The next morning Hendrik went to his tailor. As he walked into the shop he had the air of a man in whom two new suits a day would not be extravagance. The tailor, unconscious of cause and effect, called him "Mister," against the habit of years. Hendrik nodded coldly and said:

"As secretary and treasurer of the National Street Advertising Men's Association, I've got to have a new frock-coat. Measure me for one."

Hendrik had the air of a man who sees an unpleasant duty ahead, but does not mean to shirk it. This attitude always commands respect from tailors, clergymen, and users of false weights and measures.

"Left the bank?" asked the tailor, uncertainly.

"I should say I had," answered Hendrik, emphatically.

"What is the new job, anyhow?" asked the tailor, professionally. His customers usually told him their business, their history, and their hopes. By listening he had been able to invest in real estate.

"As I was about to say when you interrupted me"—Hendrik spoke rebukingly.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Rutgers," said the tailor, and blushed. He knew now he should have said "position" instead of "job." The civilization of to-day—including sanitary plumbing—is possible because price-tags were invented. This is not an epigram.

"—the clothes must be finished by Thursday. If you can't do it, I'll go somewhere else."

"Oh, we can do it, all right, Mr. Rutgers."

"Good morning," and Hendrik strode haughtily from the shop.

To the tailor Hendrik had always been a clerk at a bank. But now it was plain to see that Mr. Rutgers thought well of himself, as a man with money always does in all Christian countries. Hendrik's credit at once jumped into the A1 class. Some people and all tailors judge men by their backs.

Being sure of the guests, Hendrik Rutgers went forth in search of their dinner. To feed fivescore starving fellow-men was a noble deed; to feed them at the expense of some one else was even higher. So, dressed in his frock-coat, wearing his high hat as though it was a crown, he sought Caspar Weinpusslacher. The owner of the "Colossal Restaurant," just off the Bowery, gave a square meal for a quarter of a dollar, twenty-five cents; for thirty cents he gave the same meal with a paper napkin and the privilege of repeating the potato or the pie. His kitchen organization was perfect. His cooks and scullions had served in the German army in similar capacities, and he ruled them like one born and brought up in the General Staff. His waiters also were recruited from the greatest training-school for waiters in the world. He operated on a system approved by an efficiency expert. By giving low wages to people who were glad to get them, paying cash for his supplies and judiciously selecting the latter just on the eve of their spoiling, he was able to give an astonishingly good meal for the money. His profits, however, depended upon his selling his entire output. This did not always happen. Some days Herr Weinpusslacher almost lost three dollars.

No system is perfect. Otherwise hotel men would wish to live for ever.

Hendrik stalked into the Colossal dining-room and snarled at one of the waiters:

"Where's your boss?"

The waiter knew it couldn't be the Kaiser, or a millionaire. It must therefore be a walking delegate. He deferentially pointed to a short, fat man by the bar.

"Tell him to come here," said Rutgers, and sat down at a table. It isn't so much in knowing whom to order about, but in acquiring the habit of ordering everybody about, that wins.

Caspar Weinpusslacher received the message, walked toward the table and signaled to a Herculean waiter, who unobtrusively drew near—and in the rear—of H. Rutgers.

Hendrik pointed commandingly to a chair across the table. C. Weinpusslacher obeyed. The Herculean waiter, to account for his proximity, flicked non-existent crumbs on the napeless surface of the table.

"Recklar tinner?" he queried, in his best Delmonico.

"Geht-weg!" snarled Mr. Rutgers. The waiter, a nostalgic look in his big blue eyes, went away. Ach, to be treated like a dog! Ach, the Fatherland! And the officers! Ach!

"Weinpusslacher," said Rutgers, irascibly, "who is your lawyer and what's his address?"

C. Weinpusslacher's little pig-eyes gleamed apprehensively.

"For why you wish to know?" he said.

"Don't ask me questions. Isn't he your friend?"

"Sure."

"Is he smart?"

"Smart?" C. Weinpusslacher laughed now, fatly. "He's too smart for you, all right. He's Max Ondemacher, 397 Bowery. I guess if you—"

"All right. I'm going to bring him to lunch here."

"He wouldn't lunch here. He's got money," said C. Weinpusslacher, proudly.

"He will come." Rutgers looked, in a frozen way, at Caspar Weinpusslacher, and continued, icily: "I am the secretary and treasurer of the National Street Advertising Men's Association. If I told you I wanted you to give me money you'd believe me. But if I told you I wanted to give you money, you wouldn't. So I am going to let your own lawyer tell you to do as I say. I'll make you rich—for nothing!"

And Hendrik Rutgers walked calmly out of the Colossal Restaurant, leaving in the eyes of C. Weinpusslacher astonishment, in the mind respect, and in the heart vague hope.

This is the now historic document which Hendrik Rutgers dictated in Max Onthemaker's office:

Panem et circenses! He had made sure of the first! The public could always be depended upon to furnish the second by being perfectly natural.

M. Onthemaker accompanied H. Rutgers to the Colossal. He had some difficulty in persuading C. Weinpusslacher to sign. But as soon as it was done Hendrik said:

"First gun: The National Street Advertising Men will hold their annual dinner here next Saturday, about one hundred of us, thirty cents each; regular dinner. That is legitimate news and will be printed as such. It will advertise the Colossal and the Colossal thirty-cent dinner. You won't be out a cent. We pay cash for our dinner. I'll supply a few decorations; all you'll have to do is to hang them from that corner to this. You might also arrange to have a little extra illumination in front of the place. Have a couple of men in evening clothes and high hats on the corner, pointing to the Colossal, and saying: 'Weinpusslacher's Colossal Restaurant! Three doors down. Just follow the crowd!' Arrange for all these things so that when you see that I am delivering the goods you won't be paralyzed. Another thing: There will be reporters from every daily paper in the city here Saturday night. Provide a table for them and pay especial attention to both dinner and drinks. They will make you famous and rich, because you will tell them that they are getting the regular thirty-cent dinner. It will be up to you to be intelligently generous now so that you may with impunity be intelligently stingy later, when you are rich. I advise you to have Max here, because you seem to be of the distrustful nature of most damned fools and therefore must make your money in spite of yourself. Next Saturday at six p.m.! You'll make at least two hundred thousand dollars in the next five years. Now I am going to eat. Come on, Onthemaker."

H. Rutgers sat down, summoned the Herculean waiter, and ordered two thirty-cent dinners.

C. Weinpusslacher, a dazed look in his eyes, approached Max and whispered, "Hey, dot's a smart feller. What?"

"Well," answered M. Onthemaker, lawyer-like, "you haven't anything to lose."

"You said I should sign the paper," Caspar reminded him, accusingly.

"You're all right so long as you don't give him a cent unless I say so."

"I won't; not even if you say so."

With thirty cents of food and thirty millions of confidence under his waistcoat, Hendrik Rutgers walked from the Colossal Restaurant down the Bowery and Center Street to the City Hall. At the door of the Mayor's room he fixed the doorkeeper with his stern eye and requested his Honor to be informed that the secretary of the National Street Advertising Men's Association would like to see his Honor about the annual dinner of the association, of which his Honor had been duly informed.

One of the Mayor's secretaries came out, a tall young man who, as a reporter on a sensational newspaper, had acquired a habit of dodging curses and kicks. Now, as Mayor's secretary, he didn't quite know how to dodge soft soap and glad hands.

"Good afternoon," said Hendrik, with what might be called a business-like amiability. "Will the Mayor accept?"

"The Mayor," said the secretary with an amazing mixture of condescension and uneasiness, as of a man calling on a poor friend in whose parlor there is shabby furniture but in whose cellar there is a ton of dynamite—"the Mayor knows nothing about your asso—of the dinner of your association." The secretary looked pleased at having caught himself in time.

"Why, I wrote," began H. Rutgers, with annoyance, "over a week—" He silenced himself while he opened his frock-coat, tilted back his high hat from a corrugated brow, and felt in his pocket. It is the delivery, not the speech, that distinguishes the great artist. Otherwise writers would be considered intelligent people.

"Hell!" exclaimed Hendrik, looking at the secretary so fixedly and angrily that the ex-reporter flinched. "It's in the other coat. I mean the copy of the letter I sent the Mayor exactly a week ago to-day. I wondered why he hadn't answered."

"He never got it," the secretary hastened to say.

Hendrik laughed. "You must excuse my language; but you know what it is to arrange all the details of an annual meeting and banquet—menu, decorations, music, and speeches. Well, here is the situation: the annual dinner of the National Street Advertising Men's Association will be held at Weinpusslacher's. Reception at six; dinner at eight; speeches begin about ten.

"What day?" asked the secretary.

"My head is in a whirl, and I don't— Let me see— Oh yes. Next Saturday, April twenty-ninth. I'll send you tickets. Do you think the Mayor will come?"

"I don't know. Saturdays he goes to his farm in Hartsdale."

"Yes, I know; but couldn't you induce him to come? By George! there is nothing our association wouldn't do for you in return."

"I'll see," promised the secretary, with a far-away look in his eyes as if he were devising ways and means. Oh, he earned his salary, even if he was a Celt.

"Thank you. And— Oh yes, by the way, some of our members will arrive at the Grand Central Station Saturday afternoon. Any objections to our marching with a band of music down the avenue to the Colossal? We'll wear our association badges; they are hummers." He felt in his coat-tails. "I wish I had some with me. Is it necessary to have a permit to parade?"

"Yes; but there will be no trouble about that."

"Oh, thanks. Will you fix that for us? I've got to go to Wall Street after one of the bankers on the list of speakers, and I'll be back in about an hour. Could I have the Mayor's acceptance and the permit to parade then? You see, it's only a couple of days and I hate to trust the mail. Thank you. It's very kind of you, and we appreciate it."

The secretary pulled out a letter and a pencil from his pocket as if to make a note on the back of the envelope, and so Hendrik Rutgers dictated:

"The National Street Advertising Men's Association. Altogether about one hundred and fifty members and one band of music. So long, and thank you very much, Mr.—er—"

"McDevitt.

"Mr. McDevitt. I'll return in about an hour from now, if I may. Thank you." And he bowed himself out.

Hendrik Rutgers had spoken as a man speaks who has a train to catch that he mustn't miss. That will command respect where an appeal in the name of the Deity will insure a swift kick. Republics!

In an hour he was back, knowing that the Mayor had gone. He sent in for Mr. McDevitt. The secretary appeared.

"Did he say he'd come?" asked H. Rutgers, impetuously.

"I am sorry to say the Mayor has a previous engagement that makes it absolutely impossible for him to be present at your dinner. I've got a letter of regret."

"They'll be awfully disappointed, too. I'll get the blame, of course. Of course!" Mr. Rutgers spoke with a sort of bitter gloom, spiced with vindictiveness.

"Here it is. I had him sign it. I wrote it. It's one of those letters," went on the secretary, inflated with the pride of authorship, "that can be read at any meeting. It contains a dissertation on the beneficent influence of advertising, strengthened by citations from Epictetus, Buddha, George Francis Train, and other great moral teachers of this administration."

"Thank you very much. I appreciate it. But, say, what's the matter with you coming in his place? I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I have a hunch that when it comes to slinging after-dinner oratory you'd do a great deal better."

"Oh," said McDevitt, with a loyal shake of negation and a smile of assent. "No, I couldn't."

"I'm sure—"

"And then I'm going to Philadelphia on Saturday morning to stay over Sunday. I wish you'd asked me earlier."

"So do I," murmured H. Rutgers, with conviction and despair judiciously admixed.

The secretary had meant to quiz H. Rutgers about the association, but H. Rutgers's manner and words disarmed suspicion. It was not that H. Rutgers always bluffed, but that he always bluffed as he did, that makes his subsequent career one of the most interesting chapters of our political history.

"And here's the permit," said the secretary.

H. Rutgers, without looking at it, put it in his pocket as if it were all a matter of course. It strengthened the secretary's belief that non-suspiciousness was justified.

"Thanks, very much," said H. Rutgers. "I am, I still repeat, very sorry that neither you nor the Mayor can come." He paid to the Mayor's eloquent secretary the tribute of a military salute and left the room.

---