hat all you heard was
the squealing and cursing of persons that were pressed against iron
newel-posts of the old-fashioned stoops or precipitated into basements
and cellars. Sixty policemen, impartially cursing the Mayor, Epictetus,
and H. Rutgers, and yearning for the days of Aleck Williams, when clubs
were made to be used and not to be fined for, endeavored to keep the
crowd moving.

"You'll find everything ready, Mr. Rutgers," said M. Onthemaker. "Here
is one of my cards. The name, you will see," he almost shouted, "is
spelled with a _k_ not _h_--O-n-t-h-e-m-a-k-e-r. Everything is ready,
Mr. Secretary." He looked at the reporters out of a corner of his eye.

"And it won't cost you nothing, not one cent," interjected C.
Weinpusslacher, eagerly and distinctly. "Any feller wot's smart like
you, Mr. Rutchers--"

"And the poor starving men," quickly interjected M. Onthemaker, not
wishing for character-analyses yet, "who are the victims of a ruthless
industrial system--"

"Yah, sandwiches!" put in C. Weinpusslacher.

M. Onthemaker grimaced horribly, and C. Weinpusslacher was silent for a
minute. Presently he told Rutgers, "They get enough to eat here,
anyways, I bet you."

He glared with a sort of malevolent triumph at M. Onthemaker, until he
heard the boss say in stern accents:

"That, of course, Weinpusslacher, includes a couple of beers apiece."

"Of course! Of course!" put in M. Onthemaker, hastily. "The
representatives of the press will sit at their own table, at which I am
to have the honor of presiding, Max Onthemaker--O-n-t-h-e-m--"

"We got it down," the _Evening Journal_ man assured him, amiably.

C. Weinpusslacher was so angry that anybody should help him to make
money, when half the pleasure is in making it yourself out of your
fellow-men, that he said, spitefully, "There will be free beer!"

Hendrik Rutgers took an innkeeper's notion and made of it the most
remarkable platform in the history of party government. He said,
sternly, "Everything free for free men!"

A grunting murmur ran down the line of derelicts--the inarticulate
tribute of great thirst to great leadership. In a hundred pairs of eyes
a human hope kindled its fire for the first time in two hundred years!

Great indeed was Hendrik Rutgers!

His faithful sandwiches would go through fire for him! A man who can get
free beer for Sahara throats could put out the fire--with more beer.

The boards were hung around the great hall in pla