Everybody cheered, for everybody agreed with the sentiment. Some even
thought it was original.
Then all the lights were turned on again. The tables were carried away
by the cranes. The guests, directed by H. R.'s lieutenants, formed in
line and paraded around the Garden. The lame, the old, the young, the
hopeless, the wicked, the maimed--all who had hungered--marched jauntily
round the vast arena that their benefactors might see who it was that
really had made the Mammoth Hunger Feast a success. They carried their
heads erect, proudly, conscious of their importance in the world. The
benefactors thereupon cheered the beneficiaries. By so doing they showed
what they thought of the benefactors. It was none the less noble!
The reporters looked at their watches. A full page on Saturday night is
no laughing matter to the make-up man. One of them rose and asked H. R.:
"Is this all? We've got to write--"
"It is _not_ all!" answered H. R., and motioned to the trumpeter, who
instantly blew the Siegfried motif. The crowd looked stageward. The rear
drop-curtain showed in high letters: