On Nassau Street twenty sandwich-men were parading, ten on each side of the street, in the block where the Ketcham National Bank stood. Each sandwich bore this legend:

Besides 12,466 men and 289 women, 13 reporters read the sandwiches.

The men looked pleased; they were seeing a show on D.H. tickets. The women sighed enviously and opened their latest Robert W. Chambers in the street as they walked on. The thirteen reporters walked into the bank, went straight into the president's office, and while he was still smiling his welcome asked him why he would not let H.R. marry Grace.

Mr. Goodchild nearly sat in the electric chair. The vice-president fortunately was able to grasp in time the hand that held the big paper-weight.

"Remember the bank!" solemnly counseled the vice-president.

"To hell with the bank!" said Mr. George G. Goodchild for the first and only time in his Republican life.

"Unless you talk to us fully and politely," said the Globe man, "we propose to interview your directors and ask each and every one of them to tell us the name of your successor. If you raise your hand again I'll not only break in your face, but I'll sue you and thus secure vacation money and a raise in salary. The jury is with me. Come! Tell us why you won't let Mr. Rutgers marry Grace."

Here in his own office the president of a big Wall Street bank was threatened with obliterated features and the extraction of cash. The cause of it, H.R., was worse than a combination of socialism and smallpox; he was even worse than a President of the United States in an artificial bull market.

Mr. Goodchild walked up and down the room exactly thirteen times—one for each reporter—and then turned to the vice-president.

"Send for the police!" he commanded.

"Remember the newspapers," agonizedly whispered the vice-president.

The Globe man overheard him. "Present!" he said, and saluted. Then he took out a lead-pencil, seized a pad from the president's own desk, and said, kindly, "I'll take down all your reasons in shorthand, Mr. Goodchild!"

"Take yourself to hell!" shrieked the president.

"AprÈs vous, mon cher Alphonse," retorted the Globe man, with exquisite courtesy. "Boys, you heard him. Verbatim!"

All the reporters wrote four words.

The Globe man hastily left the president's room and went up to the bank's gray-coated private policeman who was trying to distinguish between the few who wished to deposit money and the many who desired to ask the sandwich question or at least hoped to hear the answer. The sacred precincts of the Ketcham National Bank had taken on the aspect of a circus arena. H.R.'s erstwhile fellow-clerks looked the only way they dared—terrified! They would have given a great deal to have been able to act as human beings.

"The reporters are in the president's room!" ran the whisper among the clerks. From there it reached the curious mob within the bank. From there it spread to the congested proletariate without the doors. Said proletariate began to grow. Baseball bulletin-boards were not displayed, but the public was going to get something for nothing. Hence, free country.

The Globe man heard one of the bank's messengers call the policeman "Jim." Being a contemporary historian, he addressed the policeman amicably.

"Jim, Mr. Goodchild says to bring in Senator Lowry and party."

With that he beckoned to the Globe's militant photographers and five colleagues and preceded them into the president's private office.

"Quick work, Tommy," warned the reporter.

"Flash?" laconically inquired "Senator Lowry." He was such a famous portraitist that his sitters never gave him time to talk. Hence his habit of speaking while he could. He prepared his flash-powder.

"Yep!" and the reporter nodded.

The others also unlimbered their cameras. The Globe man threw open the door.

The president was angrily haranguing the reporters.

"Mr. Goodchild," said the Globe man, "look pleasant!"

Mr. Goodchild turned quickly and opened his mouth.

Bang! went, the flash-powder.

"Hel—" shrieked Mr. Goodchild.

"—p!" said the pious young Journal man, with an air of completing the presidential speech. A good editor is worth his weight in pearls.

The photographers' corps retreated in good order and record time.

"For the third and last time will you tell us why you won't let your daughter marry Mr. Rutgers!" asked the Globe.

"No."

"Then will you tell us why you won't let Mr. Rutgers marry your daughter?"

Mr. Goodchild was conservative to the last. Too many people who needed money had talked to him in the borrower's tone of voice. He could not grasp the new era. He said, "You infernal blackmailer—"

"Sir," cut in the Globe man, with dignity, "you are positively insulting! Be nice to the other reporters. I thank you for the interview!" He bowed and left the office, followed by all the others except the Evening Post man, who, unfortunately, had never been able to rid himself of the desire to get the facts. It was partly his editor, but mostly the absence of a sense of humor.

"I think, Mr. Goodchild, that you'd better give me an official statement. I'll give the Associated Press man a copy, and that will go to all the papers."

"But I don't want to say anything," protested Mr. Goodchild, who always read the Post's money page.

"The other reporters will say it for you. I think you'd better."

"He's right, Mr. Goodchild," said the vice-president.

"But what the dickens can I say?" queried Mr. Goodchild, helplessly, not daring to look out of the window for fear of seeing the sandwiches.

"If I were you," earnestly advised the Post man, "I'd tell the truth."

"What do you mean?"

"Say why you won't let your daughter—"

"It's preposterous!"

"Say it; but also say why it is preposterous."

Two directors of the bank came in. They were high in high finance. In fact, they were High Finance. They therefore knew only the newspapers of an older generation, as they had proven by their testimony before a Congressional Committee. The older director looked at Mr. Goodchild and began:

"Goodchild, will you tell me why—"

"You, too?" interrupted Mr. Goodchild, reproachfully but respectfully. "First the reporters and now—"

The directors gasped.

"You didn't—actually—talk—for—publication?"

They stared at him incredulously.

"No. But I'm thinking of giving out a carefully prepared statement—"

The higher of the high financiers, with the masterfulness that made him richer every panic, assumed supreme command. He turned to the Post man and said: "I'm surprised to see you here. Your paper used to be decent. Mr. Goodchild has nothing to say."

"But—" protested the anguished father of Grace Goodchild.

"You haven't!" declared $100,000,000.

"I have nothing to say!" meekly echoed one-tenth of one hundred.

The Post man walked out with a distinctly editorial stride. He began to envy the yellows and their vulgar editors, as all Post men must at times.

Mr. Goodchild's efforts to suppress the publication of his family affairs were in vain. He unfortunately sought to argue over the telephone with the owners.

The owners spoke to the editors.

"It's News!" the editors pointed out.

"It's News," the owners regretfully explained to the bank president.

"But it's a crime against decency," said Mr. Goodchild.

"You are right. It's a damned shame. But it's News!" said the owners, and hung up.

Mr. Goodchild summoned his lawyer. The lawyer looked grave. He recognized the uselessness of trying to stop the newspapers, and realized that there would be no fat fees, even if he were otherwise successful. He tried to frighten H.R., but was referred to Max Onthemaker, Esquire.

Max Onthemaker, Esquire, was in heaven. He finally had butted into polite society! From the Bowery to Wall Street! At last he was opposed by the very best. A lawyer is known by his opponents!

Mr. Lindsay protested with quite unprofessional heat. It was an outrage.

"Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur," Mr. Onthemaker solemnly reminded the leader of the corporation bar. "Also, dear Mr. Lindsay, I am ready to accept service of any paper you may see fit to honor us with. My client means to fight to the bitter end."

"Yes, in the newspapers!" bitterly said the eminent Mr. Lindsay through his clenched teeth.

"And with sandwiches! When we ask for bread you give us a stone. But we give you a sandwich. There's no ground for criminal action in view of the public's frame of mind toward the money power. But if you will sue us for one million dollars damages I'll name my forthcoming baby after you."

Mr. Lindsay hung up with violence, mistaking the telephone-holder for Mr. Onthemaker's cranium.