ted H. R. "Giving
_money_ to those who haven't any simply perpetuates Capitalism besides
alienating the Christian vote. We _share_ food. That's Socialism. We do
not give alms. That's insulting. Besides, we do not own the quarters.
They're borrowed."

Lubin was silenced.

That silence from the Socialist reporter was H. R.'s greatest triumph
thus far.

As the penniless guests left the glittering heap of stage quarters
unsearched they walked on along a gallery. At the end of it was another
glittering electric sign. It said:

THIS WAY IF YOU ARE HUNGRY!

The hungry walked on eagerly. A few feet from the door that led into the
arena where the waiting tables were they had to pass by a wide-open
door. Within, in plain sight of the passers-by, was a long bar. Behind
the bar were white-jacketed bartenders. The beer-kegs formed an
inspiring background. On the bar itself stood dozens of big
schooners--full.

Above the bar could be read:

FREE BEER! Frei! Gratis!

A few walked on--straight to the dining-hall.

But every one who walked into the free-beer room was told to go through
a door on the left.

"That way!" a policeman told the thirsty.

The first man who went into the inner room found a policeman standing
beside a table on which were a dozen full schooners.

"If you drink now you don't eat," courteously said the cop.

"Kismet!" said the starving man, and reached for a schooner.

"It's for _after_ eating!" gently warned the policeman.

"Life is uncertain. I'll drink now and--"

"This way!" The policeman now spoke in his regular voice.

He led the thirsty out of the room by another door which led into still
another room used for storing the heavy circus impedimenta.

"Do you see?" asked H. R., sweetly, to the reporters and the students of
sociology from the magazines. "Do you?"

"Mr. Rutgers, Columbus and his egg had nothing on you," said the earnest
young theorist from the _Evening Post_.

The others were busily turning out literature.

"It won't cheat 'em out of a meal," H. R. whispered to young Mr. Lubin
from the _Onward_. "But they don't eat with the others."

That is how H. R. kept his promise to the business men of New York. He
had circumvented fraud, which is the chief aim of modern charity. Also
he had discouraged the formation of a professional pauper class--the one
danger against which all commonwealths must guard.

"I'd like to know what you are going to do with the culls," the _Sun