en to compel that same world to place three square meals a day
within their astonished bellies!

The man who could make the world do that could do anything. Since he
could do anything, he could marry a girl who not only was very
beautiful, but had a very rich and dislikable father. The early
Christians accomplished so much because they not only loved God, but
hated the devil.

Hendrik Rutgers found both the excuse and the motive power.

One minute after a man of brains perceives the need of a ladder in order
to climb, the rain of ladders begins.

The chest-inflating egotism of the monopolistic tendency, rather than
the few remaining vestiges of Christianity, keeps Protestants in America
from becoming socialists. Hendrik filled his lungs full of self-oxygen
and of the consciousness of power for good, and decided to draw up the
constitution of his union. He would do it himself in order to produce a
perfect document; perfect in everything. A square deal; no more, no
less. That meant justice toward everybody, even toward the public.

This union, being absolutely fair, would be more than good, more than
intelligent; it would pay.

Carried away by his desire to help the lowest of the low, he constituted
himself into a natural law. He would grade his men, be the sole judge
and arbiter of their qualifications, and even of their proper wages.

Hendrik walked back toward the last sandwich-man and soon overtook him.
"Hey, there, you!" he said, tapping the rear board with his hand.

The sandwich-man did not turn about. Really, what human being could wish
to speak to him?

Hendrik Rutgers walked for a few feet beside the modest artist who was
proclaiming to a purblind world the merits of an optician's wares, and
spoke again, politely:

"I want to see you, on business."

The man's lips quivered, then curved downward, immobilizing themselves
into a fixed grimace of fear. "I--I 'ain't done no-nothin'," he whined,
and edged away.

This was what society had done to an immortal soul!

"Hell!" said Hendrik Rutgers between clenched teeth. "I'm not a fly-cop.
I've just got a plain business proposition to make to you."

"If you'll tell me where yer place is, I'll come aroun'--" began the
man, so obviously lying that Rutgers's anger shifted from society and
tyranny on to the thing between sandwich-boards--the thing that refused
to be his brother.

"You damned fool!" he hissed, fraternally. "You come with me--now."

The inve