minutes!--fell.

A hush also fell on the audience, for back of it was another white sheet
on which everybody read:

WATCH YOUR GUESTS EAT

YOU ARE FEEDING THEM!

H. R.

The audience, metamorphosed against its will into charitable hosts, now
remembered the starving fellow-beings who were there to eat.

H. R. motioned. A bugler advanced to the front of the stage and sounded,
_Charge_!

The soup began to pour out of the faucets. In fourteen seconds 12,137
cups of steaming soup _a la Piccolini_ were before the guests.

The audience applauded madly. It was perfectly wonderful what charity
could do--in fourteen seconds!

The guests were very hungry. The soup, however, was very hot. This made
the drinking audible to the remotest recesses of the Garden.

Again the bugle blew. The charitable crowd instantly ceased to look at
their guests and gazed at the electric traveling-cranes carrying laden
trays. Over six thousand well-fed spectators pulled out their watches
and timed the entree.

It took twenty-nine seconds to place the entree before the guests.

"Quick work!" said the watch-holders, approvingly. It took the guests
much less than twenty-nine seconds to eat the entree.

The bugle blew for the third time.

The roast appeared. The rear curtain dropped. Behind it was another on
which could be read, without the aid of binoculars:

WATCH THEM EAT!

YOUR TICKET DID IT!

H. R.

It happened exactly as H. R. had told Bishop Phillipson. Each charitable
person thought of his particular ticket and looked for his individual
guest among the 12,137.

Each charitable person felt that his twenty-five cents had made possible
the entire feast. At that moment H. R. could have been elected to any
office within the gift of a free and sturdy people.

The guests began to eat more slowly.

The hosts, filled with kindliness and the desire to help their
fellow-men by getting their money's worth, began to shout:

"Keep it up!"

"Go on!"

"Eat away!"

"Fill up! Fill up!"

"It's free! It's free!"

Charity is not dead, but sleepeth. When it awakens, it is ruthless.

Presently men and women at the tables, who had thought they were in
paradise surrounded by angels, began to throw up their hands and shake
their heads helplessly.

A storm of hisses greeted the ingratitude. Fat hosts began to shout:

"Fakes!"

"Fraud!"

"Take 'em out!"

In self-defense some of the guests began to rub their paunches. H