hat? _All the
starving men!_" He finished, sternly, "Not one shall escape us!"

The Bishop almost shuddered, there was so grimly determined a look on
H. R.'s face. Then as his thoughts began to travel along their usual
channel he felt vexed. He had patiently endured the disrespectful
language of a young man whose point of view differed so irritatingly
from that of the earnest men who were laboring to solve the problem. All
he had heard was confusing talk, words he could not remember, but left a
sting. Time had been spent to no purpose.

"I still," said the Bishop with an effort, "do not see how you solve
the problem that has baffled our best minds."

"Nobody else could do it," acknowledged H. R., simply. "But I have
carefully prepared my plans. They cannot fail. And now you will give me
your signature."

"My signature to what?" asked the Bishop in the tone of voice in which
people usually say, "Never!" He felt that the interview was ended. A
suspicion flashed in his mind that this young man might reply, "To a
check!" But he paid H. R. the compliment of instantly dismissing the
suspicion. This was, alas! no common impostor.

"To an appeal to New York's better nature," said H. R.,
enthusiastically. "The masses always follow the classes; if they didn't
there wouldn't be classes. Mr. Wyman, of the National Bank of the
Avenue, will act as treasurer."

It was the fashionable bank. Stock in demand at seventy-two hundred
dollars a share, and all held by Vans.

"Has he--"

"He will," interrupted H. R. so decisively that the Bishop forgot to be
annoyed at not being allowed to finish his question. "We shall appeal to
all New-Yorkers. Your name must therefore lead the signatures. Much,
Bishop Phillipson, depends upon the leader! Of course there will be
other clergymen, and leading merchants, and capitalists, and the mayor,
and the borough presidents, and the reform leaders, and everybody who is
Somebody. They must give the example. Do you not constantly endeavor,
yourself, to be an example, reverend sir?"

Before the Bishop could deny this H. R. gave into his hands a book
beautifully bound in hand-tooled morocco. The leaves were vellum. On the
first page was artistically engrossed:

_Hunger knows no denomination._

_There must not be starving men, women, or children in New
York._

_We who do not hunger must feed those who do._

_LET US FEED ALL THE HUNGRY!_

"Here, Bishop Phillipson, is t