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—"

"Exactly. We go against human nature always. God gave to men the precious gift of fear in order that they might overcome it. Man's fear to-day is to be good. Once upon a time men feared hell. It is now the fashion for Americans to think, To hell with hell!"

Andrew Barrett shook his head dubiously. He was not really interested in abstractions. But he desired to be on good terms with his chief. The best way to be nice to a man is to put up a weak argument. He began, feebly defending, "But there must be some people—"

"It is perfectly proper to be selfish if you are alone. It is stupid to be selfish when you are one of a group. Therefore, my inveterately young friend and typical compatriot, we must do something for nothing. Tip off the papers."

Barrett shook his head. "I don't get you," he confessed, sadly.

"Few people do when you tell them they have to do something and not be paid for it. To-morrow and the day after our men must display a new sandwich for the cause for two hours." He paused, then he finished, sternly, "Tell them I said so!"

"I will," hastily said Barrett, only too glad to shift the responsibility.

"You might request the regular advertisers to pay full time, just the same."

"You bet I will! And what will the boards say?"

"Let me have your pencil," said H.R., and he wrote:

NEXT WEEK

THE MEN WHO HAVE MADE

NEW YORK

THE EMPIRE CITY OF

GOD'S OWN COUNTRY

WILL FEED

ALL THE HUNGRY

WHO HAVE NO MONEY

O.K.
H.R.,
Sec.

"There!" said H.R.

Andrew Barrett read it. "If it was anybody else—" he muttered.

"Convey to your reporter friends that this is the biggest story of the year. Particularly impress upon them that it is a secret!"

"I'll impress that on them, all right," promised Barrett, with profound sincerity. "It is really pleasant not to have to lie."

H.R. rose and said: "I must get the other names. I have begun with the Bishop. And he showed Barrett the signature of Dr. Phillipson.

"Why his?" asked Barrett.

"I expect him to officiate at my wedding. Also, he is a Conservative, and Wall Street is for him, strong. Don't you see? Get the sandwiches ready."

H.R. no longer bothered with details. He had discovered that by resolutely expecting people to do things, people did them. Every eight hundred and thirty-one years a man is born who can throw upon his fellow-men the yoke of responsibility so that it stays put.

He decided that it would look well in print to play up the non-sectarianism of the affair. He would therefore have the prominent people meet in the Granite Presbyterian Church, attracting the Presbyterians who otherwise might have objected to Bishop Phillipson's leadership. But the meeting would be presided over by Bishop Barrows, a Methodist. Bishop Phillipson would agree to this. Did not his name come first in the stirring call to the metropolis?

But, of course, to give to the project an attractive and, indeed, a compelling interest he would resort to the great American worship of bulk. It must be big. It must be the biggest ever!

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