rted crescent of the man's lips trembled, and presently there
issued from it, "Well, I 'ain't done--"

Charity, which is not always astute, made H. Rutgers say with a kindly
cleverness to his poor brother, "I'll tell you how you are going to make
more money than you ever earned before."

The prospect of making more money than he ever earned before brought no
name of joy into the blear and furtive eyes. Instead, he sidled,
crabwise, into the middle of the street.

"No, you don't!" said Rutgers so menacingly that the sandwich-man
shivered. It was clear that, to feed this starving man, force would be
necessary. This never discourages the true philanthropist. Rutgers,
however, feeling that Christian forbearance should be used before
resorting to the ultimate diplomacy, said, with an earnest amiability:
"Say, Bo, d'you want to fill your belly so that if you ate any more
you'd bust?"

At the hint of a promise of a sufficiency of food the man opened his
mouth, stared at Rutgers, and did not speak. He couldn't because he did
not close his mouth.

"All the grub you can possibly eat, three times a day. Grub, Bo! All you
want, any time you want it. Hey? What?"

The sandwich-man's open mouth opened wider. In his eyes there was no
fear, no hunger, no incredulity, nothing only an abyss deep as the human
soul, that returned no answer whatever.

"Do you want," pursued the now optimistic Hendrik Rutgers, "to drink all
you can hold? The kind that don't hurt you if you drink a gallon! Booze,
and grub, and a bed, and money in your pocket, and nobody to go through
your duds while you sleep. Hey?"

The sandwich-man spasmodically opened and closed his mouth in the
unhuman fashion of a ventriloquist's puppet. Rutgers heard the click,
but never a word. It filled him with pity. The desire to help such
brothers as this grew intense. Next to feeding them there was nothing
like talking to them about food and drink in a kindly way.

"What do you say, Bo?" he queried, gently, almost tenderly.

The man's teeth chattered a minute before he said, huskily, "Wh-what
m-must I do?"

"Let's go to the Battery," said Rutgers, "and I'll tell you all about
it."

The mission of history is to prove that Fate sends the right man for the
right place at the right time. While Hendrik Rutgers talked, the
sandwich-man listened with his stomach; and when Hendrik Rutgers
promised, the sandwich-man believed with his soul. Rutgers told Fleming
that all sandw