They drank. Then they looked at Hendrik. He was a law of nature. He shook his head. They understood his "No." It was like death. To save their faces they began to clamor for free lunch.
"Get to hell out of here!" said the proprietor.
"Do you want your joint smashed?" asked Rutgers. He approached the man and looked at him from across a gulf of six inches that made escape impossible. Whatever the proprietor saw in Rutgers's eyes made him turn away.
"Come across with the free lunch," Hendrik bade the proprietor. To his men he said, "Boys, get ready!"
These men-that-were—miserable worms, scum of the earth, walking cuspidors—began to take off their armor. The bartenders were husky, but hadn't the boss commanded, Get ready! and didn't all men know he meant, Get ready to eat? Moreover, each sandwich felt he might dodge the bung-starters, but not the boss's right flipper!
The union was making ready to fight with the desperation of men whose retreat is cut on by a foe who never heard of The Hague Convention.
"Hey, no rough-house!" yelled the proprietor.
"Free lunch!" retorted Hendrik. Then he added, "Quick!"
The sandwich-men's nostrils began to dilate with the contagion of the battle spirit. One after another, these beasts of the gutter took off the boards and leaned them against the wall, out of the way, and eyed the boss expectantly, waiting for the word—men once more! Hendrik, with the eye of a strategist and the look of a prize-fighter, planned the attack. Like a very wise man who lived to be the most popular of all our Presidents, he did his thinking aloud.
On occasions like this Hendrik's mind also worked in battle-cries and best expressed itself in action.
"Free lunch," said Hendrik, "is free. It is everybody's. It is therefore ours!"
"Give us our grub!" hoarsely cried the union.
"Three to each bartender," said Hendrik. "When I yell 'Now!' jump in, from both ends of the bar at once—six of you here; you six over there. Fleming, you smash the mirrors back of the bar with those empty schooners. Mulligan, you cop some bottles of booze, and wait outside—do you hear? Wait outside!—for us. I'll attend to the cash-register myself. Now, you," he said peremptorily to the proprietor, "do we get the free lunch? Say no; won't you, please?"
Hendrik radiated battle. The derelicts took on human traits as their eyes lit up with visions of pillage. Fleming grasped a heavy schooner in each hand. Mulligan had his eye on three bottles of whisky and, for the first time in years, was using his mind—planning the get-away.
The proprietor saw all this and also perceived that he could not afford a victory. It was much cheaper to give them seven cents worth of spoiled rations. Therefore he decided in favor of humanity.
"Do what I told you, Jake," he said, with the smile of a man who has inveigled friends into accepting over-expensive Christmas presents. "Let 'em have the rest of the lunch—all they want." He smiled again, much pleased with his kindly astuteness. He was a constructive statesman and would be famous for longevity.
But the sandwich-men swaggered about, realizing that under the leadership of the boss they had won; they had obtained something to which they had no right; by threats of force they had secured food; the boss had made men of them. They therefore crowned Hendrik king. The instinctive and immemorial craving of all men for a father manifests itself—in republics that have forgotten God—in the election of the great promisers and the great confiscators to the supreme power. History records that no dynasty was ever founded except by a man who fought both for and with his followers. The men that merely fought for their fellows have uniformly died by the most noble and inspiring death of all—starvation. Names and posthumous addresses not known.
When not a scrap remained on any of the platters, Hendrik called his men to him and told them:
"Meet me at the sign-painter's, corner Twenty-ninth Street and Ninth Avenue next Friday night after seven. We'll be open till midnight. Be sure and bring your boards with you."
"We gotter give 'em up before we can get paid," remonstrated Mulligan. "If we don't we don't eat."
"That's right!" assented a half-dozen.
"Bring them!" said Hendrik. The time to check a mutiny is before it begins.
"A' right!" came in a chorus of fourteen heroic voices.
"Beginning next Monday, you'll get twenty cents an hour. I guarantee that to you out of my own pocket. You must each of you bring all the other sandwiches you run across. If necessary, drag them. We must have about one hundred to start, if you want forty beers a day."
"We do! We do!"
"Then bring the others, because we've got to begin with enough men in the union to knock the stuffing out of those who try to scab on us. Get that?"
"Sure thing!" they shouted, with the surprised enthusiasm of men who suddenly understand.
They were deep in misery and accustomed to a poverty so abject that they no longer were capable of even envying the rich. They, therefore, could hate only those who were poorer than themselves—the men who dared to have thirsts that could be assuaged with less than forty beers per day. Not obey the boss, when they already felt an endless stream trickling down their unionized gullets? And not kill the scab whose own non-union thirst would prolong theirs?
No! A man owes some things to his fellows, but he owes everything to himself. That is why, for teaching brotherhood, there is nothing like one book: the city Directory, from a fourth-floor window.
When the boss left them he was certain that they would not fail him. Just let them dare try to stay away, after he had so kindly destined them to be the rungs of the ladder on which he expected to climb to his lady's window—and her father's pocket! As he walked away, his confidence in himself showed in his stride so clearly that those who saw him shared that confidence. It is not what they were when they were not leaders, but what they can be when they become leaders, that makes them remarkable men.
II
The next morning Hendrik went to his tailor. As he walked into the shop he had the air of a man in whom two new suits a day would not be extravagance. The tailor, unconscious of cause and effect, called him "Mister," against the habit of years. Hendrik nodded coldly and said:
"As secretary and treasurer of the National Street Advertising Men's Association, I've got to have a new frock-coat. Measure me for one."
Hendrik had the air of a man who sees an unpleasant duty ahead, but does not mean to shirk it. This attitude always commands respect from tailors, clergymen, and users of false weights and measures.
"Left the bank?" asked the tailor, uncertainly.
"I should say I had," answered Hendrik, emphatically.
"What is the new job, anyhow?" asked the tailor, professionally. His customers usually told him their business, their history, and their hopes. By listening he had been able to invest in real estate.
"As I was about to say when you interrupted me"—Hendrik spoke rebukingly.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Rutgers," said the tailor, and blushed. He knew now he should have said "position" instead of "job." The civilization of to-day—including sanitary plumbing—is possible because price-tags were invented. This is not an epigram.
"—the clothes must be finished by Thursday. If you can't do it, I'll go somewhere else."
"Oh, we can do it, all right, Mr. Rutgers."
"Good morning," and Hendrik