H. R.

XXVIII

He did not glance at her, feeling her eyes on him. When he judged it was time he looked up suddenly, rose to his feet, and, in a diffident, apologetic voice, observed:

"Forgive me, dear! What did you say?"

What could she say? She therefore said it:

"Nothing!" very softly.

"I was very far from New York—and yet you were with me, my love!"

She thought of Philadelphia and her hand sought his with that refuge-seeking instinct which cannot be statuted away from them.

He met her half-way. He raised her hands to his lips and his disengaged left sought his waistcoat pocket where the ring was.

"She is in the drawing-room, sir, with Mr. Rutgers," came in faithful Frederick's warning voice, raised above the menial's pitch.

"What!" they heard Mr. Goodchild ejaculate. Then the titular owner of the house entered.

H. R. politely bowed.

"How do you do?" he said, easily. "You are a trifle inopportune. Grace and I were talking over our plans."

Mr. Goodchild turned purple and advanced. Grace rose hastily. H. R. meditatively doubled up his right arm, moved his clenched fist up and down, felt his biceps with his left hand, and smiled contentedly.

Mr. Goodchild remembered his manners and his years at one and the same time. With his second calm thought he remembered the reporters. He gulped twice and when he spoke it was only a trifle huskily:

"Mr. Rutgers, I have no desire to make a scene in my own house."

H. R. pleasantly pointed to a fauteuil.

"I must ask you—"

"Sit down and we'll talk it over quietly. You will find," H. R. assured him, earnestly, "that I am not unreasonable. Have a seat."

Mr. Goodchild sat down.

H. R. turned to Grace and with one lightning wink managed to convey that everybody obeyed him—excepting one, whose wish was a Federal statute to him.

She looked with a new interest at her father. It was, she realized, the eternal conflict between youth and age. Love the prize! Gratia victrix!

"I—I—am willing to admit"—Mr. Goodchild nearly choked as the unusual words came from his larynx—"that you have shown—er—great cleverness in your—er—career. But I must say to you—in a kindly way, Mr. Rutgers, in a kindly way, believe me!—that I do not care to have this—er—farce prolonged. If you are after—if there is any reasonable financial consideration that will—er—induce you to desist—I—you—"

"You have relapsed," interrupted H. R., amiably, "into the language of a bank president. Suppose you now talk like a millionaire." It was not really a request, but a command.

Mr. George G. Goodchild obeyed.

"How much?" he said.

Grace looked as she felt—shocked. She had not fully regained her normal composure. But this was a man who had kissed her. Was he to be bought off with money? The shame of it overwhelmed her. She listened almost painfully to H. R.'s reply.

"I am now," H. R. impassively said to Mr. Goodchild, "waiting for you to talk like a father."

Mr. Goodchild stared at him blankly.

"Like a father; like a human being," explained H. R. "Grace is no bundle of canceled checks or a lost stock certificate. She is your daughter."

"Well?"

"Excuse me; I mean she is your own flesh and blood—the best of your flesh and blood, at that. Your wishes cannot be considered where her happiness is at stake. Therefore what you think best is merely your personal opinion and hence of interest to yourself and to nobody else."

Mr. Goodchild quickly opened his mouth, but before the sound could come H. R. went on, hurriedly, "Suppose you had set your heart upon her becoming a mathematician. Would that make her one?"

"Never!" instantly declared the non-mathematical Grace.

Mr. Goodchild shook his head violently and again opened his mouth. But H. R. once more surpassed him in speed and pursued, calmly argumentative:

"Or suppose you did not believe in vaccination. Is your opinion to be allowed to prevail against the advice of your competent family physician until Grace gets the disease and you are forced to acknowledge that you were wrong? Or would even the sight of the most beautiful face in the world pitted and pockmarked fail to shake your own faith in your own infallibility?"

Grace shuddered. "Father!" she exclaimed, horror-stricken, and glared at Mr. Goodchild. She was now thinking of paternal opposition in terms of smallpox.

"But—" angrily expostulated Mr. Goodchild.

"Exactly," agreed H. R., hastily. "That's it. Now for a favor. Will you let me talk business with you? My business!"

Mr. Goodchild's business was to know all about the business of others. But he did not take it home with him. However, before he could do more than shake his head, H. R. went on:

"I am organizing six companies."

That sounded like good business. But Mr. Goodchild nodded non-committally from force of habit.

"The S. A. S. A. Imperial Sandwich Board Corporation. Capital stock, one million, of which forty per cent. goes to the public for cash, forty per cent. given to me—"

"Forty?" irrepressibly objected Mr. Goodchild.

"Forty," repeated H. R., firmly. "I am no hog. I get what my ideas, designs, and patents are worth at a fair valuation. And twenty per cent. goes to the S. A. S. A."

"Why?" came from Mr. Goodchild before he could realize that he was speaking bankerwise.

"Because the S. A. S. A. will insist upon the company's boards being used by all our customers. And besides, as head of the S. A. S. A., I vote that twenty per cent. I thus control sixty per cent. and—"

Mr. Goodchild brightened up, but remembered himself and said, very coldly:

"Go on."

"We shall manufacture sandwiches of all kinds, at from one dollar to ten thousand dollars and upward, and—"

"Dreadful word! Loathe it!"

"—The S. A. S. A. Memento Mori Manufacturing Company to manufacture and sell the statuettes of the Ultimate Sandwich. Same capitalization. Same holdings. You see, I have sold my ideas, designs, and patents so that later on nobody can say my companies were overcapitalized. There are also the Rapid Restaurant Service Appliance Company, and four others. Same capitalization; same holdings. The money is all raised. And let me say," finished H. R., sternly accusing, "that the people who furnish the cash and buy the stock get something for their money."

"That's all very well," began Mr. Goodchild, contemptuously, "but—"

"Exactly," said H. R. "I propose to transfer all our accounts to your bank. You know you said you'd like to have mine when I became famous."

"I know nothing about your companies, and care less. But I want to tell you right now—"

"What interest are you going to allow us on our balances?" cut in H. R.

"No interest!" said Mr. Goodchild in a voice that really meant "No Grace!"

H. R. turned to his sweetheart and, desiring to forestall desertion, took her hand in his and said to her:

"Grace, this house is a very nice house. You have spent many happy hours here. But it is, after all, only a house. And New York is New York!"

And Philadelphia was Philadelphia!

Grace's hand remained in H. R.'s.

"You can't have her!" said Mr. Goodchild, furiously.

"Who can't have whom?" asked Mrs. Goodchild, entering the room.

H. R. released Grace's hand, approached Mrs. Goodchild, and, before she knew what he was going to do, threw his right arm about her and kissed her—a loud filial smack.

She quickly and instinctively put one hand up to her hair, for the strange young man had been a trifle effusive. But before she could transform her surprise into vocal sounds the stranger spoke, in a voice ringing with affectionate sincerity not too playful, you understand, but convincing, nevertheless:

"She inherits her good looks, her disposition, and her taste in dress from you. I saw it the first time I met you. Don't you remember? And I warn you now that if I can't marry Grace I'll kill that husband of yours and marry you!"

To prove it, he kissed her again, twice.

"How dare—" shouted Mr. Goodchild.

"I am not sure," said H. R. to Mrs. Goodchild, "that I want Grace now. Between thirty-two and forty a woman is at her best."

He patted her shoulder, as we paternally do with the young ones, and went back to Grace. It all had happened so quickly that only H. R. was calm.

"My dear!" said Mrs. Goodchild, looking helplessly at Grace.

"What is it, mother?" said H. R., appropriating the affectionate words. And as she did not answer he asked, generally. "What do you say to the eighth?"

"An eighth?" echoed Mr. Goodchild, almost amiably, thinking, of one-eighth of one per cent.

"Of June!" said H. R. "That gives you ample time for everything, Grace. And, remember, give the reporters the detailed list of the trousseau."

"There isn't going to be any marriage. And there isn't going to be any nauseating newspaper articles with pictures of intimate lingerie enough to make a decent man blush."

"A really decent man always blushes with shame when he does not give carte blanche to his only daughter," said H. R. with great dignity.

"Mr.—er—Rogers," said Mrs. Goodchild.

"Rutgers," corrected her prospective son-in-law. "The 'g' is hard. It's Dutch, like Roosevelt, Van Rensselaer, and Cruger."

"But we don't know anything about your family," she said, very seriously.

"Do you know," asked H. R., pleasantly, "the Wittelbachs?"

"It's beer, isn't it?" she said. It might be the best brewing blood in Christendom, but still it wasn't Wall Street or real estate.

"Good shot!" exclaimed H. R., admiringly. "It is the patronymic of the reigning house of Bavaria. You know, Munich, where beer is the thing. And do you know the Bernadottes?"

"I've heard of them," replied Mrs. Goodchild, made wary by her non-recognition of a sovereign house.

"It is not French delicatessen, but the royal family of Sweden. And the Hapsburgs? The Emperor of Austria belongs to them. And Romanoff? The Czar of Russia would answer to that if he voted. And there are also the Hohenzollerns and the Bourbons and the Braganzas. And then," he finished, simply, "there is Rutgers!"

"It seems to me," put in Grace, coldly, "that I have something to say—"

"Empress, you don't. Just look," interrupted H. R. "Of course, the date is subject to your approval. I didn't have any luncheon. Will you tell Frederick to bring some tea and a few sandwiches—"

"Damnation!" shrieked Mr. George G. Goodchild. "Is a man to be insulted in his own home? Get to hell out of here with your sandwiches!"

"George!" rebuked Mrs. Goodchild, placidly. She never frowned. Wrinkles.

"Yes, George!" maniacally mimicked her husband. "It's sandwiches! Sandwiches! Sandwiches! Everywhere! Yesterday I discharged my secretary. I told him to send out for a chicken sandwich for me and I heard him give the boy the order: 'Son-in-law for Mr. Goodchild. Cock-a-doodle-do!' At this week's meeting of our directors Mr. Garrettson asked me: 'How is the King of the Sandwiches? Living at your house yet?' And the other jackasses all laughed. Sandwiches!"

He turned to his daughter, and fearing that she was in the conspiracy, asked her, vehemently: "Do you wish to be known all your life as the Queen of the Sandwiches? Do you? Do you wish your humorous friends to say to you, Grace, will you have a caviare husband?"

"No!" replied Grace. Fame was fame, but ridicule was Hades.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Goodchild.

"Tell Frederick," said H. R., fiercely, "to bring in fifteen Rutgerses, if you prefer to call them that."

"That isn't funny," rebuked Grace, coldly. "I don't think you are accustomed to surroundings—"

"No; it's hospitality. I'm starving."

"You'll have sandwiches for breakfast, luncheon, and dinner, my child," Mr. Goodchild told Grace, angrily but intelligently. "In the newspapers!"

"Of course I won't marry him!" said Grace, decisively. "It's preposterous."

H. R. went up to her. She shook her head. He spoke very seriously:

"Grace, when people tell you that I have given free sandwiches to New York they mean that I have taken the poorest of the poor, the pariahs of commerce, the despised of the rabble, poor human derelicts, souls without a future, without a hope, worse than dirt, poorer than poverty, and I have made them men!"

"Yes, but s-s-sandwiches," blubbered Grace.

"I took these victims of society and capitalism and organized them, and then I emptied them into the golden Cloaca Maxima that you call Fifth Avenue, and lo! they emerged free men, self-supporting, well-fed, useful, artistic. They have been the efficient instruments of fame. It is they who have made you known from one end of the city to the other."

"Yes; but sandwiches!" doggedly repeated Grace.

"I have worked," said H. R., sternly, "with human souls—"

"Sandwiches!" corrected Mr. Goodchild.

H. R. flushed angrily.

"The sandwich," he told them all with an angry finality, "is here to stay. Our net receipts, after paying big wages, are over one thousand dollars a day. What do you think I am, an ass? Or a quick lunch? Or a bank president? Pshaw! We've only begun! A capitalization of over five millions at the very start and the business growing like cheap automobiles, and me owning forty per cent. of the stock and controlling sixty per cent. in perpetuity! These men have made me their leader. I will not forsake them!"

"Can you give me," said Mr. Goodchild, seriously, "evidence to prove your statements?" If the love affair was not to end in an elopement it would be wise to have a business talk with this young man, who, after all was said and done, had a valuable asset in his newspaper publicity.

"You may be a wonderful man," said Grace to H. R., "but all my friends would ask me if I am going to have a mammoth sandwich instead of a wedding-cake! I ask you not to persist—"

H. R. smiled sympathetically and said: "You poor darling! Is that all you are afraid of?"

She thought of Philadelphia and a quiet life, and she shook her head sadly. Why couldn't he have made her famous by unobjectionable methods.

But H. R. said, "I'll guarantee that my name will never again be associated with sandwiches—"

"You can't do it!" declared Grace, with conviction, thinking of humorous American girls. "When they are friends all you have to do is to take out the 'r' to turn them into fiends."

Mrs. Goodchild said nothing, but frowned. It had just occurred to her that here they all were, amicably talking with the man who had made their lives grievous burdens. Mr. Goodchild also was silent, but shrewdly eyed H. R.

"I'll do it!" repeated H. R., confidently.

"How can you without killing everybody?" challenged Grace, skeptically. "Everybody knows you as the leader of the sandwich men, and if you form companies—"

"My child," H. R. told her, gently, "I don't know anything about finance. That is why I want to get father's advice about my business. Every man to his trade. But I do know New York. I ought to, hang it! My grandfather owned what is now the Hôtel Regina, and— Well, look here! If by the first of June nobody even remembers that I had anything to do with sandwiches will you marry me?"

"Yes," said Mr. Goodchild.

If H. R. could do that he was fit to be anybody's son-in-law. If he couldn't, the annoyance would end.

"Grace?" asked H. R.

"I'm willing to take a chance for two weeks," said Mr. Goodchild, feeling certain he was displaying Machiavellian wisdom. But Grace shook her head.

"Everything you've done," she told H. R., "is child's play—"

"What!" interrupted H. R., indignantly. "Make New-Yorkers give money for charity that they might have spent for their own pleasure?"

"Nothing alongside of making 'em forget that you invented sandwiches. If it had been anything else, you might—I might—you—" She floundered helplessly. Her life for weeks had been so full of excitement that she could not co-ordinate her ideas quickly.

"You don't know me, dear," said H. R. "I hate to say it myself, but, really, I'm a wonder!"

He looked so confident, so masterfully sure of himself, so little like a dreamer, and so much like a doer, that Grace was impressed.

"Can you?" she asked, more eagerly than Mr. Goodchild liked to see. But then H. R. had never kissed him.

"With your hand for the prize and your love for my reward? Can you ask me if I can?"

"Yes, I can. Can you?"

"Yes!" he said. "But of course I'll need your help."

"My help?" Doubt came back into her eyes.

"Yes. This way." He took her in his arms and kissed her.

Mrs. Goodchild stared, open-eyed. Mr. Goodchild grew purple, and shouted:

"Here! This is—"

H. R. turned to him and said, "This is all right." And again he pressed his lips to hers and kept them pressed this time.

"I won't have it!" shrieked Mr. Goodchild, going toward the young people, one fist upraised.

H. R. ceased kissing, and spoke rebukingly:

"What do you want me to do? Kiss her in the vestibule before ringing the door-bell, as if we were plebeian sweethearts? Or in a taxi in the Park? Listen: Fear not to intrust your daughter to a man who never kisses her save in the sight of those who brought her into this world!" H. R. spoke so aphoristically that Mr. Goodchild thought it was a quotation from Ecclesiastes.

H. R. took the ring out of his waistcoat pocket and gave it to Grace.

"Here, my love!"

It was a magnificent green diamond, the rarest of all. Mrs. Goodchild rose quickly and said, "Let me see it!" Mother-like, being concerned with her only daughter's happiness, she took the ring to the window.

Grace followed. It was her ring.

"Say, Big Chief," H. R. asked his prospective father-in-law, "do I get the sand—do I get some slices of bread with some slices of viands, two breads to one viand, and a cup of tea?"

"Tea be hanged! Have a man's drink," hospitably and diplomatically said Mr. Goodchild. There was still a chance of escaping. He knew what violent opposition had done to sentimental daughters.

"Yes, but you'll have to allow us a decent rate of interest on our balances."

"How much do you carry?" asked Mr. Goodchild, carelessly.

"Enough for Dawson to offer three per cent. But let us not talk business here. I'll call on you to-morrow.

"All right. But Dawson can't do it, not even on time deposits, and—"

"Scotch for mine," said H. R. "Is Frederick coming?"

Mr. Goodchild was, after all, a gentleman. He rang for Frederick. He also was thirsty.

"Hendrik, it's beautiful," said Grace, enthusiastically. "But are you perfectly sure you can—"

"Empress, don't you wish it done?"

"Of course."

"Then, of course, it is done. You'll be able to yell 'sandwich'! anywhere in New York and nobody will think of anything except that you are the most beautiful girl in the world. Give me another before Frederick brings 'em."

"Brings what?"

"Lamb chops!" answered H. R., who was a humorist of the New York school. "Quick!" And he kissed her twice.

"We'll have tea up-stairs if you're really going to be one of the family," said Mrs. Goodchild, with the dubious smile so familiar on the faces of mothers of New York girls.

"Come, Grace!" said H. R., taking her by the unringed hand. He knew better—by instinct.

It was a very satisfactory day. Such was the compelling force of his self-confidence that before he left the house Mr. and Mrs. Goodchild sincerely hoped he could accomplish the impossible and wipe out the sandwich stain from the old Knickerbocker name of Rutgers.

XXIX

H. R. himself called on the head of one of the most progressive of New York's great department stores—a man to whom full pages on week-days were nothing. He, therefore, had heard of H. R., and also had used sandwiches. He greeted the founder of the S. A. S. A. with respectful interest. H. R. said, calmly:

"I am here now to make you a present of from ten thousand to fifty thousand dollars a year—in cash!"

Mr. Liebmann, of course, knew that H. R., though an aristocrat, was neither a fool nor a lunatic. He diplomatically asked, "And my gratitude for your kindness may be expressed just how, Mr. Rutgers?"

"By accepting the cash and putting it in your pocket, to have and to hold until death do you part."

"Mr. Rutgers, I am an old man and suspense is trying." And Mr. Liebmann smiled deprecatingly.

"I have come to show you how you may save the amount I have mentioned in your newspaper-advertising appropriation. You big advertisers are now helpless to help yourself. There are no rebates and you can't play one paper against the others. Those days are over. Will you hear me to the end and not go on at half-cock while I am talking?"

"Yes," promised Mr. Liebmann, impetuously.

"Mr. Liebmann, you must write a letter to all the advertising managers of all the newspapers, saying that you have decided to discontinue all advertising in the daily papers as soon as your contracts expire. Hold your horses! Explain that you intend to reach your suburban trade through the fashion magazines, local papers, and circulars, and that for Manhattan and Brooklyn you have decided to use sandwiches—Don't talk yet!"

"I am only listening," Mr. Liebmann hastened to assure him.

"The newspapers know that you are a Napoleonic advertiser. They will pay to your communication the double compliment of belief and consternation. They know you know your business and that you are not only ultra-modern, but a pioneer. You have always been a highly intelligent advertiser. You will then let me supply you with one hundred of our best men, who will parade in front of the newspaper-offices in full regalia, and also in plain sight of your dear friends, the advertising managers. You know their psychology. Take it from me, you'll win.

"The only thing you mustn't do is to call the reductions rebates. There is no way by which the papers can get back at you. If I can make New York feed the hungry, would it be very difficult for me to make the advertising managers act wisely? Of course, if your letter does not bring about a saving of not less than ten thousand dollars a year you will not have to pay a penny for the sandwiches. I wish nothing written from you. The word of a Liebmann is enough for a Rutgers. My family has been in New York long enough for you to know whether a Rutgers is a man of his word or not."

"I'd rather shake hands with you than save a million a year in advertising," said Mr. Liebmann.

H. R. looked him straight in the eye—suspiciously, incredulously, insultingly. Mr. Liebmann flushed and then H. R. said, earnestly:

"I believe you, Mr. Liebmann!" and shook hands.

Mr. Liebmann, bareheaded, proudly escorted him to the sidewalk. He thanked H. R. to the last.

H. R. called on the other liberal advertisers and, with more or less ease, succeeded in impressing them as he had Mr. Liebmann.

Then he visited the managing editors of all the daily papers. He began with the best. The managing editor was delighted to see the man he had helped to make famous.

"I have come," H. R. told him, "to ask a great favor of you. I am, as you know, very greatly interested in charity work. Your paper has been good enough to publish my views."

H. R. spoke with a sort of restrained zeal simply, not humorously, obviously as a one-idea man, a crank, still young and undyspeptic. The editor prided himself on his quick and accurate insight into character. He said:

"Oh yes; I know about your work."

"Thank you. Well, sir, I find my usefulness to the cause somewhat impaired by the persistence with which my name is associated with the merely commercial phase of sandwiching. You know the sandwich men commercially were vermin, and I have taught them to pay for their own food. I took paupers and unpauperized them."

"And the signs in your parade were great. I told them at the Union League Club that at least one poor man's parade had shown brains. Not a single threat! Not one complaint! Not one window smashed! Not one spectator insulted! It showed genius!" And the editor held out his hand.

"I am a Christian, sir," said H. R., gently.

"Well, I'll shake hands, anyhow, if you'll let me," said the editor, cordially.

H. R. took his hand and looked so embarrassed that the editor would have sworn he blushed. This was no publicity-seeker, no fake modesty. Yes, that must be it—a Christian, the kind editors seldom shake hands with.

"And so," continued H. R., earnestly, "if you please, if you would only tell your reporters not to mention me in connection with sandwiches I could do more for the cause. You see, what I did with the sandwiches was merely the entering wedge. I don't want you to think I am complaining of your reporters, sir; they have been more than kind to me; but if you could see your way clear to not speaking about sandwiches as though they were my personal property—"

"You are the man who gave free sandwiches to New York," smiled the editor, as though he had said something original.

The situation was more serious than H. R. had believed, but he said, with dignity:

"I made free men of pariahs, sir. That job is finished. The newspapers have helped nobly; and to-day, thanks to them, charity is brought daily before their readers."

"But it is less picturesque than your courtship of Miss Goodchild with sandwiches."

"There were"—and H. R. smiled deprecatingly—"peculiar circumstances about my personal relations with Mr. Goodchild. Of course, I also desired to prove to intelligent but not very original business men that sandwiching is the most effective form of advertising. It is like all art, sir. The personal quality gives to it a human appeal that no combination of printed words on a page can have."

"How do you make that out?" asked the editor.

"When you read a play you see the printed words; but when you see the same play well acted you find that the same words you have read and liked reach the public through the senses of sight and of hearing as well as through the intellect, and is thus trebly efficient on the stage. Now, sandwiching is beyond question the highest form of commercial advertising. It succeeds even in love! And—"

"I congratulate you," said the editor, heartily.

H. R. looked so serious that the editor found himself saying, with even greater seriousness, "What you say is extremely interesting."

"I have long studied—in my humble way—the psychology of the crowd. I have discovered some very interesting things—at least they are interesting to me, sir," apologized H. R., almost humbly. "I am led to think, indeed I feel certain, that the art of sandwiching is in its infancy. The marvelous imagination of the American people, their resourcefulness and ingenuity, will make the development of artistic sandwiching one of the most extraordinary commercial phenomena of the twentieth century. But personally I am not interested in advertising, sir, except as in this instance as a means to an end. When the result is reached that is the end of my interest. And so, sir, though I feel gratitude for the noble work your paper is doing for the cause of charity, I really and honestly think that less attention should be paid to the business side of one of our successful experiments with the submerged tenth, and more to charity itself. Can't you tell your reporters that sandwiching at union wages has nothing to do with it?"

"News is news," said the editor, shaking his head regretfully. "We print what is of interest to our readers."

"If your readers were made to think of filling other people's stomachs instead of their own there would be less dyspepsia—and more newspaper-readers, sir. It is a discouraging fact that the world appears to be more concerned over making money than over the unspeakable folly of dying rich."

"We can do without death more easily than without money," observed the editor, sententiously.

"Oh no! Death was invented in order to teach men how to live wisely. This is the only reason why the cessation of the organic functions, which is life's one great commonplace, has at all times attained to the dignity of rhetoric. But I am taking your time. I hope you will be good enough to drop sandwiches and stick to charity. I thank you for your kindness; and—and," he finished, diffidently, "I should like to shake hands with you."

He looked appealingly at the editor, who thereupon shook his hand warmly.

"I'll do what I can for you, Mr. Rutgers. I am very glad to have met you. Anything we can do to help you in your efforts we shall gladly do. You are a very remarkable man and you have done greater work than you seem to realize."

H. R. shook his head vehemently, however, and retired in obvious confusion.

With a few trifling differences, due to the divers editorial personalities, he did the same thing to the other managing editors. All of them thought that none of the reporters really knew what manner of man H. R. was. Withal, all of them were right. He was a wonder!

On the next morning the eyes of the business managers of the great metropolitan dailies, morning and evening, were made to glow by twenty-seven letters from their biggest advertisers. The tenor of the communications was that, as soon as existing contracts expired, the twenty-seven biggest would do their urban advertising by means of S. A. S. A. sandwiches. They expected to reach the suburbs through fashion journals, circulars, and local media.

The advertising managers smiled, not only at the palpable bluff, but at the evidence of an infantile conspiracy. Before ten o'clock, however, the vast crowds in front of their very doors made them swear. Scores of sandwich men, advertising the said twenty-seven shops and the day's bargains, were parading up and down, causing said crowds to collect and to comment audibly and admiringly.

The advertising managers rushed to the managing editors to tell than that something must be done to prevent their sudden death. The managing editors, to a man, recalled H. R.'s prophecy of the marvelous growth of the most effective form of advertising.

"That H. R.," said the managing editor of the Times, "is a wizard!"

"You fellows made him," bitterly retorted the business manager. "He's had more free advertising than I can book in a hundred and ten years!"

"Why, he particularly asked me not to mention sandwiches!"

"Well, by gad, you'd better not!" Then, "What d'ye want?" he snarled at his first assistant, who came in with a sheet of paper in his right hand and a look of perplexity in both eyes.

The assistant silently gave him the copy:

society american sandwich artists,
allied arts building.

For the first time in history the familiar

O. K.
H. R.,
Sec.

was absent.

It bore out the managing editor's assertion of H. R.'s distaste of publicity.

"Go out and lasso your maverick advertisers," said the managing editor, sternly, after he had read the S. A. S. A. advertisement—full-page, too! "I'll take care of the news columns."

"The damned sandwich men are so thick in this town I'll have trouble in breaking through their lines."

"Use dynamite!" said the managing editor, savagely. He owned ten bonds of his own paper.

He then summoned the city editor and said, sternly:

"Mr. Welles, under no circumstances whatever must this paper mention sandwiches or sandwich advertising or the S. A. S. A."

"Did you see their latest exploit? Two hundred and seventy-six sandwiches to the block, by actual count. Talk about high art!"

"They have commercialized it," frowned the managing editor. "Not a line—ever!"

The same thing must have happened in all the other offices. The public talked about the advertising revolution and the wonderful new styles in boards; and they looked in the next morning's papers to get all the picturesque details, as usual. Not a word!

XXX

When his anger cooled, however, he saw that what he had done was to pay the young man the greatest compliment an elderly millionaire can pay anybody. The more formidable your enemy is, the less disgraceful is your defeat. Mr. Goodchild was as intelligent a man as one is apt to find in the office of the president of a bank; but he was susceptible, as all men are, to self-inflicted flattery. He therefore decided that H. R. was a problem to be tackled in cold blood, with both eyes open and prayer in the heart. The only plan of action he could think of was proposing to H. R. to accomplish an impossibility; in fact, two impossibilities. He also would treat H. R. amicably.

"Good morning, young man!" he said, pleasantly.

"Morning!" said H. R., briskly. "Now let's get down to cases. I expect you to—"

"Hold on!" said Mr. Goodchild, coldly, in order to keep from saying it hotly. "Aren't you a trifle premature?"

"No," said H. R. "I find I can give you a few minutes to-day."

"You'll have to use some of those minutes in listening to me," said Mr. Goodchild, trying to look as though this was routine business.

"I'll listen," H. R. assured him, kindly.

"You will admit that you have given me cause to—well, not to feel especially friendly toward you."

"Big men are above petty feelings," said H. R. "You will, in turn, admit that you made a mistake in not advancing me in the bank— Wait! I'll listen later, as long as you wish. You object, I suppose, to my methods; but let me point out to you that I have arrived! Where should I be if I hadn't been talked about? And where shall I land if I keep on hypnotizing the newspapers into giving me columns of space? You know what publicity means in business to-day, don't you? Well, just bear in mind that I not only make news, but, by jingo, I am news! There is only one other man in the United States who can say that, and you may have to vote for him for President, notwithstanding your fear of him. Wait!" H. R. held up his hand, took out his watch, and went on: "For an entire minute think of what I have said before you answer. Don't answer until the time is up. One minute. Begin! Now!"

H. R. held his hand detainingly two inches in front of Mr. Goodchild's lips. Mr. Goodchild did not open them. He thought and thought, and he became conscious that he had to argue with himself to find said answer.

"Speak!" commanded H. R. when the minute was up.

"The cases are not analogous. Publicity has its uses and—"

"It has this one use—that you can always capitalize it. It spells dollars—and, more than that, easy dollars, untainted dollars, dollars that nobody begrudges you and that nobody wants to take away from you—not even the Administration at Washington. Think over that for two minutes. And he pulled out his watch once more.

"Look here, I—"

"Damn it, don't talk! Think!" said H. R. so determinedly that Mr. Goodchild almost feared a scene would be enacted which he should regret after seeing it in the newspapers. "You have wasted forty seconds in overcoming your anger at my manner of speech," continued H. R., reprovingly. "Begin all over. Two minutes. Now!" And before Mr. Goodchild's wrath could become articulate he rose and walked over to a window.

H. R. stared across the street. It was there he had captured Fleming. How far away that day seemed now—and how far below! The two minutes were up. He turned to Mr. Goodchild.

"Look here; you bank presidents are an unscientific lot. You ought to be psychologists instead of being merely bookkeepers. It is knowledge of people you need—not of human nature at its worst, or of political economy, or of finance, but of people—the people who vote; the people who in the end say whether you are to be allowed to enjoy your money and theirs in comfort or not. Study them! You sit here and disapprove of my methods because they violate some rule established years ago by somebody as radical then as I appear to be now. It is not a question of good taste or bad taste. It was good taste once to kill each other in duels, and to drink two bottles of port, and to employ children in factories. The suffragettes are attacked for methods—"

"Do you mean to say you approve of their slashing pictures—"

"That is beside the question. If the suffragettes stuck to ladylike speeches and circulars they would be merely a joke at the club. The right of women to vote is a problem. Well, the suffragettes have made themselves exactly that—a problem! If they have not a sense of relative values it is because they don't get me to run their campaign for them. I could succeed without destroying one masterpiece. Maybe I will—some day. And then I could marry ten bankers' daughters if I were not in love with one. Let's come back to our own business. Do you think I have brains?"

"Well—"

"No, no! Remember what I have said to you and consider whether it is asinine; and think of what I have done and ponder whether it shows hustling and executive ability, and those qualities that mean the power to develop the individual bank account. Am I an ass or have I brains?"

"Yes; but—"

"All men of brains at all times have had more buts than bouquets thrown at them. I tell you now that I have gone about this business for the purpose of getting there. To become news, to be interesting to the public in some way—in any way—is the quickest way. Then you can pick your own way, a way that will commend itself to the well-bred nonentities who never accomplish anything. Well, I am famous; and it's up to me to decide what I shall do in the future to take advantage of the fact that when people hear of H. R., or see those two initials in print, they look for something interesting to follow. The least of my troubles is that I shall become one of your respected depositors. I don't drink; I am healthy—no taint of any kind, hereditary or acquired; I don't have to lie to get what I want or cheat to get all the money I need—and I need a lot. I've got ideas, and I don't fall down in carrying them out, because I don't go on at half-cock. I never move until I see my destination; and if there is a wall ahead I have my scaling-ladder all ready long before I arrive at the wall."

H. R. paused, and then went on more slowly: "When you get over your soreness at the raw deal the newspapers have given you, you will be glad to have a man of brains in your house. I don't want you to give Grace anything; but I tell you now I'm going to marry her, and you'd better begin to be reconciled to the idea of having me for a son-in-law. I want to be your friend, because I'm quite sure you will not enjoy having me for your enemy—not after I begin the counter attack."

It is always the delivery that does it, as Demosthenes triply assured posterity. Mr. Goodchild's eyes had not left H. R.'s face and he had listened intently to the speech. He did not grasp in full all that H. R. had said; but what really had emptied Mr. Goodchild of anger, and filled him with an interest which was not very different from respect, was the delivery. H. R.'s faculty of knowing how to speak to a particular auditor was instinctive. It always is, with all such men, whether they are famous or obscure, orators or life-insurance agents. It is very simple when you are born with it.

Mr. Goodchild, however, finding his own weapons of offense more dangerous to himself than to the foe, fell back on defense. To do so, he naturally began with a lie. That is the worst of verbal defenses.

"I don't object to you personally. I—I even admit that I made a mistake in not promoting you, though I don't know what position you could have filled here that would have suited you—"

"None; because you don't realize that banks need modernizing. None! Skip all that and get back to me as your son-in-law."

Mr. Goodchild, thinking of his two plans which were his one hope, asked, abruptly:

"Are you a man of your word?"

"Since I have brains, I am. Are you?"

"I object to your methods. Your speech I might overlook, though it comes hard. I am speaking plainly. Now you are known as the Sandwich Man. That would bar you from my club and from ever becoming a really—"

"But that will stop. It will stop to-day. I have told Grace that within a month nobody will ever connect my name with sandwiches."

"Will you agree not to marry or seek to marry my daughter, or annoy us in any way—in short, if a month from now you are still famous as the organizer of the sandwiches, will you stop trying to be my son-in-law?"

"Sure thing!" promised H. R., calmly. Mr. Goodchild was distrustful and looked it, which made H. R. add, impressively: "I'll give you my word that after to-day I'll never even try to see you or Grace, or write to her, or revenge myself on you. So far as I am concerned I'll cease to exist for you. And here's my hand on it."

He held out his hand in such a manner that Mr. Goodchild took it and shook it with the warmth of profound relief. Then he said, heartfully:

"If you do that—"

"Don't worry! It won't kill my business. I'll be just as famous as ever."

"The newspapers made you. Their silence will unmake you."

"Oh no!" And H. R. smiled as one smiles at a child.

Mr. Goodchild almost felt as though his head had been kindly patted.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Sandwiching is here to stay and—and my companies are organized. I'll change the dummy directors as soon as you and I decide which of your friends and clients shall be permitted to buy some of the stock my men haven't sold. For cash, understand! The newspapers have done their work. The newspapers in this instance are like incubators. I put in an egg. The incubator hatched it. Then I took the chick out of the incubator. Suppose the incubator now refuses to keep up the temperature of 102½ degrees Fahrenheit necessary to hatch the egg? Suppose the incubator gets stone cold? Well, let it! The chick is out and growing. And let me tell you right now that I am not going to let Wall Street financiers get their clutches on my chick. They'd caponize it. Talking about interest rates—"

"How big a balance do you expect to keep with us?" asked Mr. Goodchild. He did not like to admit the surrender.

"It depends on you." H. R. pulled out his watch, looked at the time, snapped it shut, and said: "I haven't time to go over the business; but I'll send one of my office men to tell you all you want to know. Listen to him and then ask him any questions you wish. So far as you and I are concerned we are beyond the sandwich stage. I'll send Barrett to you this afternoon. And, believe me, you are going to be my father-in-law. Good morning!" He left the office without offering to shake hands.

On his way out H. R. stopped to speak to Mr. Coster, to whom he owed so much for having led him, as a clerk with the springtime in his blood, to the president's office to be discharged.

"Well, old top, here I be!" said H. R., kindly humorous in order to remove all restraint.

"How do you do, Mr. Rutgers?" said Coster, respectfully.

The clerks looked at their erstwhile fellow-slave furtively, afraid to be caught looking. Was this Hendrik Rutgers? Was this what a man became when he ceased to be a clerk?

Ah, but a salary! Something coming in regularly at the end of the week, rain or shine! Gee! but some men are born lucky!

XXXI

He waved her back and said, hastily:

"Stop right where you are! Don't come any nearer. For the love of Mike, don't!"

She had been thinking of treating him coldly, to keep him at a distance.

"What is it?" she asked again, and again advanced.

"Don't!" said H. R., with a frown.

She now felt alarmed, without giving herself any reason for it.

"Wh-what's the m-matter?" she asked.

"You!" he answered. "You!"

She stared at him. He was looking at her so queerly that naturally she thought something had happened to her face. She looked into the mirror on her right. It was not so. Another look fully confirmed this. So she looked at him. His expression had lost some of its anxiety.

"I promised your dad," he explained, "that I would not see you after to-day, or call here, or try to make love to you by mail, or annoy you or him in any way until I had wiped the sandwich stain off your surname. I have a month in which to do it, and I promised all that! One month! Not to see you! But—"

He looked at her so hungrily that, born and bred in New York though she was, she blushed hotly and turned her face away. Then she felt the thrill by which victory is made plain to the defeated.

"But—but—" repeated H. R. through his clenched teeth, and took a step toward her.

Whatever she saw in his face made her smile and say, challengingly:

"But what?"

Being very wise, he caught his breath and said, sharply:

"Don't do that!"

"Do what?" she asked, innocently, and kept on smiling.

"I will not see you!"

"You won't?" She ceased to smile, in order to look skeptical.

"No, I won't; I'll keep my word, Grace." He was speaking very earnestly now. "I love you—all of you; the good and the bad, your wonderful woman's soul and your perennial childishness. You are so beautiful in so many ways that you yourself cannot know how completely beautiful you are. But I love more than your beauty. After it is all over you will realize that I can be trusted implicitly. Never has man been put to such a task. Don't you know—can't you see what I am doing?"

She knew; she saw. She felt herself mistress of the situation. She therefore said, softly:

"I shouldn't want you to commit suicide here."

Hearing no reply, she looked at him. He was ready for it. She saw his nostrils dilate and his fists clench and unclench.

"Then I won't see you. But—but you can see me," he said.

She frowned.

He went on: "I shall lunch every day at Jerry's—small table in the northeast corner. At one o'clock every day for a whole month."

Did he expect her to run after him? She said, very coldly:

"That wouldn't be fair."

"If you go to Jerry's for luncheon with one of your girl friends, and you see me eating alone, keeping bushels of wonderful news all to myself, is that making love to you?"

"Yes."

"No!" he contradicted, flatly. "But I'll do more— I'll let you tell Mrs. Vandergilt that you own the only engine of destruction available against man's stupidity."

Knowing that he was alluding to her beauty, she said:

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, I belong to you, don't I? And if women are to get the vote can't you tell dear Ethel's mother—"

"Do you mean old Mrs. Vandergilt?" she interrupted.

"Yes."

"Then say so."

"I will," he meekly promised. "You tell the old lady that you will insure success for the Cause by lending me to her. I've got a scheme that will do more in a month than all the suffragettes have accomplished in fifty years. You might get Ethel interested in my plan—"

"I won't!" She smiled the forgiving smile that infuriates. She lost her head. "You think I am jeal—that I'm—"

"I think not of you, but of myself, and of how I may keep my promise to your father and survive. If you see me, and can talk to me, I shall live honorably. Will you shake hands?" He held out his right hand. She ignored it. He deliberately took hers and led her to a chair. "Will you do what I ask, dear?" he entreated, humbly.

"No!" She stood there, cold, disdainful, refusing everything—even to sit down.

"Then," he said, tensely, "then I must—" He seized her in his arms and kissed her unresponsive lips. "I am not making love to you," he murmured. "I am not!" And he kissed her again. "I promised not to see you; and I won't—not even if you see me."

He released her and was silent. She looked up and saw that his eyes were tightly closed.

"I'll be there," she said, triumphantly, "at one o'clock."

"I am a man of my word!" he said, fiercely.

"Every day!" she added, with decision.

She did not know that this wifelike attitude thrilled him as not even the kisses had; but he said, earnestly:

"No. I'm going now. It's good-by for a month. For a whole month!"

"Northeast corner table," she said, audibly, as though to herself. "Northeast cor—"

"Play fair!" he urged. "Amuse yourself with Mrs. Vandergilt." He looked at her as though he desired her to occupy herself with some hobby for thirty days. The sight of her face, and nothing else that she could see, made him say, "Good-by!" And he almost ran out of the room.

She went up-stairs to get her gloves. On second thought she called Ethel on the telephone and invited her to luncheon at Jerry's.

He was waiting for her at the northeast corner table when she and Ethel went in. Grace, who had been looking toward the southwest corner, where the exit to the kitchen was, turned casually and saw him.

"There's Hendrik!" she said to Ethel.

He had not risen. He looked up casually now and approached them.

"I was born lucky," he told them, and shook hands with Grace. To Miss Vandergilt he said, very seriously, "Are you Grace's friend?"

"I'm more than that," answered Ethel; "I am the best friend she's got."

"Then I am doubly lucky. I have a table, Ethel. I want you to be a witness to the miracle." There was no reason why he should call Miss Vandergilt by her first name. Even Ethel looked it. But H. R. merely said: "Take this chair, Grace. Ethel—here."

"It seems to me—" began Grace, coldly.

"Your friends are my friends. The miracle, Ethel, is that I've promised not to make love to Grace for a whole month—thirty days; forty-three thousand two hundred precious wasted minutes!"

"Don't you sleep?" interjected Ethel, curiously.

"My poor carcass does, but not my thoughts of her. Now let us eat and be miserable."

It was a wonderful luncheon. H. R. let them do all the talking. He was at his coffee when Ethel mentioned her mother.

"Ah, yes!" said H. R. "By the way, has Grace told her?"

"Told her what?"

Grace caught his eye and shook her head with a frown.

"Very well, dear girl," he said to her. To Ethel he explained, "She doesn't wish me to tell you of her plan."

"Oh, do! Please!" said Ethel, eagerly.

"I'm in training for the position of her husband, Ethel," H. R. told her. "She says no—that's all; plain no!"

"Grace, tell him to tell me!" said Ethel.

"Shall I, Grace?" smiled H. R.

Ethel looked at her and smiled. It made Grace so furious that she said:

"I have no control over his speech."

"Then, Ethel, it is only that Grace has a plan for a suffrage campaign that—well, it isn't for me to boast of her strategy; but it's a sure winner. I thought she would tell your mother."

"It doesn't interest me," said Grace, very coldly, being hot within.

"It will after you're married," observed Ethel, sagely.

"That depends on whom I marry," said Grace, casually.

"So it does," assented H. R., calmly.

"I agree with Hendrik," said Ethel, more subtly personal than Grace thought necessary; so she pushed back her chair and took up her gloves.

"Same table, same time—to-morrow?" H. R. said this to Grace so that Ethel could hear it.

"No," said Grace.

"Very well," he said, meekly. "I'll be here just the same—in case."

She shook her head. Ethel, who was carefully not looking, saw her do it.

Grace did not appear the next day, but Ethel did, properly accompanied by her own mother. They walked toward the northeast corner, on their way to a near-by table. H. R. rose and approached them.

"Just in time," he said to them. "Thursday always was my lucky day."

They sat down. To the waiter he said:

"Tell the chef—for three; for me."

"Yes, Mr. Rutgers," said the waiter, very deferentially.

"What have you up your sleeve, Mrs. Vandergilt? And how near is victory?"

"You mean—"

"The Cause!" said H. R., reverently.

"I never heard you express an opinion," said Mrs. Vandergilt, suspiciously.

"You have expressed them for me far better than I could. Mine isn't a deep or philosophical mind," he apologized to the mind that was. "I merely understand publicity and how sheeplike men are."

"If you understand that, you understand a great deal," remarked Mrs. Vandergilt, sententiously.

"Grace thought—" began H. R., and caught himself in time. "You haven't talked to her about it?"

"Grace?"

"Miss Goodchild."

"No. Why should I?"

"No reason—only that she has what I, as a practical man, in my low-brow way, think is a winner. Of course the suffrage has long since passed the polemical stage. The question does not admit of argument. The right is admitted by all men. But what all men don't admit is the wrong. And all men don't admit it, because all women don't."

"That is true," said Mrs. Vandergilt, vindictively.

"Any woman," pursued H. R., earnestly, "can make any man give her anything she wants. Therefore, if all the women wanted all the men to give them anything, the men would give it. A woman can't always take something from a man; but she can always get it. To put it on the high plane of taking it as a right may be noble; but what I want is results. So long as I get results, nothing short of murder, lying, or ignoble wheedling can stop me. Grace and I went all over that; but she seems to have lost interest—"

"Yes, she has," confirmed Ethel, so amiably that H. R. smiled gratefully; and that annoyed Ethel.

"You have asked for justice," pursued H. R., addressing himself to Mrs. Vandergilt; "but it is at the ignoble side of man that you must shoot. It is a larger target—easier to hit."

"But—" began Mrs. Vandergilt.

"If I were a woman my dream should be to serve under you and implicitly obey all orders. I'd distribute dynamite as cheerfully as handbills. Without competent marshals do you imagine Napoleon could have done what he did?

"Don't I know it?" said Mrs. Vandergilt, bitterly.

"How would you go about it?" interjected Ethel, who had grown weary of her own silence.

"I'd get the marshals. I'd get subordinates that, when your mother said 'Do thus and so!' she could feel sure would obey orders. The general strategy must come from her."

"I've said that until I was black in the face," said Mrs. Vandergilt. "I've told them—" And the great leader talked and talked, while H. R. stopped eating to listen with his very soul. With such a listener Mrs. Vandergilt was at her best.

"Mother, the squab is getting cold," said Ethel.

"The next time it will be cold in advance," said H. R., impatiently. "Go on, Mrs. Vandergilt!"

But Mrs. Vandergilt, knowing she could not finish at one luncheon, shook her head graciously and invited H. R. to dinner the next evening.

"I can hardly wait!" murmured H. R.