Part 11

"Perhaps you've read the newspapers? They've been full of me and my doings these many weeks," said H. R., looking intently at the Bishop.

"My dear boy!" expostulated Dr. Phillipson.

"I need your help!" said H. R., very earnestly.

The Bishop knew it! Those to whom you cannot give cheering words and fifty cents are the worst cases. To relieve physical suffering is far easier than to straighten out those tangles that society calls disreputable--after they get into print.

H. R. went on, "I want you to help me to help our church."

"Help you to help our church?" blankly repeated the Bishop. The unexpected always reduces the expectant kind to a mere echo.

"Exactly!" And H. R. nodded congratulatorily. "Exactly! In order that we may stop losing ground!"

There were so many ways in which this young man's words might be taken that his mission remained an exasperating mystery. But the Bishop smiled with the tolerance of undyspeptic age toward over-enthusiastic youth and said kindly:

"Pardon me, but--"

"Pardon _me_," interrupted H. R., "but since it is only the Roman Catholics who are growing--"

"Our figures--" interjected the Bishop, firmly.

"Ah yes, figures of speech. Don't apply to _our_ church. The reason is that the Catholics leave out the possessive pronoun. They never say _their_ church any more than they say _their_ God. Now, why did we build our huge Cathedral?"

The Bishop stared at H. R. in astonishment. Then he answered, austerely, confining himself to the last question:

"In order to glorify--"

"Excuse me. There already existed the Himalayas. The real object of building cathedrals hollow, I take it, is to fill 'em with the flesh of _living_ people. Otherwise we would have made sarcophagi. We Protestants don't bequeath our faith to our posterity; only our pews. They are to-day empty. Hence my business. I, Bishop Phillipson, am a People-Getter."

"You are what?" The Bishop did not frown; his amazement was too abysmal.

"I fill churches. Since this is really a family affair, let us be frank. Of course, you could fill 'em with paper--"

"Paper?"

"Theatrical argot for deadheads, Bishop; people who don't pay, but contribute criticisms of the show. I am here to tell you how to go about the job efficiently."

H. R.'s manner was so earnest, it so obviously reflected his desire to help, that the Bishop could not take offense at the young man's intentions. The words, however, were so much more than offensive that the Bishop said, with cold formality:

"You express yourself in such a way--"

"I'll tell you the reason. Deeds never convert until they are _talked_ about. Dynamic words are needed. Ask any business man. I have made a specialty of them. I may add that I am not interested in making money, only in efficiency!"

The Bishop saw plainly that this well-dressed young man with the keen eyes and the resolute chin was neither a lunatic nor an impostor. Therefore the Bishop instantly realized that the young man could not help the Church and equally that the Church could not help the young man. Further talk was a waste of time.

"I fear this discussion is fruitless--"

"I wasn't discussing; I was asserting. I am the man who is going to marry Grace Goodchild--"

The Bishop straightened in his chair and looked at H. R. with a new and more personal interest.

"Indeed!" he said, so humanly that it sounded like "Do tell!" Grace was one of his flock. He remembered now that his friends the Goodchilds had been in print lately and that editorials had been written about the young man who proposed to marry the only daughter.

"I promised Grace that I would help our Church--"

To the Bishop these words, which the young man had used before, now had a different meaning. It was no longer an utter stranger, but an eccentric acquaintance; a character, as characterless people call them.

"Yes?" And the Bishop listened attentively.

"I've doped it out--" pursued H. R., earnestly.

"I beg your pardon?" said the Bishop and blushed.

"I have arrived at a logical conclusion," translated H. R. "In short, I have found what will put Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Jews, Parsees, and native-born Americans on the Christian map of New York. And it will not necessitate turning the unoccupied churches into restaurants or vaudeville shows."

H. R. turned his hypnotic look full on the Bishop, who read therein the desire to do.

"Thus must have looked HILDEBRAND!" thought the Bishop, in Roman capitals, in spite of himself. On second thought he remembered to characterize the language of Grace Goodchild's fiance as "bizarre." Experience teaches that it is wisdom to encourage good intentions. This is done by listening.

Since the Bishop was now obviously glad to listen, H. R. said, more earnestly than ever:

"Tell me, Bishop, what is it that is desirable to possess and more desirable to give, elevating, rare beyond words, thrice blessed, and beautiful as heaven itself?"

"Truth!" exclaimed the Bishop, his voice ringing with conviction and the pride of puzzle-solving. Being a human being, he had answered promptly.

H. R. shook his head and smiled forgivingly: "That's only theology; possibly metaphysics. Forget rhetoric and get down to cases. _Truth!_ Pshaw! Can you imagine that combination of four consonants and one vowel serving as a political platform or included in any live concern's instructions to salesmen? Never! No, sir. Guess again! I've found it. Rare, picturesque, with great dramatic possibilities and easy to capitalize. It is--"

He paused and looked at the Bishop. The Bishop returned the look fascinatedly. This young man was from another world. What would he say next? And what would whatever he said mean?

"_Charity!_" exclaimed H. R., proudly.

The Bishop's face fell. You almost heard it.

H. R. shook a rigid forefinger at the Bishop's nose and said, in a distinctly vindictive voice:

"_'But the greatest of these is charity'_!"

"We always preach--" began the Bishop, defensively.

"That's the trouble. _Don't!_ We'll tackle charity by easy steps. We'll begin by the very lowest form, in order to break in American Christians gradually. Feeding the hungry is spectacular and leads to the higher forms. Show people that you will not only fill their bellies, but send the caterer's bills direct to the Lord for payment, and the populace will supply not only the food-receptacles, but the stationery. A great deal," finished H. R., reflectively, "depends upon the right stationery."

"I fear," said the Bishop, uncomfortably, "that we are talking to each other across an impassable gulf."

"Not a bit, Bishop. The human intellect, properly directed, can bridge any chasm. Let us be philosophical." H. R. said this as one who proposes to speak in words of one syllable. "Now, good people--I don't mean _you_, Bishop; you know: _good_ people!--always do everything wrong end foremost. Now, what do you, speaking collectively, do to feed the hungry?"

"We support St. George's Kitchens--"

"Ah yes, you astutely work to eliminate poverty by tackling the poor, instead of operating on the rich. You give tickets to the hungry! Think of it--_to the hungry_! Tickets! A green one means a bowl of pea soup; a pink one, a slice of ham; a brown one, a codfish ball. The polychromatics of systematized charity whereby you discourage the increase of a professional pauper class! Tickets! To the hungry! Ouch!"

The Bishop more than once had despaired of solving that very problem. He shook his head sadly rather than rebukingly and said, "I have no doubt that you are a very remarkable young man and very up to date and very hopeful, but in a huge city like New York how can any one solve the problem of helping everybody who really needs--"

"By using brains, Bishop Phillipson," cut in H. R., so sternly that the Bishop flushed. But before his anger could crystallize, H. R. continued, challengingly: "Who in New York are in need of charity? Five thousand empty bellies? No. Five million empty souls!"

It was a striking figure of speech. Before the Bishop could say anything H. R. went on, very politely:

"Will you oblige me by torturing the ears?"

"Torturing the ears?" echoed the Bishop in a daze.

"Yes; by listening. Do you hear"--H. R. pointed to a corner of the room--"do you hear a voice from heaven saying, 'Let them that hunger bring a physician's certificate of protracted inanition? You don't? Then there's hope. What I propose to do, Bishop, is to revolutionize the industry." H. R. spoke so determinedly that the Bishop could not help forgetting everything else and asking:

"How?"

"By giving the ticket to the full belly; not to the empty. We utilize the machinery already in existence, but the ticket goes to the man who pays twenty-five cents, not to the man who needs or accepts the quarter's worth of food. There are people who would compel a fellow-man made by God after His image to convert himself into a first-trip-to-Europe dress-suit case and paste labels all over himself: _Pauper! Hungry! Wreck!_ My tickets will be precious tags marked: _Charitable! Decent! Christian!_ I accomplish this by giving to the giver! Success is a matter of labels."

"But I can't see--"

"My dear Bishop, everybody acknowledges that it is much nicer to give to those you love than to receive. That is why we are exhorted to love our fellows--that we may love to give to them. It follows that everybody at heart likes to be charitable. Vanity was invented pretty early in history. But it has not been properly capitalized by the Churches. Now, listen to the difference when real brains are used. Remember that though all is vanity, vanity is not all. Each person who gives twenty-five cents receives a ticket. Since he lives in America, he gets something for something! I have planned a mammoth hunger feast in Madison Square Garden. Each donor from his seat will see with his own eyes a fellow-man eat his quarter."

"But, my dear Mr. Rutgers--"

"I am glad you see it as I do. The ticket-buyer goes to the Garden. He knows his ticket is feeding one man. But he sees ten thousand men eating. He looks for the particular beneficiary of his particular quarter. It might be any one of the ten thousand eaters! Within thirty-seven seconds each donor will feel that his twenty-five cents is feeding the entire ten thousand! Did a quarter of a dollar ever before accomplish so much? Of anybody else," finished H. R., modestly, "I would call that genius!"

The Bishop shook his head violently.

"Do you mean to treat it as a spectacle--"

"What else was the Crucifixion to the priests of the Temple?" asked H. R., sternly.

The Bishop waved away with his hand and said, decidedly:

"No! No! Would you compel starving men--"

"To eat?" cut in H. R.

"No; to parade their needs, to vulgarize charity and make it offensive, a stench in the nostrils of self-respecting--"

"Hold on! Charity, reverend sir, is never offensive. The attitude of imperfectly Christianized fellow-citizens makes it a disgrace to show charity, but not to display poverty. The English-speaking races, being eminently practical, lay great stress upon table manners. They treat charity as if it were a natural function of man, and therefore to be done secretly and in solitude. Our cultured compatriots invariably confound modesty with the sense of smell. Etiquette is responsible for infinitely greater evils than vulgarity. Feed the hungry. When you do that you obey God. Feed them _all_!"

"But--"

"That is exactly what I propose to do--with your help: feed all the starving men in New York. Has anybody ever before tried that? _All the starving men!_" He finished, sternly, "Not one shall escape us!"

The Bishop almost shuddered, there was so grimly determined a look on H. R.'s face. Then as his thoughts began to travel along their usual channel he felt vexed. He had patiently endured the disrespectful language of a young man whose point of view differed so irritatingly from that of the earnest men who were laboring to solve the problem. All he had heard was confusing talk, words he could not remember, but left a sting. Time had been spent to no purpose.

"I still," said the Bishop with an effort, "do not see how you solve the problem that has baffled our best minds."

"Nobody else could do it," acknowledged H. R., simply. "But I have carefully prepared my plans. They cannot fail. And now you will give me your signature."

"My signature to what?" asked the Bishop in the tone of voice in which people usually say, "Never!" He felt that the interview was ended. A suspicion flashed in his mind that this young man might reply, "To a check!" But he paid H. R. the compliment of instantly dismissing the suspicion. This was, alas! no common impostor.

"To an appeal to New York's better nature," said H. R., enthusiastically. "The masses always follow the classes; if they didn't there wouldn't be classes. Mr. Wyman, of the National Bank of the Avenue, will act as treasurer."

It was the fashionable bank. Stock in demand at seventy-two hundred dollars a share, and all held by Vans.

"Has he--"

"He will," interrupted H. R. so decisively that the Bishop forgot to be annoyed at not being allowed to finish his question. "We shall appeal to all New-Yorkers. Your name must therefore lead the signatures. Much, Bishop Phillipson, depends upon the leader! Of course there will be other clergymen, and leading merchants, and capitalists, and the mayor, and the borough presidents, and the reform leaders, and everybody who is Somebody. They must give the example. Do you not constantly endeavor, yourself, to be an example, reverend sir?"

Before the Bishop could deny this H. R. gave into his hands a book beautifully bound in hand-tooled morocco. The leaves were vellum. On the first page was artistically engrossed:

_Hunger knows no denomination._

_There must not be starving men, women, or children in New York._

_We who do not hunger must feed those who do._

_LET US FEED ALL THE HUNGRY!_

"Here, Bishop Phillipson, is the place at the head of the list. It will be signed by men and women whose names stand for Achievement, Fame, and Disinterestedness."

H. R. held a fountain-pen before him and pursued: "If you sign, I'll feed all the hungry--_all_! Have you ever seen a starving man? Do you know what it is to be hungry?"

The Bishop shook his head at the fountain-pen. He had seen starving men, but he had read about signatures. He could not officially sanction a plan of which he knew so little. No grown man can say that he did not know what he was signing.

"Listen!" commanded H. R., sternly. "Do you hear your Master's voice?"

"Your intentions, I make no doubt, are highly praiseworthy. But your language is so close to blasphemy...."

"All words that invoke God in unrhymed English are so regarded in the United States. Grace would have it that you would sign in Chinese if by so doing it fed the hungry. '_But the greatest of these is charity._' The reporters are waiting for the list. Everybody else will sign if you head the list."

"Of course." And the Bishop's voice actually betrayed the fact that he had been forced into self-defense. "Of course. I should be only too glad to sign if I were certain such an action on my part would actually feed the hungry--"

"_All_ the hungry," corrected H. R.

"Even a tenth of the hungry of New York," the Bishop insisted. "But, my dear young man, excellent intentions do not always succeed. Your methods might not commend themselves to men who have made this work the study of a lifetime."

"They have not gone about their work intelligently, for there are still unfed men in New York. I am a practical man, not a theorist. Emotions, respected sir, are all very well to appeal to at vote-getting times, but they are poor things to think with. Now I don't suppose I have devoted more than one hour's thought to this subject, and yet see the difference. _All_ the hungry!" In H. R.'s voice there was not the faintest trace of self-glorification nor did his manner show the slightest vanity. Both were calmly matter-of-fact. The Bishop had to have an explanation. So he asked:

"And your--er--quite unemotional and sudden interest in this--er--affair, Mr. Rutgers...."

"You mean, where do I come in?" cut in H. R.

The Bishop almost blushed as he shook his head and explained:

"Rather, your motive in undertaking so difficult...."

"Oh yes. You mean, _why_?"

"Yes," said the Bishop, and looked at H. R. full in the eyes.

"Because I desire to marry Grace Goodchild and I wish to be worthy of her. It is a man's job to jolt New York into a spasm of practical Christianity."

The Bishop smiled. After all, this was a boy, and his enthusiasm might make up for what his motive lacked in profundity of wisdom.

"And besides," went on H. R., in a lowered voice, "I hate to think that men can starve when I have enough to eat without earning my food." He smiled shamefacedly.

"My boy!" cried the Bishop, and shook the boy's hand warmly, "I'm afraid you are--"

"Don't call me good, Bishop!"

"I was going to say it, but I won't. Do you think you can do what you propose?"

"I know it!" And H. R. looked at Dr. Phillipson steadily.

The Bishop looked back. He was no match for H. R.

"I will sign!" said the Bishop.

XVI

H. R. walked slowly to his office. Spring was in the air. The sky was very blue and the air sparkled with sun-dust. Life thrilled in waves. The breeze sang, as it does at times in the city. It had not the harps of the trees to strum on, but it made shift with the corners of the houses. Hand in hand with the breeze from the south came the joy of living that, after all, is merely the joy of loving.

The soul of God's beautiful world--light, heat, beauty, love--percolated into the soul of Hendrik Rutgers and filled it--filled it full.

It called for the One Woman in songs--the same songs the breeze was humming.... Ah, the encouragement of the wind! It bade him take her! It told him exactly whither the breeze was going, whither he should carry her in his arms. It whispered to him the place where he might lay down his burden!

He walked on, head erect, chest inflated, fists clenched. He would take her from the world and make her his world. Their world!--his and hers; his first, then hers. After that they would share it equally.

The breeze sang on.

As he crossed Madison Square he was made aware that the sparrows also had heard the song and, phonograph-like, were repeating it. A little shriller, but the same song. Ten thousand sparrows--and each thought it was original! And the little pale-green leaves were nodding approval. And the azure smile of the sky was benignantly telling all creation to go ahead--as it was in the beginning, as it would be in the end.

He loved her! He would love her even if she were not the most beautiful girl in all the round world. He would love her if she were penniless; even if her father were his best friend. He loved her and he loved his love of her. Her eyes were two skies that smiled more bluely than God's one. Her hair had the rust of gold and the dust of sun, and radiated light and glints of love. From her wonderful lips came, in the voice of the flowers, the one command that he, a hater of slaves, would obey, gratefully kneeling. And the lips said it, flower-like, in silence!

She was not there to be loved. But he loved her, and because he loved her he loved everybody, everything. Even his fellow-men.

They also should love! All of them! Love to love and love to live!

Did they?

He looked for the first time at his fellow-men on the park benches.

He saw sodden faces, reptile-like sunning themselves, warming their skins; no more.

They were men without money.

They therefore were men without eyes, without ears, without tongues. They therefore were men without love. Everything had been cleanly excised by the great surgeon, Civilization!

A wonderful invention, money. To think that puny man had, by means of that ingenious device, thwarted not only Nature, but God Himself!

If money had not been invented, there would not be great cities to be loveless in!

But those on the park benches, lizard-like sunning themselves, were tramps. The pedestrians had money. They, therefore, must have love.

He looked at them and saw that what they had was their hands in their pockets. Doubtless it was to keep their money there. By so doing they did not have to sit on park benches and fail to see the sky and the buds, and fail to hear the birds and the breeze.

And yet, as he looked he saw on their faces the same blindness and the same deafness.

On the benches sat immortal souls drugged with misery. On the paths walked men asleep with Self.

He alone was alive and awake!

The appalling solitude of a great city was all about him. He was the only living man in New York!

And Grace Goodchild was the only woman in the world! He loved her. He loved everybody. He wished to give, give, give!

"You'll be fed!" he said to the park benches.

"You'll feed em!" he told the sidewalks.

"I'll marry you! he wirelessed to Grace.

"You," he said to all New York, "will pay for every bit of it!"

He walked into his office, frowning. Andrew Barrett was there.

"Come with me," H. R. told him, and led the way into the private office.

He sat down at his desk, brushed away a lot of letters, and said to his aide:

"Barrett, I've got a man's job this time."

Sandwiching for banks that had deposits of over one hundred millions appealed to Andrew Barrett. And the Standard Oil and the Steel Trust, also, held possibilities. After the S. A. S. A. got those he would go into business for himself.

"Who is it?" he asked, eagerly.

"Grace Goodchild!" answered H. R., absently.

"Oh, I thought--"

H. R. started. "What? Oh! You are thinking of business. Well, I'm going to put New York on the map at one fell swoop."

Andrew Barrett beamed. At last, millions! All New York using sandwiches at regular rates!

H. R. looked at his lieutenant and smiled forgivingly. After all, it was not Andrew's fault that the spring was not in his soul.

"Barrett, men and women in all civilized communities desire three things. All of them begin with a B. Can you guess?"

"Not I!" answered Barrett, with diplomatic self-depreciation. There are questions whose answers gain you mortal enmity by depriving the questioner of the greatest of all pleasures.

"Bread, beauty, and bunco. You satisfy all the natural wants of humanity by supplying these three. Now men pay for their necessities with whatever coin happens to be current. I have sometimes thought of a state of society in which payment need not be made in interchangeable labor units, but in the self-satisfaction of accomplishment. I have even dreamed," he finished, sternly, "of making goodness fashionable!"

"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed Barrett, in indescribable awe.

H. R. shook his head gloomily. "The trouble," he said, bitterly, "is that it is so damned easy to be good, so obviously intelligent, so natural! Men are bad, I firmly believe, because badness is so roundabout and expensive. How else can you explain it? Society, since money was invented, has craved for expensive things. Society is, in truth, expense."

"Say, Chief, I don't get the dope about goodness being easy."

"Probably not; it is too obvious. The early Christians died gladly. It was good form. Dying for God ceased to be fashionable. Hence universal suffrage. To die for God merely means to live for God. Do you see?"

"No. The Christian part bothers me."

"Let us be heathen, then. The Spartan mother loved her sons. Sent them to battle saying, _With your shield or on it!_ The axiom of the locality is the fashion of the place. To die bravely in Sparta was to be fashionable. If I can make goodness fashionable I'll do something that is very easy and very difficult. If men were not such damned fools it would be so restful to be wise."

"Yes, H. R., but human nature--"