"Mr. Rutgers!" The voice and the look made Max tremble and grow pale.
"I was only joking," he apologized, weakly. He never repeated the
offense. "I'll attend to it, Mr. Hendrik-- I mean Mr. Rutgers."
"When Barrett comes in I'll send him down to you. Good day."
When Andrew Barrett returned he said, impetuously, "I'm afraid I'll have
to have some help, H. R."
"I was going to tell you, my boy, that from to-morrow on you will have
to go on salary."
Barrett's smiles vanished. He shook his head.
H. R. went on, in a kindly voice: "You've done very well and I'm much
pleased with your work. But you mustn't be a hog."
Barrett had made bushels of money by taking advantage of the opportunity
to do so. The victorious idea was another's, the machinery was the
society's, the work was done by the sandwiches. But Mr. Andrew Barrett
was the salesman, the transmuter into cash. He was entitled to all he
desired to make so long as he didn't raise prices. Injustice stared him
in the face with smiles! Reducing his gain and smiling! H. R. would as
lief get another man! Barrett forgot that he could get no business until
H. R.'s astounding Valiquet's coup made the agent's job one of merely
writing down names. He forgot it, but he did not forget his own
successor. All he could say, in a boyishly obstinate way, was, "Well, I
think--"
"You mustn't think, and especially you must not think I'm an ass. You
know very well that this is only the beginning of a very remarkable
revolution in the advertising business. I need your services in
installing the machinery and organizing the office, details that I leave
to you because you have brains. Your salary will be a hundred a week and
five per cent. on all new business. After I pass on to a still higher
field I will make you a present of this business for you to have and to
hold till death do you part. The Barrett Advertising Agency will be all
yours. It will do a bigger business every year. And if you don't like
it, you may leave this minute. You are young yet. Is it settled?"
Andrew Barrett nodded.
H. R. said, seriously: "It's about time sandwiching spread. How many on
the Avenue to-day?"
"Nineteen firms; one hundred and eleven men. I think--"
H. R. knew what Barrett was about to say. He therefore said it for
Barrett. "Now that you have Fifth Avenue, move west and east to Sixth
and Madison and Fourth and try Broadway and Twenty-third and
Thirty-fourth and Forty-second--"
"I was just going to propose it to you," said Barrett, aggrievedly.
"I know you have brains. That's why you are here. I trust you
implicitly. This is a man's job. There will be big money in it for you.
For me--" He ceased speaking, and stared meditatively out of the window.
Andrew Barrett wondered with all his soul what the chief was reading in
big print in the future.
Andrew Barrett waited. Presently H. R. frowned. Then he smiled slightly.
Barrett stared fascinatedly. Ah, the lure of mystery! If more men
appreciated it, polygamy would be inevitable--and liberal divorce laws.
H. R. looked up.
"Oh, are you here?" he smiled paternally, forgivingly.
Barrett beamed.
"My boy, I wish you'd run over to Max Onthemaker's or get him on the
telephone. The newspapers are going to publish it."
"Yes, sir, I will. Er--what are they--what are you going to spring on an
enraptured metropolis?
"My impending marriage to Grace Goodchild, only daughter of Goodchild,
president of the Ketcham National Bank. See that it is well handled.
And, Barrett?"
"Yes, sir?"
"The old people don't relish the idea. She is the most beautiful girl in
New York."
"I've seen her! Pippinissima!" exclaimed Andrew Barrett, heartfully.
"Ten millions," said Hendrik Rutgers, calmly.
"My God!" whispered young Mr. Barrett, New-Yorker.
He meant what he said.
Ten millions!
Mr. Onthemaker, Andrew Barrett, and their faithful phalanx of star space
men who always signed their stuff called in a body on La Touche, the
photographer of the moment.
He refused to give them Miss Goodchild's photograph. He wished his name
used, of course, but he was too sensible to disregard professional
ethics.
"Mr. Rutgers said we could get it," said Andrew Barrett, sternly.
"I must have her permission. Hang it, boys, I am just as anxious as
you--as I can be to do what I can for you. But I don't dare. These swell
people are _queer_!" the photographer explained, aggrievedly.
"I'll call her up myself," said Max Onthemaker, resolutely. "What's the
Goodchild number?"
He went to the telephone and gave the number of his own office in low
tones. Presently he said, loudly enough to be heard by all, "Is this 777
Fifth Avenue?"
He alone heard the answer. He would not lie. He was a lawyer. It was
unnecessary.
"Can I speak with Miss Goodchild? No; _Miss_ Goodchild."
After a judiciously measured pause he spoke again: "Good afternoon. This
is Mr. Onthemaker speaking. Quite well, thank you. I hope you are the
same!... That's good!... Yes, miss, I saw him this morning. The papers
wish to publish your photograph.... I'm sorry, but they say they simply
must!... I am at La Touche's studio.... They doubtless do not do you
justice, but they are the best ever taken of you--... No, I don't think
they can wait for new ones.... One moment, please--"
He held his hand in front of the transmitter so she couldn't hear him
say to La Touche:
"She wants some new ones."
"To-morrow at two," said La Touche.
"Give us the old ones now," chorused the reporters. "We'll publish the
new ones for the wedding."
"I am sorry"--Max again spoke into the telephone--"but they say they
want some now. They'll use the others later.... Which one?... The one
Mr. Rutgers likes?... Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much."
Foreseeing unintelligent incredulity, Mr. Onthemaker did not hang up
the receiver. It was just as well, for the cautious La Touche said, "I
want to talk to her."
"Certainly," said Max, and hastily rose.
"Miss Goodchild," said the photographer, respectfully, "will it be all
right if I let the reporters have--"
"Give him the one Mr. Rutgers likes," came in a sweet voice, without the
slightest trace of Yiddish or catarrh. They would be wonderful
linguists, if they didn't always begin by, "Say, listen."
"Which one is that?"
"The one he likes. And please send the bill to me, not to papa," with
the accent properly on the last syllable.
"There will be no charge, Miss Goodchild. Thank you. I only wished to
make sure you approved."
La Touche rose and, turning to the friendly reporters, asked,
wrathfully, "How in blazes do I know which is the one Mr. Rutgers
liked?"
"Let us pick it out," said one reporter. He wore his hair long.
"Any one will do," said another, considerately.
"I think I know which it is," said Barrett, taking pity on the
photographer. To Mr. Onthemaker he whispered, "Max, you're a second
H. R."
"I try to be," modestly said Sam.
And so the newspapers published the official preference of the lucky
man. They published it because she was going to marry H. R.
That same morning Mr. Goodchild called up the city editors. He was so
stupid that he was angry. He threatened criminal action and also denied
the engagement. Rutgers was only a discharged clerk who had worked in
his bank. He had been annoying his daughter, but he, Mr. Goodchild,
would take steps to put an end to further persecution. Rutgers would not
be allowed to call. He had, Mr. Goodchild admitted, called--uninvited.
Had a man no privacy in New York? What was the matter with the police?
What was he paying taxes for--to be annoyed by insane adventurers and
damned reporters? He didn't want any impertinence. If they didn't print
the denial of the engagement and the facts he would put the matter in
his lawyer's hands.
The afternoon papers that day and the morning papers on the next printed
another portrait of Miss Grace Goodchild because she was not engaged to
H. R.
It was so exactly what a Wall Street millionaire father would do that
everybody in New York instantly recognized a romance in high life!
Grace Goodchild never had known before how many people knew her and how
many more wished to know her. The reporters camped on her front
door-steps and the camera specialists could not be shooed away by Mr.
Goodchild when he was going out on his way to the bank.
He assaulted a photographer. The papers therefore printed a picture of
the infuriated money power in the act of using a club on a defenseless
citizen. They did it very cleverly: by manipulating the plates they made
Mr. Goodchild look four times the size of the poor photographer.
Max Onthemaker brought suit for fifty thousand dollars damages to the
feelings, cranium, and camera of Jeremiah Legare, the _Tribune_'s
society snapper.
From 10 A.M. to 7 P.M. Grace held a continuous levee. Mrs. Goodchild was
in handsomely gowned hysterics. Mr. Goodchild got drunk at his club.
Yes, he did. The house committee ignored it. When they saw the afternoon
papers they condoned it. And yet all that the newspapers said was that
Grace Goodchild and Hendrik Rutgers were _not_ married.
And they blame the papers for inaccuracy.
H. R. knew that he must make his love for Grace plausible, and his
determination to marry her persistent and picturesque.
His concern was with the public. He therefore called up Grace on the
telephone. At the other end they wished to know who was speaking. He
replied, "Tell Frederick to come to the telephone at once!"
Frederick responded.
"Are you there?" asked H. R., after the fashion of Frederick's
compatriots. "Frederick, go instantly to Miss Grace and tell her to come
to the telephone on a matter of life and death. It's Mr. Rutgers. Don't
mention my name."
This wasn't one of Frederick's few duties when he deigned to accept
employment in the Goodchild household. But H. R. expected to be obeyed.
Therefore he was obeyed.
"Yes, sir; very good, sir," said Frederick, proud to act as Mercury. He
rushed off.
"Telephone, Miss Grace. He said it was a matter of life and death."
"Who is it? Another reporter?"
"Oh no, ma'am. He's waiting, my lady."
Once in a while Frederick proved that he was worth his weight in gold by
forgetting that he was in America. When he did, he always called Grace
my lady.
She therefore went to the telephone. Of course H. R. was born lucky.
But, as a matter of fact, by deliberately establishing Frederick on a
plane of perennial inferiority he had made such a stroke of luck
inevitable.
Since it was a matter of life and death, Grace instantly asked, "_Who_
is it?"
"Listen, Grace. The entire country is going wild about you. Your
portrait is being admired from Maine to California. But bear up with
what's coming. We've got to bring father around to our way of thinking,
and--"
"Who is it? Who is it?"
"Great Scott! Can't you recognize the voice? It's Hendrik."