Besides 12,466 men and 289 women, 13 reporters read the sandwiches. The men looked pleased; they were seeing a show on D. H. tickets. The women sighed enviously and opened their latest Robert W. Chambers in the street as they walked on. The thirteen reporters walked into the bank, went straight into the president's office, and while he was still smiling his welcome asked him why he would not let H. R. marry Grace. Mr. Goodchild nearly sat in the electric chair. The vice-president fortunately was able to grasp in time the hand that held the big paper-weight. "Remember the bank!" solemnly counseled the vice-president. "To hell with the bank!" said Mr. George G. Goodchild for the first and only time in his Republican life. "Unless you talk to us fully and politely," said the _Globe_ man, "we propose to interview your directors and ask each and every one of them to tell us the name of your successor. If you raise your hand again I'll not only break in your face, but I'll sue you and thus secure vacation money and a raise in salary. The jury is with me. Come! Tell us why you won't let Mr. Rutgers marry Grace." Here in his own office the president of a big Wall Street bank was threatened with obliterated features and the extraction of cash. The cause of it, H. R., was worse than a combination of socialism and smallpox; he was even worse than a President of the United States in an artificial bull market. Mr. Goodchild walked up and down the room exactly thirteen times--one for each reporter--and then turned to the vice-president. "Send for the police!" he commanded. "Remember the newspapers," agonizedly whispered the vice-president. The _Globe_ man overheard him. "Present!" he said, and saluted. Then he took out a lead-pencil, seized a pad from the president's own desk, and said, kindly, "I'll take down all your reasons in shorthand, Mr. Goodchild!" "Take yourself to hell!" shrieked the president. "_Après vous, mon cher Alphonse_," retorted the _Globe_ man, with exquisite courtesy. "Boys, you heard him. Verbatim!" All the reporters wrote four words. The _Globe_ man hastily left the president's room and went up to the bank's gray-coated private policeman who was trying to distinguish between the few who wished to deposit money and the many who desired to ask the sandwich question or at least hoped to hear the answer. The sacred precincts of the Ketcham National Bank had taken on the aspect of a circus arena. H. R.'s erstwhile fellow-clerks looked the only way they dared--terrified! They would have given a great deal to have been able to act as human beings. "The reporters are in the president's room!" ran the whisper among the clerks. From there it reached the curious mob within the bank. From there it spread to the congested proletariate without the doors. Said proletariate began to grow. Baseball bulletin-boards were not displayed, but the public was going to get something for nothing. Hence, free country.