and pencils I told you?"

"Yes."

"Pass 'em around, one to each man."

Barrett did so. The men edged away in ill-concealed terror.

"Take up the pencils!" commanded H. R.

The members acted as if the pencils were rattlesnakes.

"Did you hear me?" asked H. R., calmly.

They trembled. But they were not slaves. No man can be compelled to write in a free country.

By feeding these men H. R. had given them the courage to refuse to obey him! Was the food an error, as charitable philosophers have declared?

The pencils remained untouched before the men. Fleming was the only one who obeyed. But he was by now almost a capitalist—he was a distributor of meal-tickets.

"Mutiny!" muttered Andrew Barrett, and looked anxiously at his chief. How would H. R. meet this crisis? The absolute control of the New York papers hung in the balance.

But H. R. merely asked, pleasantly, "Ready?"

Not a man stirred. They had forgotten that he could fight!

"I will dictate and each of you must write down what I say. I want to know how well you can write."

Two of the men began to shake their heads with growing independence. Others followed, for moral courage is contagious, even in industrial democracies.

H. R. smiled confidently. That made them waver. Confidence is the most demoralizing of all social factors. "Now write what I say and sign your name after you finish."

All of them shook their heads and frowned pugnaciously.

H. R. dictated, "Please pay us five dollars a day!"

They grabbed the pencils with one lightning-like movement, and wrote, very plainly. They signed their names even more plainly.

"Give them to Fleming. On Monday we begin work. I shall consider the writing carefully."

In this wise was organized the Public Sentiment Corps of the S. A. S. A. Literature, it had once more been demonstrated, is merely a matter of demand and supply.

VIII