The reporters looked at the hundred faces and began to write like mad.
Hendrik rose. There was an awed silence. The reporters stopped writing. One hundred inferior maxillaries began to castanet away like mad. The boss held up a hand. Then he said in measured tones:
"May God be good to us sandwich-men again this year! Eat!"
When he said eat, men ate. Don't forget the moral effect of commanding and being obeyed!
They flung themselves on the food like wild beasts, and made animal noises in their throats. They disdained forks, knives, and spoons. They used claws and jaws on meat, coffee, bread, potatoes, soup, or pie whichever was nearest.
No man wanted to be the last to finish.
"My God!" exclaimed the Evening Post man. "This is absolutely horrible!"
"Pippin!" said the creative artist from the Sun.
All of them would treat it as a Belasco production. That is, they would impart to it all the dignity and importance of a political convention.
At 8 p.m. Hendrik Rutgers, man of destiny, rose to speak. He never even glanced at the reporters. He said, very earnestly, to his tattered cohorts: