Part 6

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

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

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

"Can you _sell_ advertising?"

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

"Then you can sell anything!"

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

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

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

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

"Newspaper space--not to you."

"Still better answer. But not the answer."

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

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

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

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

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

After the second minute of suspense they exclaimed in chorus:

"What?"

They couldn't help it!

"Cold feet!" said H. R. calmly.

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

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

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

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

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

"And you?"

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

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

"And you?"

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

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

"I have a right--"

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

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

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

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

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

"Do you always get what you want?"

"I get my share."

"Barrett, do you get what you want?"

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

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

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

Wolverton rose to his feet. His color also rose.

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

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

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

Mr. Wolverton therefore walked out unbleeding.

"Barrett, do you see the possibilities?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What, wait?--H. R.?

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

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

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

"Another restaurant, like--"

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

"A commission of lunacy--"

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

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

"Sit down. This is only the beginning."

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

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

"Be ready with the papers for the papers."

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

"Not to--"

"Not to anything you may think."

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

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

VI

H. R. sent word to Fleming, _via_ Caspar Weinpusslacher, that he desired to meet about fifty members of the society at the Colossal Restaurant that evening at seven sharp. He then went to Valiquet's. The firm's name was not visible on the facade; only a beautiful bronze clock. Everybody was expected to know that this was Valiquet's, and everybody did, particularly those who could not afford to buy jewels. It had engendered throughout the entire country that familiar form of American snobbery which consists not only of having the best that money can buy, but of telling everybody that the watch or the necklace or the solitaire or the stick-pin came from Valiquet's.

He entered the most beautiful store in the world as though his feet had carried him thither automatically, from force of habit. He looked approvingly, as for the millionth time, at the wide teak boards of the floor and the ornate but beautiful solid-silver ceiling and the cool variegated purple-gray marble columns. He paused by the pearl-counter and stared at the one-hundred-thousand-dollar strings with what you might call an amiable tolerance; it wasn't their fault, poor things!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

H. R. walked on, a marked man, high in the estimation of the clerks because he had _not_ bought a sixty-eight-thousand-dollar emerald.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Not the--er--sandwich-men's parade?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"To-day?"

"Oh, gracious, no! We couldn't--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"We never send out such rough--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A nice boy, bless him!

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

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

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

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

"No; nor second."

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

"Of course."

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

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

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

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

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

VII

H. R. went out to have his boards made. He distributed orders among wood-carvers and plaster-casting ateliers, and devised a method by which boards could be made on the principle of stereotypers' matrices, only the letters were raised. He pledged the makers to deliver the boards within twenty-four hours, and as he did not haggle over the price by the simple expedient of not asking for it, they promised. When a man is permitted to fix his own profit he will do anything except go to church.