He sat down at his desk, brushed away a lot of letters, and said to his aide: "Barrett, I've got a man's job this time." Sandwiching for banks that had deposits of over one hundred millions appealed to Andrew Barrett. And the Standard Oil and the Steel Trust, also, held possibilities. After the S. A. S. A. got those he would go into business for himself. "Who is it?" he asked, eagerly. "Grace Goodchild!" answered H. R., absently. "Oh, I thought--" H. R. started. "What? Oh! You are thinking of business. Well, I'm going to put New York on the map at one fell swoop." Andrew Barrett beamed. At last, millions! All New York using sandwiches at regular rates! H. R. looked at his lieutenant and smiled forgivingly. After all, it was not Andrew's fault that the spring was not in his soul. "Barrett, men and women in all civilized communities desire three things. All of them begin with a B. Can you guess?" "Not I!" answered Barrett, with diplomatic self-depreciation. There are questions whose answers gain you mortal enmity by depriving the questioner of the greatest of all pleasures. "Bread, beauty, and bunco. You satisfy all the natural wants of humanity by supplying these three. Now men pay for their necessities with whatever coin happens to be current. I have sometimes thought of a state of society in which payment need not be made in interchangeable labor units, but in the self-satisfaction of accomplishment. I have even dreamed," he finished, sternly, "of making goodness fashionable!" "Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed Barrett, in indescribable awe. H. R. shook his head gloomily. "The trouble," he said, bitterly, "is that it is so damned easy to be good, so obviously intelligent, so natural! Men are bad, I firmly believe, because badness is so roundabout and expensive. How else can you explain it? Society, since money was invented, has craved for expensive things. Society is, in truth, expense." "Say, Chief, I don't get the dope about goodness being easy." "Probably not; it is too obvious. The early Christians died gladly. It was good form. Dying for God ceased to be fashionable. Hence universal suffrage. To die for God merely means to live for God. Do you see?" "No. The Christian part bothers me." "Let us be heathen, then. The Spartan mother loved her sons. Sent them to battle saying, _With your shield or on it!_ The axiom of the locality is the fashion of the place. To die bravely in Sparta was to be fashionable. If I can make goodness fashionable I'll do something that is very easy and very difficult. If men were not such damned fools it would be so restful to be wise." "Yes, H. R., but human nature--" "Exactly. We go against human nature always. God gave to men the precious gift of fear in order that they might overcome it. Man's fear to-day is to be good. Once upon a time men feared hell. It is now the fashion for Americans to think, _To hell with hell!_"