bout the hands.

They were the hands of Peter senior. His commercial genius had spread
them across the sky to beckon the public to his great new department
store on Sixth Avenue. Just as at the beginning of the gesture you saw
only the tips of the fingers, so Peter Rolls, Sr., had begun with a
tiny flicker, the first groping of his inspiration feeling its way to
success.

Everybody in the United States had heard of Peter Rolls, or it was not
the fault of the magazines and Sunday papers. Peter Rolls had been for
years one of the greatest advertisers in America. Mr. Winfield didn't
see how, even on a remote little island like England, Miss Child could
have escaped hearing about Peter Rolls's hands. This had now become
the snappy way of saying that you intended to shop at Peter Rolls's
store: "I'm going to the Hands." "I'll get that at the Hands." And
Peter Rolls had emphasized the phrase on the public tongue by his
method of advertising.

Each advertisement that appeared took the same form--a square space
heavily outlined in black or colour, held up by a pair of ringed
hands, facsimiles in miniature of his famous sky sign. And the several
thousand salespeople in the huge store were slangily nicknamed "Peter
Rolls's hands." But naturally these insignificant morsels of the great
mosaic were not spelled with a capital H, unless, perhaps by
themselves, and once when a vaudeville favourite sang a song, "I'm a
Hand, I'm a Hand." It was a smart song, and made a hit; but Peter
Rolls was said to have paid both the star and the management.

Apparently nothing concerning Peter Rolls, Sr., and his family was
hidden from Mr. Loewenfeld and Miss Seeker, although they claimed no
personal acquaintance with the great. Probably, if Win had asked, they
could have told how many servants Mrs. Rolls kept and how many cases
of champagne her husband ordered in a year. But questions were
unnecessary. The subject of a self-made millionaire was a fascinating
one to the lately naturalized German.

Peter Rolls, Sr., had emigrated from the north of Ireland as a young
boy. He had contrived to buy a few cheap odds and ends likely to
attract women buried in the country far from shops. He had somehow
known exactly what odds and ends to select. That was genius; and he
had coined money as a peddler. In his wandering life he made
acquaintance with many tramps and saw how he might make even the
lowest useful. After a few years he scraped up enough capit