Part 8

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

"Why, you infernal--"

"_Move on!_" said the cop.

"I am Mr. MacAckus, of Valiquet's--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fifth Avenue was impassable now.

"_Who_ is it?" asked ten thousand who had been asking, "_What_ is it?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. MacAckus had followed and unlimbered his heavy artillery.

"This infernal outrage--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No compromise!" said H. R., sternly.

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

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

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

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

The free sandwiches returned to Fifth Avenue.

It was an ovation!

Art again had triumphed!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

X

Andrew Barrett was made office-manager as well as business-getter. He was ordered to pay for the two additional clerks and the bookkeeper out of his own commissions or resign. He paid. This was real business because even then young Mr. Barrett was overpaid for his work. But his real acumen was in recognizing a great man.

Since the pay-roll was a matter of Mr. Andrew Barrett's personally selected statistics, H. R. was certainly a wonder.

On Tuesday morning H. R., feeling that his own greatness had already become merely a matter of greater greatness, turned, manlike, to thoughts of love: he would share his greatness!

He would make Grace Goodchild marry him. He was sure he would succeed. He saw very clearly, indeed, how Mr. Goodchild, being a conservative banker, could be compelled to say yes.

In addition he would make Grace love him.

The strongest love is that love which is stronger than hatred or fear. Therefore the love that begins by hating or fearing is best. To overcome the inertia of non-loving is not so difficult as to stop the backward motion and turn it into forward.

He sat down and wrote a note:

DEAR GRACE, I am sending you herewith a few clippings. Remember what I told you. Don't let father prejudice you. Hope to see you soon. Busy as the dickens.

Yours, H. R.

_P.S._--I love you because you are _You!_ Certainly I am crazy. But, dear, _I know it_!

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

That afternoon before the _the dansant_ hour he called at the Goodchild residence.

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

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

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

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

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

Everything in civilized communities is by request.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being young and healthy, she laughed approvingly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It is a sacrifice worth making--for the sake of the downtrodden whom you will uplift with your beauty. _Au revoir_, Grace. _I am needed!_"

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

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

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

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

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

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

XI

H. R. walked to his office, thinking of the engagement-ring. He therefore rang for Maximilian Onthemaker, Esquire.

"Come up at once!"

"Damnation, I will," said Max. "I'm busy as the dickens, but an order from you is--"

"Another front page--with pictures!"

"I'm half-way up, already!" said Max. Before the telephone receiver could descend on the holder, H. R. heard a voice impatiently shriek, "Down!" to an elevator-man two and one-half miles away.

When Mr. Onthemaker, his face alight with eagerness to serve the cause of the poor sandwich-men free gratis, for nothing, could speak, H. R. told him, calmly:

"Max, I am going to marry the only daughter of George G. Goodchild, president of the Ketcham National Bank. Get photographs of her. Try La Touche and the other fashionable photographers. They will require an order from Miss Goodchild."

"Written?" asked Mr. Onthemaker, anxiously.

"I don't know."

"I'll call up my office, and Miss Hirschbaum will give the order."

"Can she talk like--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Barrett's smiles vanished. He shook his head.

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

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

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

Andrew Barrett nodded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

H. R. looked up.

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

Barrett beamed.

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

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

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

"Yes, sir?"

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

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

"Ten millions," said Hendrik Rutgers, calmly.

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

He meant what he said.

Ten millions!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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