SULZBERGER AND THE SUBWAY Gelston Spring.

Copyright. 1908, by Thomas H. McKee.

NAPOLEONBULZBERGER, of Sulzberger's

Big Store, wearily climbed the steps of

the high stone stoop of his Lexington

Avenue residence: He entered and as

wearily ascended to the second floor

sbove. A low light was burning in hiswife's bedroom. His wife was sitting up in bed.

"Napoleon!" she exclaimed gladly. 'Where have

you been these times?"

Napoleon sank Into a cbalr at the bedside. He

waved his hand expressively. "Ah!" he exclaimed,

wiping hid brow, "such times! Such champagne sup-

pers! Such Coney Island entertainments! Such tour-

ing-car runs! You never see such things, Miriam, as

I have been doing. And money—it ran like water—like water."

I "Whose money?" gently asked his wife."My money," groaned Sulzberger, "mine." He

leaned back and was silent for an instant. Then,

with a linger on hiß lips, he rose, stepped to the door,

and shut and locked it,

"I got it,'* he whispered to his wife, across theroom.

"You got it?" she repeated, her eyes widening with

excitement. "No! Never!""Igot It, Miriam," he assured her once again. He

smiled into her eyes, but he was smiling to himself.

As he sat there, it seemed to him that every crisis In

his life had been attended by Miriam's sitting up In

bed at night and bearing about it. He rememberedthe first time, when he had bought old SchifTlein'ssecond-hand place, years before, for seventy-live dol-lars. It was an open stand on the street: not a store.On that night, as to-night, he had come home late, to

the one room where he and Miriam had lived, and

Miriam, with sleepy eyes and tousled hair, sitting up

in bed, had been told about it.

"Tell me," Miriam was now Insisting.Napoleon seized a piece of paper and placed it on a

magazine upon his knee. Once more he lookedstealthily about the room. Then, with quick nervous•trokes, he sketched a plan upon the paper.

"This Is Second Avenue," he said; "here is Sulz-berger's Big Store. So. And this," he continued, "is

where IT runa.""The subway!" exclaimed Miriam.His hand was across her mouth in an Instant.

"Sh-h-h-h-h!" he hissed. "Such a thing as this costme dollars on dollars to get." He leaned over andwhispered, still with his hand over his wife's mouth:"This here is the subway; the Second Avenue Sub-way of New York."

Miriam brushed his band away and placed a finger

oa the map. "What should this be?" she inquired.

"The station," he returned; "the subway station.

It'B Just two blocks from the Big Store."She groaned with disappointment. "That there sta-

tion should be by the Big Store," she protested plaint-ively. She was disappointed. But Napoleon Sulzber-ger shook his head.

don't see the point," he explained. "True,there is the Big; Store, and here is the station—twoblocks apart. That is not the point. The point is,

that there aro Just six people in New York—in thewhole world—who know about this here route andthese here stations. One of these six is you, one isrie, three is chief engineers who would not let wildhorses tear this here thing from them. This sixthman is this here young engineer who has been doing

things—all such things as can be done by young en-gineers, on my "money, every night I'or the last tendays. So. I got it out of him. He shewed me; he

\u25a0bowed me good and hard and fast. And I know, I

know what is to he done by these subway engineers v

and what they have planned. I have the knowledge,

just a littleknowledge.""A dangerous thing," his young wife quoted.

"Sure," answered Napoleon decisively; "this littleknowledge is dangerous, but not for Sulzberger's Big

Store. No. Dangerous for others. You wat.cn out.

You'll see. Think of it! .Nobody even knows that

there Is to be a Second Avenue Subway. Oh, talk,

talk, talk? Yes. And prices have gone up, of flecondAvenue real estate. Sure. But nothing certain. Butlook. When the old subway was built, people didn't

know—they did not know, how It would go. Wouldit be a success? Should it be a failure. Hem? No-

body could say. But now when they know. Why, allthe world will buy up Second Avenue."

With his finger Napoleon drew his rough map onthe counterpane, and placed hi« hand flat upon a por-

tion of it. "Napoleon Sulzberger," he concluded,

'\u25a0shall buy this here block, by this here subway sta-tion, for this here new Big Store."

Next day Sulzberger went two block* north, to look

fver the ground. Yes, It was all right. There washe cross-town horse-car line. That was the logical

place, tho only place for the subway station. For ten

blocks north and south there was no other place.

"I shall buy this block," he whispered to himself.Ho mused as he stood there on the corner. The de-velopment In rapid tfansit reminded him of hla owncareer. He had begun not so many years ago, selling

soiled cloaks at Schlfflein's little stand, along thehorse-car line. He and Miriam had lived in one room.Then he had bought up a little eight-foot wide cloak-

store on the avenue, and there had been the Elevated,

noisy, lumbering, clumsy, a thing that had to be, Justas second-hand cloak-stores had to be. And when,

the cables and the trolley-cars had come in on theavenue, Sulzberger had stepped into a plate glassfront and had sold new goods.

And now he owned the Big Store—a big bunch ofold buildings, repainted, connected together In a hugemass, added to, remodeled, strengthened, coalesced.Ugly it was, but it was Sulzberger's, where you couldbuy anything from a toothpick to a portable house.

"If this here subway only came to me instead ofmy going to this here subway!" was his daily thought.

But there was no help for it. In a week he had se-cured options on the whole block two streets north.He paid for them, and be got long options.

But Sulzberger, who had been haggling all his life,didn't haggle now. He wasn't buying real estate asreal estate; he was buying ground on which the New

Big Store would stand, sucking Into its open maw the

tens of thousands who would pass that way whenthe Second Avenue Subway had become an, accom-plished fact. He secured his options. Their totals

staggered him. But he knew that there was but onething to do. He must own that block. Otherwisesomebody else might build a big store on that corner.

Three months later he opened bis newspaper onemorning, and the blood rushed Into his face as heread a headline:

"SUBWAY FOR SECOND AVENUE."Yes, the public had it now. It was evary man's

secret And there was a rush for Second Avenue- prop-

erty. Sulzberger laughed in glee, and that night

again stepped into his wife's room, and again foundher sitting up in bed.

"I have been offered five prices for my building onthat subway corner," ha said.

"Then you should sell."Napoleon only laughed. "Who offers, do you think?

Yergmann!"

"Ah! He, the biggest of us all, he would invadethis here Second Avenue, he and his stores. Sure!"

Miriam gasped. "Yergmann—of Fourth avenue!"

"Ifhe should pay ten prices," ventured Miriam.Napoleon Sulzberger snorted. His blood rose in his

veins. "If he -should pay twenty Drlces." ha \u25a0»«•"he does not get it."

Time passed. Yergmann of Fourth avenue did hiabest to get that corner. But. assured of failure, he

finally desisted. And Miriam one day pointed out

the real estat.fi column to Sulzherger. Napoleon

chuckled. "Such a big fool!" he exclaimed. "Is hecrazy, that there Yergmann?" For Yergmann hadbought on Second Avenue affpr all, but not on Sulz-berger's new corner, nor on the corner opposite —that would have been disastrous. No! Two block*further up the street?

"Why, he will die two blocks away from that sta-

tion, just an I would die in my old store. He will bea back number. He will be out of It. Sure! to becure!"

So elated was Napoleon that, he went that very day

and ordered work started on his new site.. "Everything comes my way and Miriam's," he as-sured himself. He could not. foresee that six weekslater he would be leaning limply back in his officechair, with ruin staring him in the face. But that iswhat happened. The morning papers had it, and hadit unmistakably, not headlined, only stuck away in

a corner as a bit of unimportant current news:"CHANGES IN NEW SUBWAY ROUTE."

What changes? None that affected Napoleon Sulz-berger, until • • •

"What can this be?" he cried out In anguish. Well,it was there in all its ghastllness. The subway sta-

tion, had been moved two blocks north on SecondAvenue.

Two block! north on Second Avenue. Just whereYergmann of Fourth avenue was locating his newSecond Avenue Syndicate Store.

Napoleon tore his hair. "Who has done this here?"he cried. Next day he started to find out The cityhadn't done it. The commissioners hadn't ddne it.The contracting company hadn't done it. No one haddone it directly. It had merely happened.

But Sulzberger i knew in his soul that Yergmann

bad done It.Miriam tried to make the best of It. "You can sell

that corner, then, lor five prices."He shook his head. "The subway station Is not

there. People will not buy and pay five prices.""They will pay two prices.""Maybe; maybo not. But what of that?" returnld

Napoleon. "Do you not understand I have contractedfor and I am liable for the erection of that there newstore? It is a matter of hundreds of thousands. Theerection must go on. I am ruined, Miriam."

"Ifyou had only let well enough alone," sighedMiriam. .

Napoleon shook his head and shoulders. "No!" hethundered. "No! I did right. I should take chances.It Is right I tell you, my wife, we have weatheredstorms. Eh, little one? But remember this: I .shallstick it out, and I shall win out, if not to-day, then

to-morrow. Tf I fail I shall, fail for hundreds ofthousands. But I shall go on."

In his dilemma he started In by going boldly to thecommission, to the city authorities, to. various poli-

ticians, and to the contracting engineers. He wasplausible, persuasive, insistent.

"I should like." he told them, "that there shouldb« a station on thai corner for my store."

They laughed. "Is that all?" they inquired.Napoleon never yet had learned modesty in its

truest sense. He shrugged his shoulders. "No," he-went on. "Ishould like also an underground entrancefrom that there station into my store. I should likethat my sign, 'Sulrberger's Big Btore,'—so —should bs

placed where all could see.""Is that all?"Sulzberger showed his teeth. "No," he went on.

"I should like for all the guards, when these heretrains begin to run, to rail out at that there station—so—like this: 'Sulzberger's.'"

"Anything else " ."That ia enough," sighed Napoleon.But they were adamant. He twisted,,turned, and

tried a thousand new experiments. No use. The sub-way station was going (o be at Yergmann's corner,and it was there to stay. Yergmann simply had been

too big, too influential, to be ignored by the officials.Slowjy but surely the subway neared completion!

Slowly but surely Sulzberger's New Store and Yjerg-

mann'a Second Avenue Syndicate Store neared com-pletion. Both stores had been started late, and bothstores expected to open about one year before the

flrst trains were to run. All these things had takenmonths, years. And these years were making theirimpress on Napoleon. He grew thin, nervous, a bitwild-eyed. But he would not give up.

"Anyhow," ho told Miriam, "I carry this here bluffto the limit. I know what I'm up against, but theothers don't, and they don't know I know it, either."

And suddenly the time came when it was but amatter of four months or so before the old Big Storeshould move into the New Big Store two blocksabove.

"A moving sale," smiled Miriam and Napoleon. Itironed the wrinkles from their cheeks. These mov-ing sales warmed their hearts. A moving sale, welladvertised, meant money; lots of it.

"We shall fill that old store to the chimneys," an-nounced Napoleon. "I have been buying all over fora year, cheap, cheap, cheap, out of season, everything.Maybe we shall make enough money on that sale totide us over. Who knows?"

"We must advertise this sale—big!" exclaimedMiriam.

"We shall write them out together, you and I, littleone," said Napoleon.

What pleasure they took writing these advertise-ments! They knew how, too. Sulzberger's advertise-ments never tired you. They were always specific.They told you of one special bargain. They neverdescended to tame generalities. Miriam's announce-ments started like this:

1,346 Woolen Night Shirts at 80 CenU.How Did We Get 'Em?Why Have We Got 'Em?Why Do We Sell 'Em at SO Cents?What Are They?And so on. Her advertisements were like a one-

ring circus. They didn't confuse. Before you got

through reading them you knew more about Sulzber-

ger's than you did about the ball game. And Miriamand Napoleon spread themselves on this new moving-out-sale ad that was to out-Sulzberger Sulzberger.Finally they sighed with relief.

"All done but shoving 'em up next to good reading

matter," said Napoleon. He got the choice position

next day, himself, through himself, the proprietorand advertising agent of the Big Store. Napoleonalways got. his rake-off, and always asked for it."Now," he told his favorite papers, which meant all

the newspapers in New York, and a good many outof it, "just as it is. No mistakes, and no delays. Itgoes Just as it is."

The ad was to appear Sunday morning. By Thurs-day nigllt it had been all set up everywhere, and by

Friday night, possibly, it had been actually printedon the sheets that were to come out Sunday.

It was Friday night that Napoleon strolled downafter supper, long after supper, to look at his new\u25a0tore, and to look at the subway corner that wasn't

a subway corner. And he continued down toward

Ills old Big Store, stocked to the chimneys with goodsthat would set the public crazy Monday morning.

Suddenly he stopped and shivered.

"What's that?" he gasped. What was it? Someshuddering noise, as of a snowsllde. Somethingstrange, uncanny. Then he looked 'behind him. Then

he yelled at the top of his voice and ran."Look out!" he cried. "Look out!" For he had

seen a vision as of foundations giving way, of roofstumbling in, of walls bulging out, caving in. break-

ing into fragments. There had been a sound like

thunder, a huge cloud of dust, and he was running,

running, into safety. "Look out!" he cried to pass-

ers-by. "Look out!" He was half a mile away and

in a dark side street before he knew that he was safe.Then he crawled back. The crowd was there by this

time, and Second Avenue was choked up. With what?People? No. Debris.

Something had happened. The people were wild.Gongs rang. Ambulances appeared on the seene —though no one was actually hurt. But the havoc wastremendous.

"What is it?" he queried on the outside of thecrowd.

No one answered him. Then he saw curling up

above a big mound of ruins a tongue of flame. Inanother Instant there was a cloud of smoke, and afurnace of fire belched forth. Then he came to hissenses.

"It's Sulzberger's!" he heard some one say. Thecry went through the crowd: "It's Sulzberger's Big

Store!""The subway!" The crowd was taking up this cry

now. "The subway has caved in!" For the first time

Sulzberger saw It all. The subway, running as it did,in front of, and under his old big store, had caved in

under the weight of the big building. Its walls had

not been properly strengthened, some engineer had

been at fault, and Sulzberger's Big Store had dropped

Into the subway and was afire."Somebody's got to pay for this!" Sulzberger as-

sured himxelf when the whole truth dawned upon

him. He ran home as fast as his trembling legs

would carry him and told Miriam about itMiriam hit the nail upon the head. "How much

will they have to pay?" She was all business. They

knew about losses. And she divined at once thatthe profits of their big moving sale had gone, never to

return. "We ought not to lose a dollar by this," shesaid, "and yet • • * "

Then Napoleon shrieked at the top of his thin

voice. "Those ads!" he cried. "Those ads!""What?" queried Miriam."We've got to stop 'em," he Bald, "every one of

'em. If they see those prices in the paper they'll ap-praise our goods, when it comes to the show-down,

at half their actual cost to me, if they see those ads."Napoleon Sulzberger stood for an instant, motion-

less. Then he sprang to the telephone and orderedhis big touring car.

"I'll stop every paper in New York City on thoseads," he declared. "I'll see the head men. They've

got to stop 'em. I'll pay 'em to stop 'em. I don'tcare whether they've got 'em all printed or not." Hestrode to his desk. "Miriam," he said, "here is the

out-of-town list. Call up every newspaper in Jer-sey, or anywhere, that's got one of those »'is andstop it. Stop it! Understand?"

He reached home at seven o'clock in the morning.Miriam was sitting up in bed. "I did It," he an-nounced. He kissed her. "How did you come out?"he queried.

She laughed excitedly. "Allright," she answered,"except the Tannerville Times of Tannerville, NewJersey. They wouldn't itop the ads for love ormoney."

"They wouldn't:" he sputtered. "They've got to,don't, you see?"

"Yes." she said, "it'll be stopped. I had to buy thepapeK plant and all. Over the 'phone. It's ours now,the Tannerville Times. We've stopped it. Yes."

That day New York knew that the Second Avenuo

subway had caved in. New York knew that some-how it was the fault of the contractors. And theclaim agent of the contractors called on Sulzberger.Sulzberger only shook his head.

"I don't care to settle," he announced, "I'llsue.""Do you mind letting me know how much you

claim?" asked the claim-agent

Sulzberger yawned. "This Is no insurance adjust-ment," he said. "I won't tell you but one thing. Ihad that store filled to the chimneys with the best

goods in New York City, and when the proper timecomes I'll prove it. I'm going to sue, that's all."

For three months the New Store stood empty. Forthree months Sulzberger worked up a first-class dam-age suit against the contractors for the Second Ave-

nue subway. For three months they asked him toname a figure. And for three months he wouldn't doit. But there were things that he was finding out.There were wheels within wheels, and influenceswithin influences. And he knew, and the contractorsknew, that the contractors were facing a big damage

claim for the loss of Sulzberger's goods that might

run up to three-quarters of a million dollars.And one day Sulzberger came out into the open.

"I'm coming down to see you," he announced to thehead contractor.

He came, and the contractor saw him in person.

"What do you want?" he asked of Sulsberger.

Sulzberger smiled. "In dollars," he returned,

"nothing.'^The big contractor opened his eyea. "What then?"

he queried."Listen," said Sulzberger, and leaning over hs put

his hands on the knees of the contractor and toldhim his plan.

At the end of the conference, the big contractornodded his head. "I'llsee what I can do," he prom-

ised.And week after week Napoleon Sulzberger looked

down into the corner of the paper to find the "Sub-way Changes."

One day he turned to Miriam. "To-morrow," heannounced, "I begin to stock up my New Big Store-on wind."

Napoleon Sulzberger and his wife boarded the Sec-

ond Avenue subway train at the Bridge, and went up-

town. The new subway, completed six month* be-fore, had become wonderfully popular. Tne train wascrowded to the limit. The crowd hung onto the straps

and surged and swayed good-naturedly, as is the way;with New Yorkers in, and out, of rush hours.

"Huh-umph street," yelled the guard. And thetrain came to a stop, the tinkle of the bell echoedfrom car to car and the motorman swung his leveragain.

Suddenly the guard broke out again. "Hay—ho—

humph street," he announced once more. The crowdswayed toward the door. This station was differentfrom the rest. Far to the right was the wide en-trancp, of a well-lighted basement of a store.

"Where can they be going?" asked Miriam.

"Hay—ho—humph street," repeated the guard andstopped. Then in a stentorian voice that might beheard for half a mile—"Sulzberger's," cried the guard,as plain as day, "Sulzberger's."

"This is our corner," said Sulzberger to his wif#.And they passed out with, tHe crowd.

HE HAD BEGUN SELLING SOILED CLOAKS.

IN HIS DILEMMA HE WENT BOLDLY TO THE COMMISSION.

LOS ANGELES HERALD SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT.

. • - ?^ .-&VVifljfa®. f" ' .•'•:-

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Next week, THE YEAR OF PROBATION .*,**%»»