13 reporters read the sandwiches.

The men looked pleased; they were seeing a show on D. H. tickets. The
women sighed enviously and opened their latest Robert W. Chambers in the
street as they walked on. The thirteen reporters walked into the bank,
went straight into the president's office, and while he was still
smiling his welcome asked him why he would not let H. R. marry Grace.

Mr. Goodchild nearly sat in the electric chair. The vice-president
fortunately was able to grasp in time the hand that held the big
paper-weight.

"Remember the bank!" solemnly counseled the vice-president.

"To hell with the bank!" said Mr. George G. Goodchild for the first and
only time in his Republican life.

"Unless you talk to us fully and politely," said the _Globe_ man, "we
propose to interview your directors and ask each and every one of them
to tell us the name of your successor. If you raise your hand again I'll
not only break in your face, but I'll sue you and thus secure vacation
money and a raise in salary. The jury is with me. Come! Tell us why you
won't let Mr. Rutgers marry Grace."

Here in his own office the president of a big Wall Street bank was
threatened with obliterated features and the extraction of cash. The
cause of it, H. R., was worse than a combination of socialism and
smallpox; he was even worse than a President of the United States in an
artificial bull market.

Mr. Goodchild walked up and down the room exactly thirteen times--one
for each reporter--and then turned to the vice-president.

"Send for the police!" he commanded.

"Remember the newspapers," agonizedly whispered the vice-president.

The _Globe_ man overheard him. "Present!" he said, and saluted. Then he
took out a lead-pencil, seized a pad from the president's own desk, and
said, kindly, "I'll take down all your reasons in shorthand, Mr.
Goodchild!"

"Take yourself to hell!" shrieked the president.

"_Apres vous, mon cher Alphonse_," retorted the _Globe_ man, with
exquisite courtesy. "Boys, you heard him. Verbatim!"

All the reporters wrote four words.

The _Globe_ man hastily left the president's room and went up to the
bank's gray-coated private policeman who was trying to distinguish
between the few who wished to deposit money and the many who desired to
ask the sandwich question or at least hoped to hear the answer. The
sacred precincts of the Ketcham National Bank had taken on the aspect of
a circus arena. H. R.'s erstwhile fel