The Public Sentiment Corps copied two hundred and thirty-eight letters prepared by the boss, praising and condemning H. R. and Mr. Goodchild. This compelled the newspapers that received the letters to run Grace's portrait daily—a new photograph each time.
As for Grace herself, crowds followed her. She could not go into a restaurant without making all heads turn in her direction. People even stopped dancing when they saw her. And six of New York's bluest-blooded heiresses became her inseparable companions. They also had their pictures printed.
Grace hated all this notoriety. She said so, at times. But her friends soothed her and developed the habit of looking pleasantly at cameras.
H. R. on the third day sent all the clippings to Grace with beautiful flowers and a note:
For your sake!
One of Grace's friends asked to be allowed to keep the note. It reminded her, she said, of the early Christians; also of the days of knighthood.
The commercial phase of the mission of the Society of American Sandwich Artists had become in the meanwhile a matter of real importance to the business world. Business men, not being artists, are stupid because they deal with money-profits, and they are imitative because money-making in the ultimate analysis is never original. When the merchants of New York perceived that Fifth Avenue had sanctified sandwiching by paying cash for it, and that the better shops elsewhere had perforce resorted to it, they accepted it as one of the conditions of modern merchandising. It did not become a fad, but worse—an imagined necessity and, as such, an institution. The little Valiquet-made statuettes of the Ultimate Sandwich sold by the thousands, greatly adding to the personal assets of the secretary and treasurer of the society. And what New York did, other cities wished to do.
Then the blow fell!
On the same day that H. R. sent his early Christian message to Grace, Andrew Barrett reported that while some of the streets were almost impassable for the multitude of sandwiches, the greater part of the latter, alas! were non-union men!
"They are using their porters and janitors to carry boards," said Andrew Barrett, bitterly. "I tell you, H. R., this is a crisis!"