"You'll find everything ready, Mr. Rutgers," said M. Onthemaker. "Here is one of my cards. The name, you will see," he almost shouted, "is spelled with a k not h—O-n-t-h-e-m-a-k-e-r. Everything is ready, Mr. Secretary." He looked at the reporters out of a corner of his eye.
"And it won't cost you nothing, not one cent," interjected C. Weinpusslacher, eagerly and distinctly. "Any feller wot's smart like you, Mr. Rutchers—"
"And the poor starving men," quickly interjected M. Onthemaker, not wishing for character-analyses yet, "who are the victims of a ruthless industrial system—"
"Yah, sandwiches!" put in C. Weinpusslacher.
M. Onthemaker grimaced horribly, and C. Weinpusslacher was silent for a minute. Presently he told Rutgers, "They get enough to eat here, anyways, I bet you."
He glared with a sort of malevolent triumph at M. Onthemaker, until he heard the boss say in stern accents:
"That, of course, Weinpusslacher, includes a couple of beers apiece."
"Of course! Of course!" put in M. Onthemaker, hastily. "The representatives of the press will sit at their own table, at which I am to have the honor of presiding, Max Onthemaker—O-n-t-h-e-m—"
"We got it down," the Evening Journal man assured him, amiably.
C. Weinpusslacher was so angry that anybody should help him to make money, when half the pleasure is in making it yourself out of your fellow-men, that he said, spitefully, "There will be free beer!"