"Tell Frederick," said H. R., fiercely, "to bring in fifteen Rutgerses, if you prefer to call them that."
"That isn't funny," rebuked Grace, coldly. "I don't think you are accustomed to surroundings—"
"No; it's hospitality. I'm starving."
"You'll have sandwiches for breakfast, luncheon, and dinner, my child," Mr. Goodchild told Grace, angrily but intelligently. "In the newspapers!"
"Of course I won't marry him!" said Grace, decisively. "It's preposterous."
H. R. went up to her. She shook her head. He spoke very seriously:
"Grace, when people tell you that I have given free sandwiches to New York they mean that I have taken the poorest of the poor, the pariahs of commerce, the despised of the rabble, poor human derelicts, souls without a future, without a hope, worse than dirt, poorer than poverty, and I have made them men!"
"Yes, but s-s-sandwiches," blubbered Grace.
"I took these victims of society and capitalism and organized them, and then I emptied them into the golden Cloaca Maxima that you call Fifth Avenue, and lo! they emerged free men, self-supporting, well-fed, useful, artistic. They have been the efficient instruments of fame. It is they who have made you known from one end of the city to the other."
"Yes; but sandwiches!" doggedly repeated Grace.