use of gratuities, profanity, or
promises.

H. R.'s first task was to compose memoranda for the use and guidance of
Max Onthemaker and Lieutenant Fleming. At 8.45 the first-class
advertising canvassers began to appear in numbers. Really efficient men
are never modest. Neither are really inefficient men. Efficiency is
always a matter of personal judgment. Even efficiency experts will tell
you that nobody is really efficient until efficiency experts have said
so.

H. R. allowed the applicants to accumulate in the anteroom. The new
stenographer had been told to write, "Now is the time for all good men
to come to the aid of their party" two thousand times and to time
herself. The spectators thereby realized that this was a busy office.

He was confronting his first crisis--the selection of a man who must not
only be highly competent, but must be made to realize that H. R. was a
pioneer, a man to whom tradition, precedents, and custom were less than
nothing. H. R. studied the situation and then went out to the anteroom
and looked at the waiting dozen slowly.

There are a few men in the world who can look a crowd from head to foot
and manage to make each man in it feel guilty. After H. R. had so looked
at them, he asked, skeptically, "Are _all_ of you first-class men?"

To their honor be it said, not one of them answered No. Men collectively
may be cruel or blind, but seldom petty or egotistical. Observe mobs.

H. R. turned his back on the crowd and returned to his private office.
He did it on purpose. Men usually follow those who act as if they do not
care whether they have a following or not. It is wiser to be wrong and
not hesitate than to vacillate and be right. Besides, much quicker.

At the threshold he half turned and, without looking at any one in
particular, said: "I need only four first-class men. The others might as
well go away."

Twelve men heard him. Twelve men followed him.

He sat down at his new desk, put the unpaid bill for same in a drawer,
and confronted them.

"Eight of you can go," he observed, and waited.

Each man cast a glance of pity at his neighbor.

"Don't be so modest," H. R. told them, kindly.

"You said first-class men?" politely inquired a young man,
smooth-shaven, blond, blue-eyed, and very clean-looking.

"Yes," answered H. R.

"That's what I understood," said the young man, extending his hand.
"Barrett's my name."

H. R. ignored the outstretched hand and stared at the cle