n_!"

"Yes, but s-s-sandwiches," blubbered Grace.

"I took these victims of society and capitalism and organized them, and
then I emptied them into the golden Cloaca Maxima that you call Fifth
Avenue, and lo! they emerged free men, self-supporting, well-fed,
useful, artistic. They have been the efficient instruments of fame. It
is they who have made you known from one end of the city to the other."

"Yes; but sandwiches!" doggedly repeated Grace.

"I have worked," said H. R., sternly, "with human souls--"

"Sandwiches!" corrected Mr. Goodchild.

H. R. flushed angrily.

"The sandwich," he told them all with an angry finality, "is here to
stay. Our net receipts, after paying big wages, are over one thousand
dollars a day. What do you think I am, an ass? Or a quick lunch? Or a
bank president? _Pshaw!_ We've only begun! A capitalization of over five
millions at the very start and the business growing like cheap
automobiles, and me owning forty per cent. of the stock and controlling
sixty per cent. in perpetuity! These men have made me their leader. I
will not forsake them!"

"Can you give me," said Mr. Goodchild, seriously, "evidence to prove
your statements?" If the love affair was not to end in an elopement it
would be wise to have a business talk with this young man, who, after
all was said and done, had a valuable asset in his newspaper publicity.

"You may be a wonderful man," said Grace to H. R., "but all my friends
would ask me if I am going to have a mammoth sandwich instead of a
wedding-cake! I ask you not to persist--"

H. R. smiled sympathetically and said: "You poor darling! Is _that_ all
you are afraid of?"

She thought of Philadelphia and a quiet life, and she shook her head
sadly. Why couldn't he have made her famous by unobjectionable methods.

But H. R. said, "I'll guarantee that my name will never again be
associated with sandwiches--"

"You can't do it!" declared Grace, with conviction, thinking of humorous
American girls. "When they are friends all you have to do is to take out
the 'r' to turn them into fiends."

Mrs. Goodchild said nothing, but frowned. It had just occurred to her
that here they all were, amicably talking with the man who had made
their lives grievous burdens. Mr. Goodchild also was silent, but
shrewdly eyed H. R.

"I'll do it!" repeated H. R., confidently.

"How can you without killing everybody?" challenged Grace, skeptically.
"Everybody knows you as the leader of