"He will come." Rutgers looked, in a frozen way, at Caspar Weinpusslacher, and continued, icily: "I am the secretary and treasurer of the National Street Advertising Men's Association. If I told you I wanted you to give me money you'd believe me. But if I told you I wanted to give you money, you wouldn't. So I am going to let your own lawyer tell you to do as I say. I'll make you rich—for nothing!"
And Hendrik Rutgers walked calmly out of the Colossal Restaurant, leaving in the eyes of C. Weinpusslacher astonishment, in the mind respect, and in the heart vague hope.
This is the now historic document which Hendrik Rutgers dictated in Max Onthemaker's office:
Hendrik Rutgers, secretary and treasurer of the National Street Advertising Men's Association, agrees to make Caspar Weinpusslacher's Colossal Restaurant famous by means of articles in the leading newspapers in New York City. For these services Hendrik Rutgers shall receive from said Caspar Weinpusslacher, proprietor of said Colossal Restaurant, one-tenth (1/10) of the advertising value of such newspaper notices—said value to be left to a jury composed of the advertising managers of the Ladies Home Journal, the Jewish Daily Forward, and the New York Evening Post, and of Max Onthemaker and Hendrik Rutgers. It is further stipulated that such compensation is to be paid to Hendrik Rutgers, not in cash, but in tickets for meals in said Colossal Restaurant, at thirty cents per meal, said meal-tickets to be used by said Hendrik Rutgers to secure still more desirable publicity by feeding law-abiding, respectable poor people.
Panem et circenses! He had made sure of the first! The public could always be depended upon to furnish the second by being perfectly natural.
M. Onthemaker accompanied H. Rutgers to the Colossal. He had some difficulty in persuading C. Weinpusslacher to sign. But as soon as it was done Hendrik said:
"First gun: The National Street Advertising Men will hold their annual dinner here next Saturday, about one hundred of us, thirty cents each; regular dinner. That is legitimate news and will be printed as such. It will advertise the Colossal and the Colossal thirty-cent dinner. You won't be out a cent. We pay cash for our dinner. I'll supply a few decorations; all you'll have to do is to hang them from that corner to this. You might also arrange to have a little extra illumination in front of the place. Have a couple of men in evening clothes and high hats on the corner, pointing to the Colossal, and saying: 'Weinpusslacher's Colossal Restaurant! Three doors down. Just follow the crowd!' Arrange for all these things so that when you see that I am delivering the goods you won't be paralyzed. Another thing: There will be reporters from every daily paper in the city here Saturday night. Provide a table for them and pay especial attention to both dinner and drinks. They will make you famous and rich, because you will tell them that they are getting the regular thirty-cent dinner. It will be up to you to be intelligently generous now so that you may with impunity be intelligently stingy later, when you are rich. I advise you to have Max here, because you seem to be of the distrustful nature of most damned fools and therefore must make your money in spite of yourself. Next Saturday at six p.m.! You'll make at least two hundred thousand dollars in the next five years. Now I am going to eat. Come on, Onthemaker."
H. Rutgers sat down, summoned the Herculean waiter, and ordered two thirty-cent dinners.
C. Weinpusslacher, a dazed look in his eyes, approached Max and whispered, "Hey, dot's a smart feller. What?"
"Well," answered M. Onthemaker, lawyer-like, "you haven't anything to lose."