"As a matter of fact," pursued the president, still accusingly, "we
should reduce the bookkeeping force. Dawson tells me that at the
Metropolitan National they average one clerk to two hundred and
forty-two accounts. The best we've ever done is one to one hundred and
eighty-eight. Reduce! Good morning."
"Mr. Goodchild," said Hendrik Rutgers, approaching the president, "won't
you please listen to what I have to say?"
Mr. Goodchild was one of those business men who in their desire to
conduct their affairs efficiently become mind-readers in order to save
precious time. He knew what Rutgers was going to say, and therefore
anticipated it by answering:
"I am very sorry for the sickness in your family. The best I can do is
to let you remain with us for a little while, until whoever is sick is
better." He nodded with great philanthropy and self-satisfaction.
But Hendrik said, very earnestly: "If I were content with my job I
wouldn't be worth a whoop to the bank. What makes me valuable is that I
want to be more. Every soldier of Napoleon carried a marshal's baton in
his knapsack. That gave ambition to Napoleon's soldiers, who always won.
Let your clerks understand that a vice-presidency can be won by any of
us and you will see a rise in efficiency that will surprise you. Mr.
Goodchild, it is a matter of common sense to--"
"Get out!" said the president.
Ordinarily he would have listened. But he had lost money; that made him
think only of one thing--that he had lost money!
The general had suddenly discovered that his fortress was not
impregnable! He did not wish to discuss feminism.
Of course, Hendrik did not know that the president's request for
solitude was a confession of weakness and, therefore, in the nature of a
subtle compliment. And therefore, instead of feeling flattered, Hendrik
saw red. It is a common mistake. But anger always stimulated his
faculties. All men who are intelligent in their wrath have in them the
makings of great leaders of men. The rabble, in anger, merely becomes
the angry rabble--and stays rabble.
Hendrik Rutgers aimed full at George G. Goodchild, Esq., a look of
intense astonishment.
"Get out!" repeated the president.
Hendrik Rutgers turned like a flash to the cashier and said, sharply:
"Didn't you hear? _Get out!_"
"You!" shouted Mr. George G. Goodchild.
"Who? _Me?_" Hendrik's incredulity was abysmal.
"Yes! You!" And the president, dangerously flushed, advanced
threateningly toward the insolent beast.
"What?" exclaimed Hendrik Rutgers, skeptically. "Do you mean to tell me
you really are the jackass your wife thinks you?"
Fearing to intrude upon private affairs, the cashier discreetly left the
room. The president fell back a step. Had Mrs. Goodchild ever spoken to
this creature? Then he realized it was merely a fashion of speaking, and
he approached, one pudgy fist uplifted. The uplift was more for
rhetorical effect than for practical purposes, which has been a habit
with most uplifts since money-making became an exact science. But
Hendrik smiled pleasantly, as his forebears always did in battle, and
said:
"If I hit you once on the point of the jaw it'll be the death-chair for
mine. I am young. Please control yourself."
"You infernal scoundrel!"
"What has Mrs. Goodchild ever done to me, that I should make her a
widow?" You could see he was sincerely trying to be not only just, but
judicial.
The president of the bank gathered himself together. Then, as one flings
a dynamite bomb, he utterly destroyed this creature. "You are
_discharged_!"
"Tut, tut! I discharged the bank ages ago; I'm only waiting for the bank
to pack up. Now you listen to me."
"Leave this room, sir!" He said it in that exact tone of voice.
But Hendrik did not vanish into thin air. He commanded, "Take a good
look at me!"
The president of the bank could not take orders from a clerk in class B.
Discipline must be maintained at any cost. He therefore promptly turned
away his head. But Hendrik drew near and said:
"Do you hear?"
There was in the lunatic's voice something that made Mr. George G.
Goodchild instantly bethink himself of all the hold-up stories he had
ever heard. He stared at Hendrik with the fascination of fear.
"What do you see?" asked Rutgers, tensely. "A human soul? No. You see
K-L. You think machinery means progress, and therefore you don't want
men, but machines, hey?"
The president did not see K-L, as at the beginning of the interview.
Instead of the two enslaving letters he saw two huge, emancipating
fists. This man was far too robust to be a safe clerk. He had square
shoulders. Yes, he had!
The president was not the ass that Hendrik had called him. His
limitations were the limitations of all irreligious people who regularly
go to church. He thus attached too much importance to To-day, though
perhaps his demand loans had something to do with it. His sense of humor
was altogether phrasal, like that of most multimillionaires. But if he
was too old a man to be consistently intelligent, he was also an
experienced banker. He knew he had to listen or be licked. He decided to
listen. He also decided, in order to save his face, to indulge in
humorous speech.
"Young man," he asked, with a show of solicitude, "do you expect to
become Governor of New York?"
But Hendrik was not in a smiling mood, because he was listening to a
speech he was making to himself, and his own applause was distinctly
enjoyable, besides preventing him from hearing what the other was
saying. That is what makes all applause dangerous. He went on, with an
effect of not having been interrupted.
"Machines never mutiny. They, therefore, are desirable in your System.
At the same time, the end of all machines is the scrap-heap. Do _you_
expect to end in junk?"
"I was not thinking of _my_ finish," the president said, with much
politeness.
"Yes, you are. Shall I prove it?"
"Not now, please," pleaded the president, with a look of exaggerated
anxiety at the clock. It brought a flush of anger to Hendrik's cheeks,
seeing which the president instantly felt that glow of happiness which
comes from gratified revenge. Ah, to be witty! But his smile vanished.
Hendrik, his fists clenched, was advancing. The president was no true
humorist, not being of the stuff of which martyrs are made. He was ready
to recant when,
"Good morning, daddy," came in a musical voice.
Hendrik drew in his breath sharply at the narrowness of his escape. She
who approached the purple-faced tyrant was the most beautiful girl in
all the round world.
It was spring. The girl had brought in the first blossoms of the season
on her cheeks, and she had captured the sky and permanently imprisoned
it in her eyes. She was more than beautiful; she was everything that
Hendrik Rutgers had ever desired, and even more!
"Er--good morning, Mr.--ah--" began the president in a pleasant voice.
Hendrik waved his hand at him with the familiar amiability we use toward
people whose political affiliations are the same as ours at
election-time. Then he turned toward the girl, looked at her straight in
the eyes for a full minute before he said, with impressive gravity:
"Miss Goodchild, your father and I have failed to agree in a somewhat
important business matter. I do not think he has used very good
judgment, but I leave this office full of forgiveness toward him because
I have lived to see his daughter at close range, in the broad light of
day."
The only woman before whom a man dares to show himself a physical coward
is his wife, because no matter what he does she knows him.
Mr. Goodchild was frightened, but he said, blusteringly, "That will do,
you--er--_you_!"
He pointed toward the door, theatrically. But Hendrik put his fingers to
his lips and said "Hush, George!" and spoke to her again:
"Miss Goodchild, I am going to tell you the truth, which is a luxury
mighty rare in a bank president's private office, believe me."
She stared at him with a curiosity that was not far from fascination.
She saw a well-dressed, well-built, good-looking chap, with particularly
bright, understanding eyes, who was on such familiar terms with her
father that she wondered why he had never called.
"Let me say," he pursued, fervently, "without any hope of reward,
speaking very conservatively, that you are, without question, the most
beautiful girl in all the world! I have been nearly certain of it for
some time, but now I _know_. You are not only perfectly wonderful, but
wonderfully perfect--all of you! And now take a good look at me--"
"Yes; just before he is put away," interjected the president, trying to
treat tragedy humorously before this female of the species. But for the
fear of the newspapers, he would have rung for the private detective
whose business was to keep out cranks, bomb-throwing anarchists, and
those fellow-Christians who wished to pledge their word of honor as
collateral on time-loans of less than five dollars. But she thought this
friendly persiflage meant that the interesting young man was a social
equal as well as a person of veracity and excellent taste. So she smiled
non-committally. She was, alas, young!
"They will not put me away for thinking what I say," asserted Hendrik,
with such conviction that she blushed. Having done this, she smiled at
him directly, that there might be no wasted effort. Wasn't it spring,
and wasn't he young and fearless? And more than all that, wasn't he a
_novelty_, and she a New York woman?
"When you hear the name of Hendrik Rutgers, or see it in the newspapers,
remember it belongs to the man who thought you were the only perfectly
beautiful girl God ever made. And He has done pretty well at times, you
must admit."
With some people, both blasphemy and breakfast foods begin with a small
"b". The Only Perfect One thought he was a picturesque talker!
"Mr. Rutgers, I am sorry you must be going," said the president, with a
pleasant smile, having made up his mind that this young man was not only
crazy, but harmless--unless angered. "But you'll come back, won't you,
when you are famous? We should like to have your account."
Hendrik ignored him. He looked at her and said:
"Do _you_ prefer wealth to fame? Anybody can be rich. But famous? Which
would you rather hear: _There goes Miss $80,000-a-year Goodchild or That
is that wonderful Goodchild girl everybody is talking about?_"
She didn't know what to answer, the question being a direct one and she
a woman. But this did not injure Hendrik in her eyes; for women actually
love to be compelled to be silent in order to let a man speak--at
certain times, about a certain subject. Her father, after the immemorial
fashion of unintelligent parents, answered for her. He said, stupidly:
"It never hurts to have a dollar or two, dear Mr. Rutgers."
"Dollar or two! Why, there are poor men whose names on your list of
directors would attract more depositors to this bank than the name of
the richest man in the world. Even for your bank, between St. Vincent de
Paul and John D. Rockefeller, whom would you choose? Dollars! When you
can _dream_!" Hendrik's eyes were gazing steadily into hers. She did not
think he was at all lunatical. But George G. Goodchild had reached the
limit of his endurance and even of prudence. He rose to his feet, his
face deep purple.
However, Providence was in a kindly mood. At that very moment the door
opened and a male stenographer appeared, note-book in hand. Civilization
does its life-saving in entirely unexpected ways, even outside of
hospitals.
"_Au revoir_, Miss Goodchild. Don't forget the name, will you?"
"I won't," she promised. There was a smile on her flower-lips and firm
resolve in her beautiful eyes. It mounted to Hendrik's head and took
away his senses, for he waved his hand at the purple president, said,
with a solemnity that thrilled her, "_Pray for your future son-in-law!_"
and walked out with the step of a conqueror. And the step visibly gained
in majesty as he overheard the music of the spheres:
"Daddy, who is he?"
At the cashier's desk he stopped, held out his hand, and said with that
valiant smile with which young men feel bound to announce their defeat,
"I'm leaving, Mr. Coster."
"Good morning," said Coster, coldly, studiously ignoring the
outstretched hand. Rutgers was now a discharged employee, a potential
hobo, a possible socialist, an enemy of society, one of the dangerous
Have-Nots. But Hendrik felt so much superior to this creature with a
regular income that he said, pityingly: "Mr. Coster, your punishment for
assassinating your own soul is that your children are bound to have the
hearts of clerks. You are now definitely nothing but a bank cashier.
That's what!"
"Get out!" shrieked the bank cashier, plagiarizing from a greater than
he.
The tone of voice made the private policeman draw near. When he saw it
was Hendrik to whom Mr. Coster was speaking, he instantly smelled
liquor. What other theory for an employee's loud talking in a bank? He
hoped Hendrik would not swear audibly. The bank would blame it on the
policeman's lack of tact.
"_Au revoir._" And Hendrik smiled so very pleasantly that the policeman,
whose brains were in his biceps, sighed with relief. At the same time
the whisper ran among the caged clerks in the mysterious fashion of all
bad news--the oldest of all wireless systems!
_Hendrik Rutgers was fired!_
Did life hold a darker tragedy than to be out of a job? A terrible
world, this, to be hungry in.
As Hendrik walked into the cage to get his few belongings, pale faces
bent absorbingly over their ledgers. To be fed, to grow comfortably old,
to die in bed, always at so much per week. Ideal! No wonder, therefore,
that his erstwhile companions feared to look at what once had been a
clerk. And then, too, the danger of contagion! A terrible disease,
freedom, in a money-making republic, but, fortunately, rare, and the
victims provided with food, lodging, and strait-jackets at the expense
of the state. Or without strait-jackets: bars.
Hendrik got his pay from the head of his department, who seemed of a
sudden to recall that he had never been formally introduced to this Mr.
H. Rutgers. This filled Hendrik at first with great anger, and then with
a great joy that he was leaving the inclosure wherein men's thoughts
withered and died, just like plants, for the same reason--lack of
sunshine.
On his way to the street he paused by his best friend--a little old
fellow with unobtrusive side-whiskers who turned the ledger's pages over
with an amazing deftness, and wore the hunted look that comes from
thirty years of fear of dismissal. To some extent the old clerk's
constant boasting about the days when he was a reckless devil had
encouraged Hendrick.
"Good-by, Billy," said Hendrik, holding out his hand. "I'm going."
Little old Billy was seen by witnesses talking in public with a
discharged employee! He hastily said, "Too bad!" and made a pretense of
adding a column of figures.
"Too bad nothing. See what it has done for you, to stay so long. I laid
out old Goodchild, and the only reason why I stopped was I thought he'd
get apoplexy. But say, the daughter-- She is some peach, believe me. I
called him papa-in-law to his face. You should have seen him!"
Billy shivered. It was even worse than any human being could have
imagined.
"Good-by, Rutgers," he whispered out of a corner of his mouth, never
taking his eyes from the ledger.
"You poor old-- No, Billy! Thank you a thousand times for showing me
Hendrik Rutgers at sixty. Thanks!" And he walked out of the bank
overflowing with gratitude toward Fate that had hung him into the middle
of the street. From there he could look at the free sun all day; and of
nights, at the unfettered stars. It was better than looking at the
greedy hieroglyphics wherewith a stupid few enslaved the stupider many.
He was free!
He stood for a moment on the steps of the main entrance. For two years
he had looked from the world into the bank. But now he looked from the
bank out--on the world. And that was why that self-same world suddenly
changed its aspect. The very street looked different; the sidewalk wore
an air of strangeness; the crowd was not at all the same.
He drew in a deep breath. The April air vitalized his blood.
This new world was a world to conquer. He must fight!
The nearest enemy was the latest. This is always true. Therefore Hendrik
Rutgers, in thinking of fighting, thought of the bank and the people who
made of banks temples to worship in.
All he needed now was an excuse. There was no doubt that he would get
it. Some people call this process the autohypnosis of the great.
Two sandwich-men slouched by in opposite directions. One of them stopped
and from the edge of the sidewalk stared at a man cleaning windows on
the fourteenth story of a building across the way. The other wearily
shuffled southward. Above his head swayed an enormous amputated foot.
Rutgers himself walked briskly to the south. To avoid a collision with a
hurrying stenographer-girl--if it had been a male he would have used a
short jab--he unavoidably jostled the chiropodist's advertisement into
the gutter. The sandwich-man looked meekly into Rutgers's pugnacious
face and started to cross the street.
Hendrik felt he should apologize, but before his sense of duty could
crystallize into action the man was too far away. So Hendrik turned
back. The other sandwich-man was still looking at the window-cleaner on
the fourteenth story across the street. Happening to look down, he saw
coming a man who looked angry. Therefore the sandwich-man meekly stepped
into the gutter, out of the way.
It was the second time within one minute! Hendrik stopped and spoke
peevishly to the meek one in the gutter:
"Why did you move out of my way?"
The sandwich-man looked at him uneasily; then, without answering, walked
away sullenly.
"Here I am," thought Rutgers, "a man without a job; and there he is, a
man with a job and afraid of me!"
Something was wrong--or right. Something always is, to the born fighter.
Who could be afraid of a man without a job but sandwich-men who always
walked along the curb so they could be pushed off into the gutter among
the other beasts? Nobody ever deliberately became a sandwich-man. When
circumstances, the police, hopeless inefficiency, or shattered credit
prevented a hobo from begging, stealing, murdering, or getting drunk, he
became a sandwich-man in order to live until he could rise again.
Whatever a sandwich-man changed himself into, it was always advancement.
Once a sandwich-man, never again a sandwich-man. It was not boards they
carried, but the printed certificates of hopelessness.
Men who could not keep steady jobs became either corpses or
sandwich-men. The sandwich illustrated the tyranny of the regular income
just as the need of a regular income illustrated the need of
Christianity.
The sandwich thus had become the spirit of the times.
The spring-filled system of Hendrik Rutgers began to react for a second
time to a feeling of anger, and this for a second time turned his
thoughts to fighting. To fight was to conquer. There were two ways of
conquering--by fighting with gold and by fighting with brains. Who won
by gold perished by gold. That was why a numismatical bourgeoisie never
fought. Hendrik had no gold. So he would fight with brains. He therefore
would win. Also, he would fight for his fellow-men, which would make his
fight noble. That is called "hedging," for defeat in a noble cause is
something to be proud of in the newspapers. The reason why all hedging
is intelligent is that victory is always Victory when you talk about it.
The sandwich-men were the scum of the earth.
_Ah!_ It was a thrilling thought: To lead men who could no longer fight
for themselves against the world that had marred their immortal souls;
and then to compel that same world to place three square meals a day
within their astonished bellies!
The man who could make the world do that could do anything. Since he
could do anything, he could marry a girl who not only was very
beautiful, but had a very rich and dislikable father. The early
Christians accomplished so much because they not only loved God, but
hated the devil.
Hendrik Rutgers found both the excuse and the motive power.
One minute after a man of brains perceives the need of a ladder in order
to climb, the rain of ladders begins.
The chest-inflating egotism of the monopolistic tendency, rather than
the few remaining vestiges of Christianity, keeps Protestants in America
from becoming socialists. Hendrik filled his lungs full of self-oxygen
and of the consciousness of power for good, and decided to draw up the
constitution of his union. He would do it himself in order to produce a
perfect document; perfect in everything. A square deal; no more, no
less. That meant justice toward everybody, even toward the public.
This union, being absolutely fair, would be more than good, more than
intelligent; it would pay.
Carried away by his desire to help the lowest of the low, he constituted
himself into a natural law. He would grade his men, be the sole judge
and arbiter of their qualifications, and even of their proper wages.
Hendrik walked back toward the last sandwich-man and soon overtook him.
"Hey, there, you!" he said, tapping the rear board with his hand.
The sandwich-man did not turn about. Really, what human being could wish
to speak to him?
Hendrik Rutgers walked for a few feet beside the modest artist who was
proclaiming to a purblind world the merits of an optician's wares, and
spoke again, politely:
"I want to see you, on business."
The man's lips quivered, then curved downward, immobilizing themselves
into a fixed grimace of fear. "I--I 'ain't done no-nothin'," he whined,
and edged away.
This was what society had done to an immortal soul!
"Hell!" said Hendrik Rutgers between clenched teeth. "I'm not a fly-cop.
I've just got a plain business proposition to make to you."
"If you'll tell me where yer place is, I'll come aroun'--" began the
man, so obviously lying that Rutgers's anger shifted from society and
tyranny on to the thing between sandwich-boards--the thing that refused
to be his brother.
"You damned fool!" he hissed, fraternally. "You come with me--now."
The inverted crescent of the man's lips trembled, and presently there
issued from it, "Well, I 'ain't done--"
Charity, which is not always astute, made H. Rutgers say with a kindly
cleverness to his poor brother, "I'll tell you how you are going to make
more money than you ever earned before."
The prospect of making more money than he ever earned before brought no
name of joy into the blear and furtive eyes. Instead, he sidled,
crabwise, into the middle of the street.
"No, you don't!" said Rutgers so menacingly that the sandwich-man
shivered. It was clear that, to feed this starving man, force would be
necessary. This never discourages the true philanthropist. Rutgers,
however, feeling that Christian forbearance should be used before
resorting to the ultimate diplomacy, said, with an earnest amiability:
"Say, Bo, d'you want to fill your belly so that if you ate any more
you'd bust?"
At the hint of a promise of a sufficiency of food the man opened his
mouth, stared at Rutgers, and did not speak. He couldn't because he did
not close his mouth.
"All the grub you can possibly eat, three times a day. Grub, Bo! All you
want, any time you want it. Hey? What?"
The sandwich-man's open mouth opened wider. In his eyes there was no
fear, no hunger, no incredulity, nothing only an abyss deep as the human
soul, that returned no answer whatever.
"Do you want," pursued the now optimistic Hendrik Rutgers, "to drink all
you can hold? The kind that don't hurt you if you drink a gallon! Booze,
and grub, and a bed, and money in your pocket, and nobody to go through
your duds while you sleep. Hey?"
The sandwich-man spasmodically opened and closed his mouth in the
unhuman fashion of a ventriloquist's puppet. Rutgers heard the click,
but never a word. It filled him with pity. The desire to help such
brothers as this grew intense. Next to feeding them there was nothing
like talking to them about food and drink in a kindly way.
"What do you say, Bo?" he queried, gently, almost tenderly.
The man's teeth chattered a minute before he said, huskily, "Wh-what
m-must I do?"
"Let's go to the Battery," said Rutgers, "and I'll tell you all about
it."
The mission of history is to prove that Fate sends the right man for the
right place at the right time. While Hendrik Rutgers talked, the
sandwich-man listened with his stomach; and when Hendrik Rutgers
promised, the sandwich-man believed with his soul. Rutgers told Fleming
that all sandwich-men must join the union; that as soon as he and the
other present sandwichers were enrolled on its books no more members
would be admitted, except as a superabundance of jobs justified
additional admissions; and at that it would require a nine-tenths vote
to elect, thus preventing a surplus of labor and likewise a slump in
wages. The union would compel advertisers in the future to pay twenty
cents an hour and would guarantee both steady work and these wages to
its members; there would be neither an initiation fee nor strike-fund
assessments; the dues of one cent a day were collectible only when the
member worked and received union wages for his day's work. Any member
could lay off any time he felt like it, unmulcted and unfired. There was
only one thing that all sandwich-men had to do to be in good standing;
obey the secretary and treasurer of the union--Mr. H. Rutgers--in all
union matters.
The sandwich business, once unionized, would become a lucrative
profession and therefore highly moral, and therefore its members would
automatically cease to be pariahs, notwithstanding congenital fitness
for same. Anybody who cannot only defy Nature, but make her subservient
to the wishes of an infinitely higher intelligence, is fit to be a
labor-leader. And he generally is.
Fleming agreed to round up those of his colleagues whose peregrinations
extended south of Chambers Street. He would ask them to come to the
Battery on the next day at noon.
So thrilled was Hendrik by his rescue-work among the wreckages that it
never occurred to him to doubt his own success. This made him know
exactly what to say to Fleming.
"Don't just ask them to come. Tell them that there will be free beers
and free grub. Tell them anything you damn please, but bring them! _Do
you hear me?_" He gripped the sandwich-man's arm so tightly that
Fleming's lips began to quiver. "And if you don't bring a bunch, God
help you!"
"Ye-yes, sir; I will. Sure!" whimpered Fleming, staring fascinatedly at
those eyes which both promised and menaced.
And in Fleming's own eyes Hendrik saw the four "B's" which form the
great equation of all democracies: _Bread + Bludgeon = Born Boss!_
Such men always know how to _say_ everything. This is more important
than _thinking_ anything.
"Remember 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, the preface of a
famous man's biography!
The union drank fifteen beers, slowly--and quickly wiped the day's free
lunch from the face of the earth. The huskiest of the three bartenders
began to work with one hand, the other being glued to a bung-starter. He
felt it had to come.
"I'm boss!" said Hendrik to his children as a preliminary to discussing
the by-laws.
"I'm willin'!"
"Same here!"
"Let 'er go, cap!"
"Suits _me_!"
They were all eager to please him--too eager. It made him ask,
disgustedly:
"Don't you fellows care who is boss?"
"Naw! Don't we have to have one, anyhow?"
"Yes. But to have one crammed down your throats--"
"The beer helps the swallowing, boss," said the hatter with
conviction--and a fresh hope!
"There doesn't seem to be a man among the whole lot of you," said
Hendrik.
A young fellow of about twenty-eight, very pale, wearing steel-rimmed
spectacles, spoke back, "If you'd starved for three weeks and two days,
and on top of it been kicked and cheated and held up, there wouldn't be
a hell of a lot of fight in you, my wise gazabo."
"That's exactly what would make me fight," retorted Hendrik, angrily.
"Each of you has a vote; each of you, therefore, has as much to say as
to how this country should be run as any millionaire. Don't you know
what to do with your vote?"
"You're lucky to get a quarter and two nights' lodging nowadays," said
the old man with waiter's foot. "The time we elected Gilroy I made
fifteen bones and was soused for a mont'. Shorty McFadden made
thirty-five dollars--"
"Any of you Republicans?"
"No!" came in a great and indignant chorus.
"I used to be!" defiantly asserted the young man with the spectacles and
the pale face and the beaten look.
"And now?"
"Just a lame duck, I guess."
"Too much rumatism," suggested a husky voice, and all the others
laughed. The depths of degradation are reached when you can laugh at
your own degradation.
"Are any of you socialists?" asked Hendrik.
They looked at him doubtfully. They wished to please him and would have
answered accordingly if they had known what he wished to get from them.
What they wished to get from him, in the way of speech, was another
invitation to tank up. But when in doubt, all men deny. It is good
police-court practice. Three veterans, therefore, tentatively said:
"No!"
Hendrik was disappointed, but did not show it. He asked, "Are any of you
Christians?"
The crowd fell back.
"Is there one man among you who believes in God?"
They stared at one another in the consternation of utter hopelessness.
Mulligan was the first to break the painful silence. He said, with a sad
triumph:
"I knew it. Stung again! They'll do anything to get you to listen. We
fell for it like boobs."
"What is that?" said Hendrik, sharply.
"I was sayin'," replied Mulligan, grateful that he was one schooner
ahead, anyhow, "that I can listen to a good brother like you by the hour
when I ain't thirsty. The dryness in my throat affects my hearin'. If
you blow again I'll believe in miracles. How could I help it?"
Fourteen pairs of eyes turned hopefully toward the wonder-worker. But he
said in the habitual tone of all born leaders:
"You--bums, get around! I'm going to lick hell out of Mulligan. And
after that, to show I'm boss, I'll blow again. But first the licking."
Hendrik gave his hat to Fleming to hold and began to turn up his
sleeves. But Mulligan hastily said, "I'm converted, boss!" and actually
looked pious. How he did it, nobody could tell, for he was not a
Methodist by birth or education.
"Mulligan, the union wages will be forty schooners a day." Hendrik
said, sternly. Again it was genius--that is, to talk so that men will
understand you.
"Kill the scabs!" shrieked Mulligan, and there was murder in his eyes.
Hendrik Rutgers put his right foot firmly on the second rung of the
ladder. He did it by spending seventy-five cents for the second time.
Fifteen beers.
"Everybody," he said, threateningly, "wait until the schooners are on
the bar!" thereby disappointing those who had hoped to ring in an extra
glass during the excitement. But all that Hendrik desired was to
inculcate salutary notions of discipline and obedience under
circumstances that try men's souls. He yelled:
"Damn you, step back! All of you! _Back!_"
They fell back.
The quivering line, now two feet from the beer, did not look at the
glasses full of cheer, but at the eyes full of lickings. They gazed at
him, open-mouthed; they gazed and kept on gazing, two feet from the
bar--the length of the arm from the beer!
Not obey? After that? There is no doubt of it; they are born!
"To the union! All together! _Drink!_" They did not observe that this
man was regulating even their thirst. The reason they did not notice it
was that they were so busy assuaging it.
They drank. Then they looked at Hendrik. He was a law of nature. He
shook his head. They understood his "No." It was like death. To save
their faces they began to clamor for free lunch.
"Get to hell out of here!" said the proprietor.
"Do you want your joint smashed?" asked Rutgers. He approached the man
and looked at him from across a gulf of six inches that made escape
impossible. Whatever the proprietor saw in Rutgers's eyes made him turn
away.
"Come across with the free lunch," Hendrik bade the proprietor. To his
men he said, "Boys, get ready!"
These men-that-were--miserable worms, scum of the earth, walking
cuspidors--began to take off their armor. The bartenders were husky, but
hadn't the boss commanded, _Get ready!_ and didn't all men know he
meant, _Get ready_ TO EAT? Moreover, each sandwich felt he might dodge
the bung-starters, but not the boss's right flipper!
The union was making ready to fight with the desperation of men whose
retreat is cut on by a foe who never heard of The Hague Convention.
"Hey, no rough-house!" yelled the proprietor.
"Free lunch!" retorted Hendrik. Then he added, "_Quick!_"
The sandwich-men's nostrils began to dilate with the contagion of the
battle spirit. One after another, these beasts of the gutter took off
the boards and leaned them against the wall, out of the way, and eyed
the boss expectantly, waiting for the word--_men once more!_ Hendrik,
with the eye of a strategist and the look of a prize-fighter, planned
the attack. Like a very wise man who lived to be the most popular of all
our Presidents, he did his thinking aloud.
On occasions like this Hendrik's mind also worked in battle-cries and
best expressed itself in action.
"Free lunch," said Hendrik, "is free. It is everybody's. It is therefore
_ours_!"
"Give us our grub!" hoarsely cried the union.
"Three to each bartender," said Hendrik. "When I yell 'Now!' jump in,
from both ends of the bar at once--six of you here; you six over there.
Fleming, you smash the mirrors back of the bar with those empty
schooners. Mulligan, you cop some bottles of booze, and wait outside--do
you hear? _Wait outside!_--for us. I'll attend to the cash-register
myself. Now, you," he said peremptorily to the proprietor, "do we get
the free lunch? _Say no; won't you, please?_"
Hendrik radiated battle. The derelicts took on human traits as their
eyes lit up with visions of pillage. Fleming grasped a heavy schooner in
each hand. Mulligan had his eye on three bottles of whisky and, for the
first time in years, was using his mind--planning the get-away.
The proprietor saw all this and also perceived that he could not afford
a victory. It was much cheaper to give them seven cents worth of spoiled
rations. Therefore he decided in favor of humanity.
"Do what I told you, Jake," he said, with the smile of a man who has
inveigled friends into accepting over-expensive Christmas presents. "Let
'em have the rest of the lunch--_all they want_." He smiled again, much
pleased with his kindly astuteness. He was a constructive statesman and
would be famous for longevity.
But the sandwich-men swaggered about, realizing that under the
leadership of the boss they had won; they had obtained something to
which they had no right; by threats of force they had secured food; the
boss had made men of them. They therefore crowned Hendrik king. The
instinctive and immemorial craving of all men for a father manifests
itself--in republics that have forgotten God--in the election of the
great promisers and the great confiscators to the supreme power. History
records that no dynasty was ever founded except by a man who fought both
for and with his followers. The men that merely fought for their
fellows have uniformly died by the most noble and inspiring death of
all--starvation. Names and posthumous addresses not known.
When not a scrap remained on any of the platters, Hendrik called his men
to him and told them:
"Meet me at the sign-painter's, corner Twenty-ninth Street and Ninth
Avenue next Friday night after seven. We'll be open till midnight. Be
sure and bring your boards with you."
"We gotter give 'em up before we can get paid," remonstrated Mulligan.
"If we don't we don't eat."
"That's right!" assented a half-dozen.
"_Bring them!_" said Hendrik. The time to check a mutiny is before it
begins.
"A' right!" came in a chorus of fourteen heroic voices.
"Beginning next Monday, you'll get twenty cents an hour. I guarantee
that to you out of my own pocket. You must each of you bring all the
other sandwiches you run across. If necessary, drag them. We must have
about one hundred to start, if you want forty beers a day."
"We do! We do!"
"Then bring the others, because we've got to begin with enough men in
the union to knock the stuffing out of those who try to scab on us. Get
that?"
"Sure thing!" they shouted, with the surprised enthusiasm of men who
suddenly understand.
They were deep in misery and accustomed to a poverty so abject that they
no longer were capable of even envying the rich. They, therefore, could
hate only those who were poorer than themselves--the men who dared to
have thirsts that could be assuaged with less than forty beers per day.
Not obey the boss, when they already felt an endless stream trickling
down their unionized gullets? And not kill the scab whose own non-union
thirst would prolong theirs?
No! A man owes some things to his fellows, but he owes everything to
himself. That is why, for teaching brotherhood, there is nothing like
one book: the city Directory, from a fourth-floor window.
When the boss left them he was certain that they would not fail him.
Just let them dare try to stay away, after he had so kindly destined
them to be the rungs of the ladder on which he expected to climb to his
lady's window--and her father's pocket! As he walked away, his
confidence in himself showed in his stride so clearly that those who saw
him shared that confidence. It is not what they were when they were not
leaders, but what they can be when they become leaders, that makes them
remarkable men.