some
difficulty in persuading C. Weinpusslacher to sign. But as soon as it
was done Hendrik said:

"First gun: The National Street Advertising Men will hold their annual
dinner here next Saturday, about one hundred of us, thirty cents each;
regular dinner. _That_ is legitimate news and will be printed as such.
It will advertise the Colossal and the Colossal thirty-cent dinner. You
won't be out a cent. We pay cash for our dinner. I'll supply a few
decorations; all you'll have to do is to hang them from that corner to
this. You might also arrange to have a little extra illumination in
front of the place. Have a couple of men in evening clothes and high
hats on the corner, pointing to the Colossal, and saying:
'_Weinpusslacher's Colossal Restaurant! Three doors down. Just follow
the crowd!_' Arrange for all these things so that when you see that I am
delivering the goods you won't be paralyzed. Another thing: There will
be reporters from every daily paper in the city here Saturday night.
Provide a table for them and pay especial attention to both dinner and
drinks. _They_ will make you famous and rich, because you will tell them
that they are getting the regular thirty-cent dinner. It will be up to
you to be intelligently generous now so that you may with impunity be
intelligently stingy later, when you are rich. I advise you to have Max
here, because you seem to be of the distrustful nature of most damned
fools and therefore must make your money in spite of yourself. Next
Saturday at six P.M.! You'll make at least two hundred thousand dollars
in the next five years. Now I am going to eat. Come on, Onthemaker."

H. Rutgers sat down, summoned the Herculean waiter, and ordered two
thirty-cent dinners.

C. Weinpusslacher, a dazed look in his eyes, approached Max and
whispered, "Hey, dot's a smart feller. What?"

"Well," answered M. Onthemaker, lawyer-like, "you haven't anything to
lose."

"You said I should sign the paper," Caspar reminded him, accusingly.

"You're all right so long as you don't give him a cent unless I say so."

"I won't; not even if you say so."

With thirty cents of food and thirty millions of confidence under his
waistcoat, Hendrik Rutgers walked from the Colossal Restaurant down the
Bowery and Center Street to the City Hall. At the door of the Mayor's
room he fixed the doorkeeper with his stern eye and requested his Honor
to be informed that the secretary of the National Street Advertising
Men'