the beer!" Brother Hendrik spoke pleasantly, and Fleming nodded eagerly. "And get on the job," hissed Secretary Rutgers; and Fleming shivered and hurried away before the licking came.
Hendrik himself walked briskly up-town. When a man is pleased with himself he can always continue in that condition by the simple expedient of continuing to see whatever he wishes to see. Hendrik opened his eyes very wide and continued to see the ladder of success that great men use to climb to their changing heaven. Hendrik's heaven just then happened to be one in which a man of brains could make the money-makers pay him for allowing them to make money for him. After finding the ladder, all that was necessary was for Hendrik to think of George G. Goodchild's money. That made him see red; and whenever he saw red he could see no obstacles whatever; and because of his self-inflicted blindness he was intelligently ready to tackle anything, even the job of helping his fellow-men. To be an efficient philanthropist a man must have not only love, but murder, in his heart. That is one of the two hundred and eighty-six reasons why scientific charities make absolutely no inroads on the world's store of poverty.
Mr. Rutgers met the charter members of his union at the time and place indicated by Providence through the medium of Mr. Rutgers's lips.
There were fourteen sandwich-men.
Hendrik, not knowing what to say, gazed at the faces before him in impressive silence. So long as you keep a man guessing, he is at your mercy. Orators have already discovered this.
"Holy smoke! What in the name of Maginnis do you call this?" shrieked a messenger-boy. "Free freak show?"
A crowd gathered about them by magic. Opportunity held out its right hand and Hendrik Rutgers grasped it in both his own. If all New York could be made to talk about him, all New York could be made to pay him, as it always pays for the privilege of talking of the same thing at the same time. You cannot get anybody to talk about the Ten Commandments; therefore, there is nobody to listen; therefore nobody capitalizes them.
It is the first rung that really matters. All other rungs in the ladder of success are easier to find and to fit. Hendrik could now gather together his various impulses and thoughts and motives and arrange them in their proper sequence, as great men do, to make easier the work of the historian. It was a crusade that he had undertaken, for the liberation of the most abject of all modern slaves; he had changed the scum of the earth into respectable humanity.
That was history.
The facts, however, happened to be as follows: He threw up his job because he wished to go fishing, which of course made him angry because his fellow-clerks were slaves, and he therefore got himself discharged by the president, which made him hate the president so that the hatred showed in Hendrik's face and made two sandwich-men so afraid that he couldn't help organizing the sandwich-men's union because he could boss it, and that would make people talk about him, which would put money in his pocket; and once he was both rich and famous he would be the equal of the greatest and as such could pick and choose; and he would pick Grace Goodchild and choose her for his wife, which would make him rich.
In Europe the ability promptly to recognize the kindness of chance is called opportunism. Here we boast of it as the American spirit. That is why American bankers so often find pleasure in proudly informing you that it pays to be honest!
"Listen, you!" said Hendrik to the sandwich-men. These were the tools wherewith he would hammer the first rung into place.
They looked at him, incredulous in advance. This attitude on the part of the majority has caused republics at all times to be ruled by the minority. The vice of making money also arose from the fact that suspicious people are so easy to fool that even philosophers succumb to the temptation.
"Just now you are nothing but a bunch of dirty hoboes. Scum of the earth!" It would not do to have followers who had illusions about themselves. This is fundamental.
"Say, I didn't come here to listen to—"
"You—!" said Hendrik Rutgers, and did not smile. "You came here just exactly for that. See?" And he walked up to within six inches of the speaker, not knowing that his anger gave him the fighting face. "You came to listen to me just as long as I am talking—unless you are pining to spend your last three hours in the hospital. Do you get me? Which for yours?"
"Listen!" replied the sandwich-man. He had been poor so long that from force of habit he economized even in words.
"By cripes! here I am spending valuable time so as to make you bums into prosperous men—"
"Where do you come in, Bill?" asked a voice from the rear.
"I don't have to come in. I am in. You fellows have got to join the union. Then you'll get good wages, easy hours, decent—"
"Yeh; but—"
Hendrik turned to the man who had interrupted—a short chap advertising a chain of hat-stores and asked, "But what?"
"Nutt'n!" The hatter had once helped about a prize-fighter's training-quarters, hence the quick duck.
"Also, you'll have easy—"
"Easy!" The hatter had spoken prematurely again.
"What?" scowled Hendrik.
"Hours," hastily explained the man.
"We ask only for fair play," pursued the leader.
"Yeh; sure!" murmured Fleming, with the cold enthusiasm of all paid lieutenants of causes.
"And we must make up our minds to play fair with employers, so that employers will play fair with us."
"Like hell they will!" This was from a tall, thin, toothless chap. Reason: Tapeworm and booze. Name: Mulligan. Recreation: Chiropodist's favorite.
"I'll prove it to you," said Hendrik, very earnestly.
"Perhaps to but not by me," muttered Mulligan.
"Union wages will be twenty cents an hour."
"Never get it!" mumbled an old fellow with what they call waiter's foot—flattened arch. "Never!"
"Never," came in chorus from all the others, their voices ringing with conviction.
"I'll have the jobs to give out. I guess I know how much you'll get." The flame of hope lit fourteen pairs of blear eyes. Maybe this boob had the cash and desired to separate himself from it. All primitive people think the fool is touched of God. Hunger makes men primitive.
"I'll fix the wages!" declared Hendrik again. He saw himself feeding these men; therefore he felt he owned them absolutely. It isn't, of course, necessary actually to feed people, or even to promise to feed them, to own them. Nevertheless, his look of possession imposed on these victims of a democracy. They mutely acknowledged a boss.
Instantly perceiving this, a sense of kindly responsibility came upon Hendrik. These were his children. He said, paternally, "We'll now have a beer—on me!"
Fleming, to show his divine right to the place of vice-regent, led the way to a joint on Washington Street.
Hendrik saw, with carefully concealed delight, the sensation caused even in the Syrian-infested streets of the quarter by the sight of a handful of sandwich-men in full regalia. He heard the exclamations that fell from polyglot lips. It was a foretaste of success,
