H. R.

H. R.
Allied Arts Bldg.

It was rather late in the evening when he sent for Max Onthemaker, but this only served to strengthen the learned counsel's high opinion of H. R. When H. R. told him what he proposed to do Max jumped in the air for joy. Then he sat down limply. It suddenly occurred to him that H. R. was far too intelligent. This is fatal to the right kind of newspaper publicity. But H. R. soothed him and dispelled Max's doubts by showing him exactly how to become an efficient and altogether legal agent provocateur. The legal mind always concerns itself over the particular paragraph. It comes from numbering the statutes. Max worked till dawn on his papers and arguments.

On the next morning H. R. selected, out of several dozen applicants, four actors who looked really distinguished. The others walked away cursing the trust. They are never original, as a class, by reason of their habit of also reading the press notices of their colleagues.

H. R. told the lucky four that he would give them the hardest part of their lives.

They looked at him pityingly.

He then guaranteed to get their pictures in all the papers.

They looked blasé.

He began to speak to them about fame and about money, and then about money and fame—the power to go into any restaurant and cause an instant cessation of all mastication, or walk into any manager's office and be entreated to sign, at any price, only sign—sign at once!

They accepted on the spot, and asked when the engagement began. In their eagerness to be artists they forgot to ask the salary.

H. R. then told them that they must introduce the art of sandwiching to New York. They must command the union sandwiches.

Never!

He explained to them very patiently, for he was dealing with temperaments, that to make sandwiching an art required the highest form of histrionic ability. Anybody could look like a gentleman on the stage or in any of the Fifth Avenue drawing-rooms to which they were obviously accustomed. But, unmistakably to look like a gentleman between sandwich-boards would require a combination of Richard Mansfield and ancient lineage. He asked them kindly to ponder on the lamented Edward VII. How would the Kaiser act? That is the way he wanted his artists to act—like royalty. It was the highest art ever discovered. They would be the cynosure of all eyes on Fifth Avenue, where most eyes belong to wealthy women who always look for, as well as at, handsome men of discretion and bona-fide divorce decrees. The artists themselves would represent Valiquet's, the world's greatest jewelers, and the newspapers would be told of the enormous salaries paid. Some of the boards would be of real gold, to be valued at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the most conservative of the newspapers. The men also would be paid in cash, two dollars a day.

"The idea is not to sandwich in the ordinary commercial way, but to give our press agents the swellest opportunity of the century. Managers have used real diamonds on the stage. Money buys them. I am using real gentlemen. Money cannot make them. Valiquet's never does anything inexpensive, and this is merely the first and most dazzling chapter in the history of the New Art of Advertising. The newspapers will duly chronicle the fact that each artist received one thousand dollars a week—which the artists have turned over to charity, like gentlemen. To be the Theodore Roosevelts of street advertisements is more than a privilege, more than an honor, more than art—it is cash! There have been sandwich-men. There shall be sandwich-artists! Gentlemen, you will make history. If you feel you don't measure up to the job, you can get the hell out of here!"

They not only signed, but begged to begin on that day, even though it was Friday. But H. R. was adamant.

"Monday!" he said, "and no more remarks. Report at nine a.m., dressed like gentlemen."

Andrew Barrett reported enthusiastically that nearly every shop on the Avenue was ready to sign contracts if Valiquet's began. There had been some skepticism, and expectations were keyed up to the snapping-pitch.

Mr. Gwathmey sent a dozen designs for boards and the model of the Ultimate Sandwich. It was really a beautiful piece of work. H. R.'s luck was with him. The young Frenchman who did it came into his own years later.

H. R. accepted them on official stationery of the society, ordered one hundred of each size, and also asked that the designs of the sandwich-boards be engraved in color. He told Barrett to get Valiquet's written acceptance of his order.

On Sunday all the newspapers were impressively notified that there would be some novel and revolutionary advertising on the Avenue. To insure attention, the newspapers were simultaneously informed also that the Fifth Avenue Merchants' Guild had decided to advertise more extensively in the daily press. New York would give an object-lesson in optimism and confidence to the rest of the country. This would allay all fears as to the fundamental soundness of the general business situation. Wall Street might be in the dumps, but the legitimate merchants, up to the full-page size, were more truly representative of the metropolis.

Fleming had been told to detail himself, Mulligan, and the four most typical sandwiches in the society to act as the advance-guard. He and the five were at the office early Monday morning, so were the four histrionic artists, so was Max Onthemaker with nineteen injunctions, writs, and legal documents neatly typewritten, three process-servers, and thirty copies of a statement for the newspapers.

Each sandwich-man received his board and a copy of his own speech. It was a plea for equal rights and the cessation of hostilities against a poor man simply because he had no money, a prayer for the enforcement of the Constitution, and three quotations from that obsolete Book that taught sandwich-men how to turn the other cheek. Also a post-Scriptural assertion that each man went to church to pray and not to ask for unearned bread or jump on Standard Oil.

Max himself made them memorize the speech. They were letter perfect before he stopped.

"This will kill 'em dead," he said, enthusiastically. "Why, Mr. Rutgers, even the newspapers will think they are Christians and—"

"Make them early Christians," wisely advised H. R. "Thats what the world needs to-day!"

"You are right, as usual. Hey, you fellows, add, If we must die, we die forgiving our fellow-men in the knowledge that after death we shall come into our own."

"Hey, I ain't going to be killed just to—" began Mulligan, edging toward the door.

"In the newspapers, ass! In the front page, imbecile!" shrieked Max.

Mulligan shook his head doggedly.

"Mulligan!" said H. R., and clenched his right fist.

"Ye-es, boss."

"I'll be there to see that you get the forty beers and I'll guarantee that you'll have a chance to assuage your thirst after business hours."

"All right, boss," said Mulligan. "And I'll guarantee the thirst."

"Say, can you beat it?" admiringly asked Max of Andrew Barrett. "Where does he get it?" And he tapped his own cranium sadly.

"And, Mulligan, if you should be locked up," added H. R., "the first thing you do when you get to jail is to declare a hunger strike. This will stamp you as Crusaders! And Crusaders never frighten Business."

"Great heavens!" whispered Max.

"Do we get the—" began Mulligan, anxiously.

"Nothing need be said about drinking. You'll get your forty."

"They can do their damnedest," said Mulligan, looking like a hero-martyr.

"Refer all reporters to your counsel," finally advised Max. "Forget everything else, but not that, not that!"

IX

At two o'clock the artists sallied forth once more. The throngs opened for them to pass. Those spectators who had put off lunching to see the epoch-making stunt were rewarded. They saw four perfectly attired gentlemen in top-hats, carrying dazzling escutcheons worthy of the premier jewel-shop in the world.

The six, walking professionally, carried the most beautiful boards ever seen, with these legends:

They were followed by the six picked sandwiches, in their working-clothes, but with wonderful boards.

The sandwich was the thing!

The sandwich-men were merely artists.

The spectators recalled that ultimately all men and all women must become sandwiches.

It made New-Yorkers realize that Death was still on the job. This gave them something to talk about that night at dinner, before dancing.

Also three hundred and fifty thousand people saw the O. K. of "H. R."

It is easy to remember two letters.

It was an extraordinary sensation. The big shops emptied themselves. In McQuery's and Oldman's and Mann & Baker's the rush to the Avenue doors was so great that floor-walkers who tried to stem the tide were crushed, manlike, by the women and borne, half-clad, upon the sidewalk. The proprietors looked at the crowds, heard the same remark, "What is it?" by the tens of thousands, saw the sandwiches, saw the looks on the tens of thousands of faces, and said, "Damn!"

They had not heard the knock of opportunity, and Valiquet's had. No wonder the jewel firm's regular two-hundred-per-cent. quarterly dividends were regular. It wasn't the big profit in gems; it was the cars!

The proprietors blamed their advertising managers.

The triumphal march of the sandwiches was more than a success, more than a sensation. It was an event. The four top-hatted histrions then and there forswore the stage. No artist had ever won such triumphs since Nero. They had started as Beau Brummels. They had become Kaisers—only infinitely more Cæsarean. And the union sandwiches following in Indian file, oblivious, like true artists, of the admiration of the rabble, thought of the end of the day, of the forty beers and the free food—of unearned wealth!—and actually swaggered so that their parasite-infested hirsuteness and their beast-faces took on an aspect of aristocratic eccentricity, of zeal for a noble cause. Their rags, in juxtaposition to the dazzling gorgeousness of their sandwich-boards, thus became ecclesiastical vestments—pilgrims wearing tatters in fulfillment of Lenten vows of renunciation.

It was, of course, the masterly combination. Valiquet's was the last word in swellness, the label of utterly inutilitarian wealth.

The sandwich business was therefore the postscript.

"Only Valiquet's would think of doing such a thing!" said all Fifth Avenue, as usual giving credit to commercial genius instead of to the creative artist.

The other mercantile geniuses, seeing that their shoppers had declared a legal holiday, frantically telephoned to Mr. Andrew Barrett to send out their sandwiches at once. They would pay ten dollars per man; yes, twenty dollars. Only do it now! They did not wish to be put in the position of following. This is fatal on Fifth Avenue.

Valiquet's was skimming the cream! Never mind submitting the legends! Get a hustle on! Never mind striking catch-phrases. That would come later. Get the sandwiches on the Avenue! The bare name and the sandwiches!

The crowd, who had not had time to forget about the sandwich-men's parade of a few days before, cleverly saw that this was the second chapter. They therefore knew all about it and could and would say so to their less-clever fellow-beings. Completeness of knowledge is one of the nicest feelings in the world.

Barrett excitedly reported the avalanche of orders to H. R. and was promptly and calmly despatched to the board-makers to order fifty boards each of the six Valiquet designs, three hundred in all. H. R. then dictated a statement for publication, as to the real meaning of sandwiching on Fifth Avenue. It was not merely advertising—it was philanthropy. Much more went to feeding starving artists at the Colossal Restaurant than to the militant brethren in the shape of wages. It was also the best way of advertising Fifth Avenue's wares.

Mr. Wilberforce Josslyn, president of Valiquet's corporation, was told of the sandwich desecration of the holy name. His private secretary alone had the courage to impart the news.

Mr. Wilberforce Josslyn, feeling that he had to be to his help what his firm was to the world, turned around in his Circassian-walnut swivel-chair, said, "Stop 'em!" and revolved again.

The secretary carried the order to the first vice-president, Mr. Angus MacAckus; the first vice-president took it upon himself not only to stop 'em, but to punish 'em. He hastily descended to the main floor. What he saw through the Fifth Avenue doors appalled him, and worse. Even within the sacred precincts of the shop the reckless jewel-buying public and the conservative charge-accounts alike were talking about it, actually congratulating the gentlemanly salesmen and the courtly department-managers and the obliging watch-repairers.

Two men, whom he recognized as reporters by their intellectual faces, approached him, but he ran away from them toward the door.

Mrs. Vandergilt, undisputed Tsarina of society, was in one of the compartments of the plate-glass and solid-silver stile, and he waited in order to welcome her. They did not make a hundred thousand a year out of her, for she was not from Detroit, but they had been official jewelers to the family for sixty years, as they were of all the Vans who were Van Somebody. The annual storage of the Vandergilt crown jewels was a regular yearly story, like the police parade and the first snow-storm.

"MacAckus," said Mrs. Vandergilt in her sharp, imperious voice, "why did you do it? Not to advertise?"

"Certainly not," answered Mr. MacAckus, forgetting himself and speaking with heat.

"I thought not. Well, I am glad you are helping. I shall send my check to them. Poor men!" Then she had one of those moments of kindliness that made people worship her: "It was a very clever thing to do, MacAckus. I am glad you had not only the brains, but the courage."

The reporters heard her. It was their business to get the news. Mr. MacAckus realized that Mrs. Vandergilt's approval had changed the complexion of the affair. At the same time, Valiquet's never talked for publication, and the remarks of their clients were sacred. He turned to the reporters and said in the peremptory tone that makes reporters so obedient:

"Not a word of this! Do you understand?"

"We understand perfectly," said the American. "We certainly do!" and wrote what Mrs. Vandergilt had said and what she was wearing. It would be a text for one of Arthur Migraine's editorial sermons, proving that millionaires, instead of being blown into atoms, should be freely permitted to give money for starving men to convert into food. In fact, nature wisely provided that millionaires should have money to give away. The more the poor received the less the millionaire would take to the useless grave.

Mr. MacAckus, greatly perturbed by this deviation from the norm, rushed to the president's office to tell him Mrs. Vandergilt's opinion. Before he could speak, Mr. Wilberforce Josslyn said:

"Did you stop 'em?"

"No, sir. Let me explain. Mrs. Vandergilt just came in and—"

"I sent word to have 'em stopped!" said Mr. Josslyn, frowning.

"Let me explain, Mr. Josslyn—"

Disobedience cannot be explained away. Discipline must be enforced. It is better to blunder under orders than to prevent disorganization from interfering with dividends. The obvious advantage that a corporation president has over his subordinates is that he does not have to be hampered by petty details.

"Stop 'em!" he said, coldly.

"Mrs. Vandergilt said—"

"And Mr. Josslyn said stop 'em!" He turned his back on MacAckus, who thereupon rushed downstairs, frowning angrily. He'd stop 'em.

He walked out into the Avenue. It was blocked. He tried to elbow his way through the intelligent femininity and was nearly run in by a traffic policeman. The women refused to budge—the sandwiches were coming.

And would you believe it? As the shining top-hats drew near, the crowd actually divided itself, Red-Sea-wise, to let H. R.'s chosen people pass safely.

Mr. MacAckus did not faint, because he was too angry. He stepped in front of the four obvious gentlemen and held up a hand. He could not speak.

But the four, who had been elevated to imperial dignity by New York, moved on so majestically that Mr. MacAckus began to retreat before them, waving his hand frantically. He stepped backward, keeping time to their steps, his hand moving up and down in his wrath. It looked for all the world like a band-master indicating to his artists just how to play it.

Backward he stepped; onward they marched; until speech returned to him:

"Stop! Stop! STOP!"

They did not hear him.

He called to a policeman, "Stop 'em!"

H. R. had won!

The officer ran up. He was a policeman. He therefore said, "What's the matter?"

"These men have no right to use our name. We did not authorize them. We wish them stopped from using our firm's name for—er—advertising purposes. It's against the law. I'll make a complaint against them. Stop 'em!"

Max Onthemaker came forward, his face pale with determination. Four reporters trailed along.

"Touch these gentlemen at your peril!" he said to the policeman. "Here is a sworn copy of the statute referred to by that person." He shoved a typewritten document under the officer's nose. There were two seals on it; one was in anarchistic red and the other in Wall Street gold.

"Observe," pursued Mr. Onthemaker, impressively and very distinctly, that the reporters might not misquote, "that the statute says the name of a living person must not be used. But Valiquet's is a corporation. Do you get that, officer? A corporation!"

The officer read the newspapers. He knew what corporations were. They bought votes for the Republicans; and, besides, they only paid the men higher up. He therefore informed Mr. MacAckus:

"I can't do not'n."

"And even if you could, officer," said Mr. Onthemaker to the reporters, "the magistrate would let them go with a reprimand for you. We are ready for him." Then he said to MacAckus: "Get out of the way, or I'll have you arrested for blocking traffic, causing a crowd to collect, for assuming that you own the sidewalk, and for interfering with honest working-men who are trying to earn a peaceful living. Also for oppressing the poor. We have not asked you for money. We do not wish your charity." He paused, and, shaking a finger at Mr. MacAckus, said, loudly, "We spurn your tainted money!"

H. R. had not made a mistake in picking out this man to represent the society. Indeed, one reporter, in a stage whisper, actually hissed:

"Bribery!"

The officer looked at Mr. MacAckus and said, "Please move on, sir."

"That's polite enough," said one of the reporters, making a note of it. But Mr. MacAckus said:

"Why, you infernal—"

"Move on!" said the cop.

"I am Mr. MacAckus, of Valiquet's—"

"Tell him who you are, officer," said the diabolic Onthemaker, guessing the cop's nationality.

"I am Mr. McGinnis, of the thirty-first precinct."

People began to clap their hands—people who never went into Valiquet's. Mr. McGinnis thereupon laid a hand proudly on Mr. MacAckus's arm.

Mr. MacAckus lost his head; that is, he shook off the white-gloved hand of the law.

The law blew its whistle, as the law always does in civilized communities.

Instantly, as though the whistle had been the cue, the stirring sound of galloping steeds smote the asphalt of Fifth Avenue.

"Let him go, Officer McGinnis," said Max Onthemaker, magnanimously. "We do not care to appear against him."

"Ain't he fine-looking?" a woman asked her companion, looking at the law. She even pointed at him.

Mr. McGinnis therefore haughtily said, "Resisting an officer—"

H. R. on horseback, in correct riding attire, following seven mounted traffic-squad men, appeared on the scene.

"There he is!" said Mr. Onthemaker to the reporters, dutifully yielding the center of the stage to its rightful possessor. After all, there was only one H. R., and both H. R. and Max Onthemaker knew it.

"That's the commissioner," said a clerk to the atmosphere.

"It's young Vandergilt!" asserted the fickle one who had thought McGinnis was fine-looking.

Before the traffic squad could dismount, H. R. jumped down from his horse, threw the reins to one of the mounted officers, said, "Look after him!" so decisively that no remonstrance was possible, approached the group, and said, "I'm Mr. Rutgers!"

Fifth Avenue was impassable now.

"Who is it?" asked ten thousand who had been asking, "What is it?"

Those who had heard proudly repeated the name to those who had not. Within forty seconds, as far as Thirty-fourth Street, intelligent New-Yorkers were saying, "It's Mr. Rutgers!"

Officer McGinnis touched his white-gloved hand to his cap.

"That's Hendrik Rutgers!" explained Max Onthemaker to the reporters.

H. R. looked Mr. MacAckus in the eye and said, with patrician frigidity: "If you think you have any ground for a civil action, go ahead. My office is in the Allied Arts Building. I'll accept service in person or through my counsel here."

A murmur went up: these were law-abiding men. They therefore must be not only right, but mighty sure of it. All the lieutenant dared say, when he saw the representative of business and the representative of the leisure class was: "Gentlemen, I'm afraid you're blocking traffic. Perhaps, if you went inside—"

"Follow me!" said H. R. to his men, and he led them into Thirty-seventh Street. He halted fifty feet from the corner.

Mr. MacAckus had followed and unlimbered his heavy artillery.

"This infernal outrage—"

H. R. lost all patience. He said to the mounted lieutenant, "Take us to the magistrate!" To Max Onthemaker he whispered, "Got the papers with you?"

"And the reporters, too," answered the able counsel with much pride, as though the reporters were his own private property loaned to the cause for the occasion without charge.

Seeing that the police made no move, H. R. said, determinedly: "I insist upon going before the magistrate. You can report it at the station later and save us time."

This made the police officer hesitate. It always does. It works on the principle of treating your opponent as if he were a taxicabby who has overcharged.

"I guess that's the best way," said the lieutenant.

"Thank you, Inspector. Will you kindly tell one of your men to bring my mount along? Thank you!" said H. R.

Politeness pays. By saying "thank you" in advance of the service no gentleman can refuse.

At the Magistrate's Court the session was short and sweet.

Mr. Onthemaker looked eloquent. The clerk who had typewritten the restraining orders whispered, "It's No. 5!" and his chief picked it out of the seventeen without hesitation. Everybody was impressed by the obvious efficiency. Efficiency must never be hidden.

The argument prepared by Mr. Onthemaker was one of the best his Honor had ever heard. He needed it for his own fall campaign. It certainly read well. He even read it in print—in advance.

"Let me see your argument," said the magistrate, and when Mr. Onthemaker gave him the speech he put it in his inside pocket. He did not know what to say until he saw the reporters taking notes. Then he knew.

"Discharged!" he said. It was the most popular decision in New York.

Max Onthemaker looked at his watch. Morris Lazarus by this time had doubtless applied for an order restraining Valiquet's from interfering with the lawful business of Jean Gerard, Walter Townsend, J. J. Fleming, William Mulligan, William F. Farquhar, Marmaduke de Beanville, Wilton Lazear, Percival Willoughby, and Francis Drake.

"We have secured an injunction against Valiquet's. Here it is," said Mr. Onthemaker. "You are the vice-president of your corporation. You might as well learn your own business from me." Then, with a fierce frown that there might be no back talk, he explained, with utter finality, "This is a certified copy!"

He approached Mr. MacAckus and took advantage of the contiguity to whisper: "If you don't wish to make your concern the laughing-stock of America get busy and keep the newspapers from printing that you were fool enough to oppose us in our perfectly legal position. Bear in mind that if you fight us you make us."

"No compromise!" said H. R., sternly.

"No, sir," answered Onthemaker, meekly. Then he hissed at MacAckus, "Do as I tell you, you boob!"

Mr. MacAckus clearly realized that this was a conspiracy. That always makes business men fear that they may lose money. The fear of that always sharpens their wits. It comes from a lifetime's training.

It was all Mr. Josslyn's fault. This made Mr. MacAckus almost despair. But he said, very kindly, to the reporters, "Gentlemen, will you all be good enough to call at our office before you print anything?"

The reporters, very kindly also, told him they would.

The free sandwiches returned to Fifth Avenue.

It was an ovation!

Art again had triumphed!

Proudly, up and down, from Thirty-fourth to Forty-second and back on the other side, they marched unhindered.

The reporters did justice to the story. Like all really big stories, it was legitimate news. They had indeed suspected advertising until H. R. refused to speak about himself.

"All you please about my poor sandwiches, but not one word about me. I have merely tried to rehabilitate the pariahs of the great mercantile world by reviving the lost art of perambulating publicity. If I have succeeded in making sandwiches free in New York, my work is done. Please do not mention my name!" Then he leaned over confidentially and said, very earnestly: "My family is conservative, and they hate to see the old name in print. Don't use it, boys. Please! That's why I never sign more than my initials!"

Ah, it was not alone modesty, but high social position and inherited wealth that were responsible for "H. R." instead of the full name? And the reporters? News is what is novel; also what is rare. H. R. was therefore doubly news. The minds of the reporters did not work like H. R.'s, but they arrived at the same point at the same time. This is genius—on the part of the other man.

Keeping your mouth shut after it happens is a still higher form of genius.

The newspapers gave him from two to six columns. Since the reporters could not get anything about H. R. from H. R., they got everything from Max Onthemaker, from the sandwich-men, from Andrew Barrett, and also from their inner consciousness and psychological insight.

Nine newspapers; nine different heroes; one name—and initials at that!

X

He sat down and wrote a note:

Yours,
H. R.

With the note he sent her eighty-three inches of clippings and fourteen pictures. If that wasn't fame, what was? He also sent flowers.

That afternoon before the thé dansant hour he called at the Goodchild residence.

"Miss Goodchild!" he said to the man, instead of asking for her. He pulled out his watch, looked at it, and before the man could say he would see if she were at home to H. R., added, "Yes!"

He was punctual, as the man could see. The man therefore held out a silver card-tray.

"Say it's Mr. Rutgers," H. R. told him. "And straighten out that rug. You've walked over it a dozen times!"

It was plain to see that it was H. R. who really owned this house. He must, since he wasn't afraid of the servants. And the worst of it was that the footman could not resent it: the gentleman was so obviously accustomed to regarding servants as domestic furniture. He dehumanized footmen, deprived them of souls, left them merely arms and legs to obey, machine-like. They call such "well-ordered households." Certainly not. It isn't a matter of the orders, but of the soul-excision.

Grace Goodchild walked in—behind her mother. The footman stood by the door, evidently by request.

Everything in civilized communities is by request.

"How do you do?" said H. R., pleasantly. "Is this mother?" He bowed to Mrs. Goodchild—the bow of a social equal—his eyes full of a highly intelligent appreciation of physical charm. Then he asked Grace, "Did you read them?"

Mrs. Goodchild had intended to be stern, but the young man's undisguised admiration softened her wrath to pleasant sarcasm.

"I wished to see for myself," she said, not very hostilely, "if you were insane. I see you are—"

"I am," agreed H. R., amicably, "and have been since I saw her. And the worst of it is, I am very proud of it."

"Will you oblige me by leaving this house quietly?"

"Certainly," H. R. assured her. "I didn't come to stay—this time. I'm glad to have seen you. Has Grace told you I'm to be your son-in-law?"

He looked at her proudly, yet meekly. It was wonderful how well he managed to express the conflict. Then he apologized contritely. "I was too busy to call before. My grandmother has never met you, has she?" He looked at her anxiously, eager to clear Mrs. Goodchild's name before the court of his family.

At one fell swoop H. R. had deleted the name of Goodchild from the society columns.

Mrs. Goodchild said, huskily, "Frederick, ring for a policeman."

"I'll break his damned neck if he does," said H. R., with patrician calmness. "Don't you ever again dare to listen while I am here, Frederick. You may go."

H. R. looked so much as if he meant what he said that Grace was pleasantly thrilled by his masterfulness. But not for worlds would she show it facially. When a woman can't lie to the man who loves her she lies to herself by looking as she does not feel.

"Do you wish me to go? For the sake of peace?" he asked Grace, anxiously.

There was nothing he would not do, no torture too great to endure, for her sake—not even the exquisite agony of absence. That there might be no misunderstanding, he added, softly, "Do you?"

"Don't you talk to my daughter!" said Mrs. Goodchild, furious at being excluded from the supreme command. Hearing no assent, she was compelled by the law of nature to repeat herself: "Don't you talk to my daughter!"

H. R. looked at her in grieved perplexity. "Do you mean that you are deliberately going to be a comic-weekly mother-in-law and make me the laughing-stock of my set?"

Feeling the inadequacy of mere words to express the thought she had not tried to express, Mrs. Goodchild called on her right hand for aid; she pointed. Being concerned with gesture rather than intent on direction, she, alas! pointed to a window.

He shook his head at her and then at the window, and told her: "To jump out of that one would be as bad as having me arrested. Do you want the infernal reporters to make you ridiculous? Do you realize that I am the most-talked-about man in all New York? Don't you know what newspaper ridicule is? Don't you? Say no!"

To make sure of her own grasp of the situation Mrs. Goodchild, who was dying to shriek at the top of her voice, compressed her lips. H. R. instantly perceived the state of affairs and double-turned the key by fiendishly placing his right forefinger to his own lips. This would give to his mother-in-law the two excellent habits of obedience and silence.

He turned to the girl and said: "Grace, don't hide behind your mother. Let me look my fill. It's got to last me a whole week!"

Grace saw in his face and knew from his voice that he was neither acting nor raving. His words were as the gospel, the oldest of all gospels, which, unlike all others, is particularly persuasive in the springtime. He was a fine-looking chap, and the newspapers were full of him, and he was in love with her. He interested her. But of course he was impossible. But also she was New York, and, to prove it, she must be epigrammatic. All her life she had listened to high-class vaudeville. She said, icily, yet with a subtle consciousness of her own humor, "If you wish to worship, why don't you try a church?"

"Which?" he retorted so promptly and meaningly that she almost felt the wedding-ring on her finger. He pursued: "And when? I have the license all ready. See?"

He pulled out of his pocket a long envelope containing a communication from Valiquet's lawyer. "Here it is!" and he held it toward her.

Being young and healthy, she laughed approvingly.

"Has it come to this, in my own house?" exclaimed Mrs. Goodchild in dismay. Being rich and living in New York, she did not know her daughter's affairs.

"Why not?" asked H. R., with rebuking coldness. "In whose house should our marriage be discussed?" Then he spoke to Grace with a fervor that impressed both women: "I love you as men used to love when they were willing to murder for the sake of their love. Look at me!"

He spoke so commandingly that Grace looked, wonder and doubt in her eyes.

In some women incertitude expresses itself in silence. Her mother was of a different larynx. She wailed: "What shall I do? What shall I do?" And sank back in her arm-chair. After one second's hesitation Mrs. Goodchild decided to clasp her own hands with a gesture of helplessness such as Pilate would have used had he been Mrs. Pontius. She did so, turning the big emerald en cabochon, so that she could plaintively gaze at it. Eight thousand dollars. Then she turned the gem accusingly in the direction of this man who might, for all she knew, be penniless. He was good-looking. Hendrik was Dutch. So was Rutgers. Could he belong?

"I beg your pardon, moth—Mrs. Goodchild," said H. R. so very courteously and contritely that he looked old-fashioned. "You must forgive me. But she is beautiful! She will grow, God willing, to look more like you every day. By making me regard the future with pleasurable anticipation, you yourself give me one more reason why I must marry Grace."

Grace looked at her mother and smiled—at the effect. Mrs. Goodchild confessed to forty-six.

"I am making Grace Goodchild famous," H. R. pursued, briskly, and paused that they might listen attentively to what was to follow.

Mother and daughter looked at him with irrepressible curiosity. Their own lives had so few red-blooded thrills for them that they enjoyed theatricals as being "real life." This man was an Experience!

He shook his head and explained, mournfully: "It is very strange, this thing of not belonging to yourself but to the world. It is a sacrifice Grace must make!"

His voice rang with a subtle regret. But suddenly he raised his head proudly and looked straight at her.

"It is a sacrifice worth making—for the sake of the downtrodden whom you will uplift with your beauty. Au revoir, Grace. I am needed!"

He approached her. She tried to draw back. He halted before her, took her hand, raised it to his lips and kissed it.

"I am the dirt under your feet," he murmured, and left the room.

His was the gait of the Invincibles. He had cast a bewitching spell of unreality over the entire drawing-room that made Grace feel like both actress and audience.

She heard him in the hall calling, "Frederick!" And, after a brief pause, "My hat and cane!"

There was another pause. Then she heard Frederick say, infinitely more respectfully than Frederick had ever spoken to Mr. Goodchild, "Thank you very much, sir."

Mrs. Goodchild paid Frederick by the month for working. H. R. had given Frederick twenty dollars for being an utterly useless menial. Hence Frederick's logical gratitude and respect.

XI

"Oh, she goes to the swell Gentile theaters," Max reassured him.

"Don't say I'm engaged, and tell 'em not to bother the parents." He meant the reporters.

Max thought of nothing else. "Leave it to me. Say, Hendrik—"

"Mr. Rutgers!" The voice and the look made Max tremble and grow pale.

"I was only joking," he apologized, weakly. He never repeated the offense. "I'll attend to it, Mr. Hendrik— I mean Mr. Rutgers."

"When Barrett comes in I'll send him down to you. Good day."

When Andrew Barrett returned he said, impetuously, "I'm afraid I'll have to have some help, H. R."

"I was going to tell you, my boy, that from to-morrow on you will have to go on salary."

Barrett's smiles vanished. He shook his head.

H. R. went on, in a kindly voice: "You've done very well and I'm much pleased with your work. But you mustn't be a hog."

Barrett had made bushels of money by taking advantage of the opportunity to do so. The victorious idea was another's, the machinery was the society's, the work was done by the sandwiches. But Mr. Andrew Barrett was the salesman, the transmuter into cash. He was entitled to all he desired to make so long as he didn't raise prices. Injustice stared him in the face with smiles! Reducing his gain and smiling! H. R. would as lief get another man! Barrett forgot that he could get no business until H. R.'s astounding Valiquet's coup made the agent's job one of merely writing down names. He forgot it, but he did not forget his own successor. All he could say, in a boyishly obstinate way, was, "Well, I think—"

"You mustn't think, and especially you must not think I'm an ass. You know very well that this is only the beginning of a very remarkable revolution in the advertising business. I need your services in installing the machinery and organizing the office, details that I leave to you because you have brains. Your salary will be a hundred a week and five per cent. on all new business. After I pass on to a still higher field I will make you a present of this business for you to have and to hold till death do you part. The Barrett Advertising Agency will be all yours. It will do a bigger business every year. And if you don't like it, you may leave this minute. You are young yet. Is it settled?"

Andrew Barrett nodded.

H. R. said, seriously: "It's about time sandwiching spread. How many on the Avenue to-day?"

"Nineteen firms; one hundred and eleven men. I think—"

H. R. knew what Barrett was about to say. He therefore said it for Barrett. "Now that you have Fifth Avenue, move west and east to Sixth and Madison and Fourth and try Broadway and Twenty-third and Thirty-fourth and Forty-second—"

"I was just going to propose it to you," said Barrett, aggrievedly.

"I know you have brains. That's why you are here. I trust you implicitly. This is a man's job. There will be big money in it for you. For me—" He ceased speaking, and stared meditatively out of the window.

Andrew Barrett wondered with all his soul what the chief was reading in big print in the future.

Andrew Barrett waited. Presently H. R. frowned. Then he smiled slightly.

Barrett stared fascinatedly. Ah, the lure of mystery! If more men appreciated it, polygamy would be inevitable—and liberal divorce laws.

H. R. looked up.

"Oh, are you here?" he smiled paternally, forgivingly.

Barrett beamed.

"My boy, I wish you'd run over to Max Onthemaker's or get him on the telephone. The newspapers are going to publish it."

"Yes, sir, I will. Er—what are they—what are you going to spring on an enraptured metropolis?

"My impending marriage to Grace Goodchild, only daughter of Goodchild, president of the Ketcham National Bank. See that it is well handled. And, Barrett?"

"Yes, sir?"

"The old people don't relish the idea. She is the most beautiful girl in New York."

"I've seen her! Pippinissima!" exclaimed Andrew Barrett, heartfully.

"Ten millions," said Hendrik Rutgers, calmly.

"My God!" whispered young Mr. Barrett, New-Yorker.

He meant what he said.

Ten millions!

Mr. Onthemaker, Andrew Barrett, and their faithful phalanx of star space men who always signed their stuff called in a body on La Touche, the photographer of the moment.

He refused to give them Miss Goodchild's photograph. He wished his name used, of course, but he was too sensible to disregard professional ethics.

"Mr. Rutgers said we could get it," said Andrew Barrett, sternly.

"I must have her permission. Hang it, boys, I am just as anxious as you—as I can be to do what I can for you. But I don't dare. These swell people are queer!" the photographer explained, aggrievedly.

"I'll call her up myself," said Max Onthemaker, resolutely. "What's the Goodchild number?"

He went to the telephone and gave the number of his own office in low tones. Presently he said, loudly enough to be heard by all, "Is this 777 Fifth Avenue?"

He alone heard the answer. He would not lie. He was a lawyer. It was unnecessary.

"Can I speak with Miss Goodchild? No; Miss Goodchild."

After a judiciously measured pause he spoke again: "Good afternoon. This is Mr. Onthemaker speaking. Quite well, thank you. I hope you are the same!... That's good!... Yes, miss, I saw him this morning. The papers wish to publish your photograph.... I'm sorry, but they say they simply must!... I am at La Touche's studio.... They doubtless do not do you justice, but they are the best ever taken of you—... No, I don't think they can wait for new ones.... One moment, please—"

He held his hand in front of the transmitter so she couldn't hear him say to La Touche:

"She wants some new ones."

"To-morrow at two," said La Touche.

"Give us the old ones now," chorused the reporters. "We'll publish the new ones for the wedding."

"I am sorry"—Max again spoke into the telephone—"but they say they want some now. They'll use the others later.... Which one?... The one Mr. Rutgers likes?... Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much."

Foreseeing unintelligent incredulity, Mr. Onthemaker did not hang up the receiver. It was just as well, for the cautious La Touche said, "I want to talk to her."

"Certainly," said Max, and hastily rose.

"Miss Goodchild," said the photographer, respectfully, "will it be all right if I let the reporters have—"

"Give him the one Mr. Rutgers likes," came in a sweet voice, without the slightest trace of Yiddish or catarrh. They would be wonderful linguists, if they didn't always begin by, "Say, listen."

"Which one is that?"

"The one he likes. And please send the bill to me, not to papa," with the accent properly on the last syllable.

"There will be no charge, Miss Goodchild. Thank you. I only wished to make sure you approved."

La Touche rose and, turning to the friendly reporters, asked, wrathfully, "How in blazes do I know which is the one Mr. Rutgers liked?"

"Let us pick it out," said one reporter. He wore his hair long.

"Any one will do," said another, considerately.

"I think I know which it is," said Barrett, taking pity on the photographer. To Mr. Onthemaker he whispered, "Max, you're a second H. R."

"I try to be," modestly said Sam.

And so the newspapers published the official preference of the lucky man. They published it because she was going to marry H. R.

That same morning Mr. Goodchild called up the city editors. He was so stupid that he was angry. He threatened criminal action and also denied the engagement. Rutgers was only a discharged clerk who had worked in his bank. He had been annoying his daughter, but he, Mr. Goodchild, would take steps to put an end to further persecution. Rutgers would not be allowed to call. He had, Mr. Goodchild admitted, called—uninvited. Had a man no privacy in New York? What was the matter with the police? What was he paying taxes for—to be annoyed by insane adventurers and damned reporters? He didn't want any impertinence. If they didn't print the denial of the engagement and the facts he would put the matter in his lawyer's hands.

The afternoon papers that day and the morning papers on the next printed another portrait of Miss Grace Goodchild because she was not engaged to H. R.

It was so exactly what a Wall Street millionaire father would do that everybody in New York instantly recognized a romance in high life!

Grace Goodchild never had known before how many people knew her and how many more wished to know her. The reporters camped on her front door-steps and the camera specialists could not be shooed away by Mr. Goodchild when he was going out on his way to the bank.

He assaulted a photographer. The papers therefore printed a picture of the infuriated money power in the act of using a club on a defenseless citizen. They did it very cleverly: by manipulating the plates they made Mr. Goodchild look four times the size of the poor photographer.

Max Onthemaker brought suit for fifty thousand dollars damages to the feelings, cranium, and camera of Jeremiah Legare, the Tribune's society snapper.

From 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Grace held a continuous levee. Mrs. Goodchild was in handsomely gowned hysterics. Mr. Goodchild got drunk at his club.

Yes, he did. The house committee ignored it. When they saw the afternoon papers they condoned it. And yet all that the newspapers said was that Grace Goodchild and Hendrik Rutgers were not married.

And they blame the papers for inaccuracy.

H. R. knew that he must make his love for Grace plausible, and his determination to marry her persistent and picturesque.

His concern was with the public. He therefore called up Grace on the telephone. At the other end they wished to know who was speaking. He replied, "Tell Frederick to come to the telephone at once!"

Frederick responded.

"Are you there?" asked H. R., after the fashion of Frederick's compatriots. "Frederick, go instantly to Miss Grace and tell her to come to the telephone on a matter of life and death. It's Mr. Rutgers. Don't mention my name."

This wasn't one of Frederick's few duties when he deigned to accept employment in the Goodchild household. But H. R. expected to be obeyed. Therefore he was obeyed.

"Yes, sir; very good, sir," said Frederick, proud to act as Mercury. He rushed off.

"Telephone, Miss Grace. He said it was a matter of life and death."

"Who is it? Another reporter?"

"Oh no, ma'am. He's waiting, my lady."

Once in a while Frederick proved that he was worth his weight in gold by forgetting that he was in America. When he did, he always called Grace my lady.

She therefore went to the telephone. Of course H. R. was born lucky. But, as a matter of fact, by deliberately establishing Frederick on a plane of perennial inferiority he had made such a stroke of luck inevitable.

Since it was a matter of life and death, Grace instantly asked, "Who is it?"

"Listen, Grace. The entire country is going wild about you. Your portrait is being admired from Maine to California. But bear up with what's coming. We've got to bring father around to our way of thinking, and—"

"Who is it? Who is it?"

"Great Scott! Can't you recognize the voice? It's Hendrik."

Her exasperated nerves made her say, angrily, "I think you are—"

"Don't think I'm conceited, but I know it."

"I feel like telling you—"

"I'll say it for you. Close your ears till I'm done." After a pause: "I've insulted myself. I love you all the more for it! Grace, you must be brave! If you survive this next week—"

"My God!" she said, invoking divine aid for the first time since they moved to Fifth Avenue, thinking of what the newspapers could say.

"He's with us, sweetheart," Hendrik assured her. "Are you an Episcopalian?"

"Yes!" she replied before she could think of not answering.

"Good! I love you. Wait!"

His voice as he entreated her to wait rang with such anguish that she irrepressibly asked, "What?"

"I love you!"

He left the telephone and gathered together sixty-eight clippings, which he put in an envelope. He went to a fashionable florist, opened an account, and ordered some exquisite flowers. They were going to ask for financial references, but the flowers he ordered were so expensive that they felt ashamed of their own distrust. He stopped at Valiquet's, where they hated him so much that they respected him, bought a wonderful gold vanity-box, inside of which he sent a card. On the card he wrote:

More than ever!

H. R.

He sent clippings, flowers, and vanity-box to Miss Goodchild, 777 Fifth Avenue, by messenger. Charge account.

He sent for Fleming and told him he wished the Public Sentiment Corps to tackle their first job. H. R. had prepared a dozen letters of protest which the artists must copy before receiving their day's wages—one copy for each paper. The letters expressed the writers' admiration, contempt, approval, abhorrence, indignation, and commendation of the journalistic treatment of the Goodchild-Rutgers affair. Real names and real addresses were given. It beat Pro Bono Publico, Old Subscriber, and Decent Citizen all to pieces. H. R. supplied various kinds of stationery—some with crests, others very humble. The chirography was different. That alone was art.

The newspapers realized that H. R. had become news. The public wanted to read about him. The papers were the servants of the public. Circulation was invented for that very purpose.

Not content with the services of the Public Sentiment Corps, H. R. commanded Andrew Barrett to tip off the friendly reporters—Andrew by this time was calling them by their first name—to watch the Goodchild residence on Fifth Avenue and also the Ketcham National Bank on Nassau Street.

Thinking that this meant elopement up-town and shooting down-town, the reporters despatched the sob artists to Fifth Avenue and the veteran death-watch to the bank.

They were rewarded.

Parading up and down the Goodchild block on the Avenue were six sandwich-men. They carried the swellest sandwiches in Christendom. This was the first use of the famous iridescent glass mosaic sandwich in history. It was exquisitely beautiful. But the legends were even more beautiful: