95
“What campaign is this, Miss Starkweather?”
“Sunday enforcement.”
Mr. Mix pursed his lips. “Really?”
She nodded. “We’re going to concentrate on one thing at a time. That’s first.”
“Close all the theatres and everything?”
“Tight!” she said, and the word was like the lash of a whip. “Tight as a drum.”
Mr. Mix controlled himself rigidly. “You’ll have to pardon my seeming indelicacy, but––” He coughed behind his hand. “That might bring about a very unhappy relationship between my family and yours. Had you thought of it?”
“Henry? Humph! Yes. I’m sorry, but I don’t propose to let my family or anybody else’s stand in the way of my principles. Doyou? No. If Henry stands in the way, he’s going to get run over. Mark my words.”
His expression was wooden, but it concealed a thought which had flashed up, spontaneously, to dazzle him. In spite of his age and experience, Mr. Mix threatened to blush. The downfall of96Henry meant the elevation of Mirabelle. Mr. Mix himself could assist in swinging the balance. And he couldn’t quite destroy a picture of Mirabelle, walking down the aisle out of step to the wedding march. Her arms were loaded with exotic flowers, of which each petal was a crisp yellow bank-bill. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to snort in deprecation, and he did neither. He was too busy with the consciousness that at last he was in a position to capitalize his information. He knew what nobody else did, outside of Henry and his wife, Mirabelle, Mr. Archer and probably Judge Barklay and if he flung himself into the League’s campaign, what might he now accomplish?
He looked at Mirabelle. Her eyes betrayed her admiration. Mr. Mix drew a very long breath, and in the space of ten seconds thought ahead for a year. The League was ridiculously radical, but if Mr. Mix were appointed to direct it, he was confident that he could keep Mirabelle contented, without making himself too much of a ludicrous figure. All it needed was tact, and foresight. “If I could only spare the97time to help you––but you see, this is my dull season––I have to work twice as hard as usual to make an honest dollar––”
“Would you accept an honorarium?”
“Beg pardon?”
“If you took charge of the drive, would you accept a salary? And give us most of your time? Say, four days a week?”
Once more, his thoughts raced through the year. “Now,” he said, presently, “youaremaking it hard for me to refuse.”
“Only that? Haven’t I made it impossible?”
To Mr. Mix, her tone was almost more of a challenge than an invitation. He looked at her again; and at last he nodded. “I think––you have.”
She held out her hand. “I’ve always respected you as a man. Now I greet you as a comrade. We’ll make this city a place where a pure-minded man or woman won’t be ashamed to live. I tell you, I won’t be satisfied until we reach theideal! And prohibition was only one tiny move in advance, and we’ve miles to go. I’m glad we’re going the rest of the way98together. And it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if you came out of it Mayor. That’smyidea.”
Mr. Mix, with the faint aroma of cloves in his nostrils, backed away.
“Oh, no, I don’t dream ofthat...” he said. “But I feel as if I’d taken one of the most significant steps of my whole life. I––I think I’d better say good afternoon, Miss Starkweather. I want to be alone––and meditate. You understand?”
“Like Galahad,” she murmured.
Mr. Mix looked puzzled; he thought she had a cold. But he said no more; he went home to his bachelor apartment, and after he had helped himself to three full fingers of meditation, together with a little seltzer, he smiled faintly, and told himself that there was no use in debating the point––a man with brains is predestined to make progress. But he couldn’t help reflecting that now, more than ever, if any echo of his New York escapades, or any rumour of his guarded habits got to Mirabelle’s ears––or, for that matter, to anybody’s ears at all––his dreams would float away in vapour. Perhaps it99would be wise to explain to Mirabelle that he had once been a sinner. She would probably forgive him, and appreciate him all the more. Women do.... It was curious that she had mentioned him as a possible Mayor. It had been his dearest ambition. He wondered if, with his present reputation, and then with the League behind him, there were a ghost of a chance....
100CHAPTER VII
There was probably no power on the face of the earth which could have driven Henry Devereux to the operation of a picture theatre, strictly as a business venture; but when he once got it into his head that the Orpheum wasn’t so much a business as a sporting proposition, he couldn’t have been stopped by anything short of an injunction. Immediately, his attitude was normal, and from the moment that he resolved to take possession of his property, and operate it, he was indifferent to the public estimate of him. The thing was a game, a game with a great stake, and set rules, and Henry took it as he once had taken his golf and his billiards and his polo––joyously, resiliently, determinedly, and without the slightest self-consciousness, and with never an eye for the gallery.
He was inspirited, moreover, by the attitude of his friends. To be sure, they laughed, but in101their laughter there was no trace of the ridicule he had feared. They took the situation as a very good joke on Henry, but at the same time, because gossip had already begun to build up a theory to explain that situation, there were several of them who wished that a similar joke, with a similar nubbin, might be played on themselves. They told this to Henry, they urged him to go ahead and become a strictly moral Wallingford, they slapped him on the back and assured him that if there was justice in the Sunday-school books, he was certain to finish in the money; and Henry, who had provided himself with several air-tight alibis, found them dead stock on his hands. He had known, of course, that he could count on Bob Standish, and a few of his other intimates, but the hearty fellowship of the whole circle overwhelmed him. He knew that even when they waxed facetious, they were rooting for him; and this knowledge multiplied his confidence, and gave him fresh courage.
And yet, with all the consciousness of his loyal backing, he was considerably upset to read in theHerald, on the very morning that102he took control of his property, a seven column streamer headline which leaped out to threaten him.
“SUNDAY THEATRES AND AMUSEMENTSMUST GO!”––MIXProminent Business Man Turns ReformerTHEODORE MIX CHOSEN TO MANAGECAMPAIGN OF LEAGUEPledges Enforcement of City Ordinances to the Letter
His first reaction was one of bewilderment, and after that, one of consternation. His friend Bob Standish tried to laugh it off for him, but Henry hadn’t a smile in his system.
“All right, then,” said Bob Standish. “Go see the judge. He’ll tell you the same thing. Mix’s nothing but a bag of wind. He’s an old blowhard.”
“Maybe he is,” conceded Henry, soberly. “But I’d be just as satisfied about it if he blew in some other direction.”
Henry took the paper to Judge Barklay, who had already seen it, and made his own deductions. “Oh, no,” he said, “I’m not astonished.103When a man’s in hot enough water, he’ll cut up almost any kind of caper to get out. There’s only two kinds of people who ever go into these radical movements––great successes and great failures. Never anyaveragefolks. I’d say it’s a pretty good refuge for him, and you drove him to it.”
“Well––does he mean what he says there?”
“Not too much of it. How could he? If he does half he says he will, he’ll lose his job. The town would be as pure as Utopia, and there wouldn’t be any League.”
“How about the ordinance he quotes, though?”
“Oh,that... it’s Ordinance 147. It’s so old it’s toothless. The City Council doesn’t quite dare to repeal it––nobody’s sure enough, these days, to get up and take a chance––but they don’t want it enforced, and they haven’t for ages.”
Henry frowned. “That’s all right. But suppose they did arrest somebody under that Ordinance? What would you do?”
“Fine ’em, of course. I’d have to. But I’ve never had such a case that I can remember.104There haven’t been any arrests. It’s an understood thing.”
“Yes, that’s fine––as long as everybody understands it the same way. But maybe Mix doesn’t––or Aunt Mirabelle either.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t worry much.”
Henry continued serious. “Oh, I guess I can sleep nights all right without any paregoric, but what right havetheygot to butt into the only day of recreation the working people have? If their immortal souls hurt ’em as much as all that, why don’t they go off and suffer where they can do it in peace and not botherus?”
The Judge laughed quietly. “Whence all this sudden affection for the working man, Henry?”
Henry reddened. “Strictly between the two of us, I don’t like the idea of Sunday business, anyway. But unfortunately, that’s the big day.... But, ifyouhad to work indoors, eight hours a day, six days a week, maybe you’d be satisfied to spend Sundays picking sweet violets out by the barge canal, but what would you do when it rained?”
“Of course,” admitted the Judge, “it’s a105poor policy to have a law on the books, and ignore it. Both of us must admit that. A good law ought to be kept; a bad one ought to be repealed; but any law thatisvalid oughtn’t to be winked at. And if pressureshouldbe brought on the Mayor to enforce that ordinance, and any arrests are made, why I’ll have to do my duty.”
“Yes––and here I’m raising a mortgage and spending the money on improvements that’ll hold us up for more than two weeks––and here Anna and I are going to live in a couple of box-stalls (every time you take a long breath in that flat you create a vacuum!)––and here I’ve been going to the City Commercial School every afternoon for two solid hours, and studying like a dog every night––and here I’ve resigned from the Golf Club, and everything else but the Citizens––and if theydoput the kibosh on Sunday shows, why I’ll be elected to the Hohenzollern Club. And the cream ofthatjoke is that Aunt Mirabelle’s outfit’d get itself endowed for putting me out of commission!”
“They won’t do it, Henry. These organizations106always make the same mistake. They go too far. They aren’t talking reform; they’re talking revolution, and people won’t stand for it. These reform crowds always start out to be a band-wagon, and if they kept their senses, they could do some real good––and then they march so fast that pretty soon they find they’ve winded everybody else, and there isn’t any parade. All they need is rope. Give ’em enough of it, and they always hang themselves. That speech of Mix’s has done more harm to the League than it has good. You go right ahead with your improvements.”
In view of the Judge’s official position, this was in the nature of an opinion from headquarters; and yet Henry delayed for a day or two before he signed his contract for the alterations. In the meantime, he saw Mr. Archer and got an interpretation of the will; Mr. Archer was sorry, but if Sundays were ruled out, there was no provision for reducing the quota, and Henry would have to stand or fall on the exact phraseology. He had another session with the Judge, and three a day with Anna, and one with the largest exhibitor in107town (who pooh-poohed the League, and offered to back up his pooh-poohs with a cash bet that nothing would ever come of it) and eventually he was persuaded to execute the contract.
Through Bob Standish, he negotiated a mortgage which would cover the cost of the work, and leave a comfortable balance. “We’re not going to be as poor as I thought we were,” he said cheerfully to Anna who had put in two hectic weeks on the apartment she had chosen because it was the cheapest in the market. “We’ve got something in the bank for emergencies, and ten thousand a year is two hundred a week besides.”
Anna was horrified. “You didn’t think we’dspendwhat we make, did you?”
“Why not? Uncle John didn’t say we had to show them ten thousand in coin at the end of the year; he said I had tomakeit––on the books. We can spend every kopeck of it, if we want to. And I was about to say that with six thousand dollars left over from the mortgage money, we’ll have a maid after all. Yea, verily, even a cook.”
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Anna glanced at her hands––slim, beautiful hands they were––and shook her head obstinately. “No, dear. Because what we save nowmightbe our only capital later.”
“But we’re going towin. We’re going to exert our resistless wills to the utmost. What’s the use of being tightwads?”
“But if weshouldn’twin, look where we’d be! No, dear, we’re going to save our pennies. That’s why I picked out this apartment; that’s why I’m doing as much as I can with it myself. It’s the only safe way. And just look around––haven’t I done wonders with almost nothing at all?”
Henry looked around, not that his memory was at fault, but because he was perpetually dumbfounded by her genius. Originally, this living-room had been a dolorous cave with varnished yellow-pine woodwork, gas-logs, yellow wall-paper to induce toothache, and a stark chandelier with two anemic legs kicking out at vacancy. She had caused the Orpheum electrician to remove the chandelier; with her own hands, she had painted the woodwork a deep,109rich cream-colour; she had ripped out the gas-logs and found what no one had ever suspected––a practicable flue; and she had put in a basket grate which in the later season would glow with cheerful coals. Over the wall-paper she had laid a tint which was a somewhat deeper cream than the woodwork. She had made that cave attractive with a soft, dull-blue rug, and wicker furniture, with hangings of cretonne in sunny gold and an echo of the blue rug, with brass bowls which held the bulbs she had tended on the kitchen window-sill, with bookshelves, and pictures from her own home. Especially by candle-light, it was charming; and her greatest joy, and Henry’s unending marvel, was that it had cost so little, and that so much of it was her own handiwork.
“Yes, but pause and reflect a minute,” said Henry. “I’ve sold the big car and bought a tin-plated runabout. I’ve sold my horse. I’ve sold ten tons of old clothes and priceless jewels. Financially speaking, I’m as liquid as a pellucid pool in a primeval forest. And there’s another grand thing to consider; I’m keeping110my own books, so nobody’s going to crack the till, the way they did with grandfather. Can’t we even have acook?”
“No, dear. Nobody but me. We’ve got to play safe. It’s all part of the game. Don’t you see it is?”
Eventually, he agreed with her, and went back to the Orpheum, where a score of workmen were busy remodelling the interior, and patching up the façade. He stood for a moment to watch the loading of a truck with broken-seats, jig-saw decorations, and the remains of a battered old projector; he looked up, presently to the huge sign over the entrance: “Closed During Alterations, Grand Opening Sunday Afternoon, August 20th. Souvenirs.” There was no disputing the fact that all his eggs were in one basket, and that if the Reform League started to throw stones at it, they would find it a broad mark. But Henry had plenty of assurances that he didn’t need to worry, and so he sponged away the last of his doubts, and set to work to learn his business with all possible speed.
It was his first experience with the building111trades, and he was innocent enough to believe in schedules and estimates. In less than a fortnight, however, he came home to his wife in a mood which she was quick to detect, no matter how carefully he disguised it.
“Oh, I’m just peevish,” said Henry. “The contractor says it’ll take four weeks instead of three, and cost six thousand instead of forty-five hundred. But there’s no use wearing a long face about it. If I did, I didn’t mean to.”
Anna slipped out of her big apron, and rearranged her hair. “Of course you didn’t. I just knew.”
“As a matter of fact,” he said, “my face feels long enough to fit in a churn. Only I was under the impression that I’d put on a mask of gaiety that was absolutely impenetrable.... Well, what’s happened in the ancestral home today?”
She had burned a steak and both thumbs; there was a leak in the plumbing, and the family overhead had four children and a phonograph. Henry kissed the thumbs, cursed the kitchen range, and forgot his troubles.
“You’re going to ruin your hands,” he said,112sympathetically. “Darn it, wecanafford a cook, Anna. Come on; be reasonable.”
She shook her head. “Oh! And I meant to tell you the wall-paper’s peeling off in the dining room, and the mostawfulsmell of fried onions keeps coming up the dumb-waiter shaft.”
Henry gathered her into his arms. “Dearest, in a year you can have a dipperful of attar of roses for every fried onion. And we’ll be so rich you can mingle practically on equal terms with the plumber’s wife.... Now let’s go put on the feed-bag. And by the way, I prefer my steak slightly burned––it’s more antiseptic.”
He never suspected that ninety-nine percent of her difficulties were imaginary, and that she had invented them as soon as she saw his face.
A week later, the contractor brought in still another schedule, and another estimate; Henry became Chesterfieldian in his politeness, and wanted to know if a contract were a contract, or merely a piece of light literature. The contractor was apologetic, but wages were going113up––materials were high––labour was scarce––transportation was uncertain––shipments were slow––
Henry was angry and disillusioned, but he knew that belligerence would gain him nothing. “In other words,” he said, genially, “there’s something the matter with everything but the Orpheum, and everybody but me. I congratulate myself. Well, when I do get the job finished, and what does it cost––not to a minute and a fraction of a cent, of course, but a general idea––what year, and––”
“Mr. Devereux!”
“And a guess that’s within say, a couple of thousand dollars of the real price.”
“I hope you don’t thinkI’m making any big profit out of this. To tell the truth––”
“Oh,Iknow,” said Henry. “You’re losing money. Don’t deny it, you eleemosynary rascal, don’t deny it.”
The man felt himself insulted, but Henry was smiling, and of course that strange word might be something technical. “Well, to tell the truth, we––”
“Come on, now. I know you’re an altruist,114but be a sport. You’re losing money, and the children are moaning with hunger in their little trundle-beds, but when do I get the job done?”
“The second week in September.”
“ThisSeptember? And the bill?”
“Shaved down so close there’s hardly any––”
“Shave it every morning; it’s being done. But what’s your figure?”
“Seventy-six fifty.”
There was nothing for Henry to do but to have a new date painted on the sign, and to draw on his reserve fund, but at bottom he was vastly perturbed. He had counted on a running start, and every week of delay was a vicious handicap. If he had remotely imagined how elastic a contractor’s agreement could be, he would certainly have thought twice about ordering so many changes––he would have steered a middle course, and been satisfied with half the improvement––but as it was, he had put himself in a trap. Now that the work was partly done, it would have to be completed. There was no way out of it. And from day to day, as the arrears of labour heaped up,115and cost was piled on cost, Henry began to lose a trifle of his fine buoyancy and optimism.
Also, it was amazing to discover that Anna was much less self-reliant than he had thought her. Almost every night she displayed some unsuspected trait of helplessness, so that he simply had to shelve his worries, and baby her out of her own. He adored her, and therefore he never questioned her ingenuousness; he didn’t see that by monopolizing his thoughts, and turning them entirely upon herself, she prevented him from wasting his energy in futile brooding, even if he had inclined to it.
He planned to open in mid-September, but a strike among the carpenters added a few days to the time, and, by virtue of a compromise, a few dollars to the account. The building inspector wouldn’t pass the wiring, and the electricians took a holiday before they condescended to return. When the last nail was driven, the last brushful of paint applied, the final item added to the long statement, the day was the last Friday in the month, and the total bill amounted to more than nine thousand dollars.
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“Anna,” said Henry, reflectively, “it’s a lucky thing for us this world was all built before we were born. Know that? Because if they’d ever started it undermodernconditions, there wouldn’t be anything to it yet but the Garden of Eden and Atlantic City and maybe Gopher Prairie.... Well, I wonder what’s next?”
“There won’tbeany next, dear. Nothing can happen now. And aren’t you glad I’ve made us economize? Aren’t you? Say your prayers! Say––’bless Anna’!”
“Not Anna––Pollyanna. Glad we economized! Why don’t you say you’re glad it took two months to do two weeks’ work because that gave me so much more time to study the game, and find out how to run the theatre? No, it goes back farther than that. I’m glad you caught me while I was so young.”
“Henry!”
“What? Don’t you remember how you pursued me, and vamped me, and took away my volition, so I was helpless as a babe––”
“Oh,Henry!”
“Sure you did. Funny you don’t remember117that. Or else––was it the other way around?”
“Well––”
“Well, anyhow,” he said, in a slightly lower key. “I’m glad it happened.... And you stick to me, and you’ll wear diamonds yet. Great hunks of grit, strung all over you. I’ll make you look as vulgar as a real society woman. That’s the kind of man I am. A good provider––that is, of course,providing.”
And on Saturday morning, theHeraldtold them that a committee from the Reform League had waited on the Mayor for the third time, and delivered an ultimatum.
“Oh, bother!” said Anna. “There’s been something in the paper every two or three days. It doesn’t amount to a row of pins. Dad says so.”
Henry inhaled deeply. “Did you see who’s on that committee? Mix and Aunt Mirabelle, of course, and if they’ve got it in for anybody special, I’m it. Bob says Mix is a grand little hater; he’s seen him in action, and he says to keep an eye on him: says Mix had lined up a buyer for the Orpheum, so naturally he’s sore at me.... And then a flock of old men just118under par––I’d say they average about ninety-seven and a half––but they’re a pretty solid lot; too solid to be booted out ofanyMayor’s office. And if theyshouldget the Mayor stirred up, why, we wouldn’t have the chance of a celluloid rat in a furnace.... I wish the Judge were where I could get at him. He’d know what’s going on.”
“Couldn’t you ask the Exhibitors Association?”
“Theydon’t know. The Judge is on the inside. Do you know when he’s coming back from his vacation?”
“Not for two or three weeks yet. But I’ve an intuition, dear––”
“Sure. So have I. A year from now we’ll be eating our golden pheasants off our golden plates with our gold teeth. But in the meantime, you better keep your eye on the butcher’s bill.... They tell me hash is a great nerve-food.”
119CHAPTER VIII
In years the Mayor was no chicken, but in politics he had hardly chipped his shell, so that he was still susceptible to delegations, and sets of resolutions, and references to his solemn oath of office. Furthermore, he had been secretly awed by Mr. Mix’s eloquence; for Mr. Mix, as spokesman of the committee, had delivered a speech which was a brief history of both common and statutory law from the time of Solon and Draco up to the most recent meeting of the City Council. Then, in addition, the Mayor had been mightily impressed by the personnel of that committee––chiefly old men, to be sure, but men of immense dignity and considerable weight in local finance; and also, for a counterpoise, there was Miss Starkweather. He hadn’t liked the way Miss Starkweather looked at him. She had looked at him with the same rigid intensity120with which his wife looked at a fly in the dining-room.
As the door closed behind the last of the committee, the Mayor drew a prodigious breath, and walked over to the window, where for several minutes he remained in deep thought. He tried to remember Mr. Mix’s peroration:
“Thousands of years ago, Mr. Mayor, when the race of man was still dressed in skins, and domiciled in caves, and settling its differences with clubs and brickbats, there was no institution of law,––there was no written language. But as civilization advanced, men found the necessity of communicating their ideas; so that they devised a form of speech which would enable them to exchange these ideas––such as they were––about life, and law. And later on, it was plain that in order to perpetuate these ideas and pass them to posterity, it was necessary to write them down; and so there was developed a written language, and by this method civilized men through all the ages have written down the laws under which they are willing to live. It would be impractical for all of us to meet together to pass our laws, and therefore121we elect representatives who make our laws for us. These laws are binding upon all of us until they are set aside by still other legislators, still acting for the whole people, who have chosen them as their legislative representatives. The duty of the executive branch of our government is to enforce those laws, whether made yesterday, or made fifty years ago, or five hundred years ago, and written down in our law-books.... This is our third conference with you, Mr. Mayor, in regard to one of those laws. I therefore have to inform you, in behalf of our committee and our League, and our whole city (whose representatives in City Council passed that law for our common good) that you stand today at the parting of the ways. You must choose whether to uphold your sacred oath of office, or to disregard it. And within forty-eight hours you will have made that choice, and we shall know where our duty lies.... I thank you for your patience.”
The Mayor was one of those who, without the first atom of sustaining evidence, had long been vaguely suspicious that Mr. Mix wasn’t122always as pious as he appeared in church. He had noted, too, that although Mr. Mix’s name was frequently listed on committees, yet it never bobbed up in connection with an obscure cause, however worthy, or among the names of unimportant citizens. He was convinced that Mr. Mix had an ulterior motive––political, social, financial––but the worst of it was that Mr. Mix had come with support which couldn’t be sidetracked.
The Mayor shook himself, and went over to his telephone; a few minutes later the Chief of Police strolled in, and grinned at the disordered semi-circle of chairs. “Been holdin’ a prayer-meetin’, Mr. Rowland?”
The Mayor was biting his moustache. “Sit down, Chief. I want some advice.... Lord, I wish Barklay wasn’t off on his vacation.... Why, I’ve just had a threat from this Reform League.”
“Threat? What kind of a threat?”
The Mayor didn’t reply immediately; he continued to chew his moustache. “You know that fool Sunday law––was passed ’way back in the year One?”
123
“Sure. 147. Dead letter.”
“They say it’s got to be enforced.”
The Chief laughed boisterously. “That’s a big order.”
“I know it is. The mass of the people don’t want it––never did. But in these days there isn’t a CouncillorIknow’d put a motion to repeal it, or amend it. Probition’s scared ’em. They don’t knowwhatthe people want, so they’re laying mighty low.... Same time, this League’s getting pretty strong. Mix, and John Starkweather’s sister, and ex-Senator Kaplan, Richards of the First National, Dr. Smillie of the Church crowd, old man Fredericks of National Metal––know what they handed me today?”
“Let her come.”
The Mayor snorted with disgust. “Hinted if I didn’t begin enforcement day after tomorrow they’d appeal to the Governor.... Lord, I wish Barklay was here.”
The Chief grinned again. “I know what Barklay’d say.”
“What?”
“Give ’em rope.”
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“We-ll ... that’s easy enough tosay.”
“Easy to do, too.”
“I can’t see it. But if they go up to the Governor, with a petition to investigate––and the state law’s pretty rough––and start impeachment proceedings––”
The Chief spat contemptuously. “Shucks, give ’em rope.”
“Well––how?”
“Why,enforcethe damn’ law––just once. Spike Mix’s guns––he’s only doin’ this on a bluff. Guess he wants the reform vote for Council, or somethin’. Keep it under our bonnets, and send out a squad of patrolman Sunday afternoon to raid every theatre in town. Bat ’em over the head before they know it. I wouldn’t even tell my own men ’till I lined ’em up and give ’em their orders. Then listen for the public to holler.”
The Mayor had broken into a high-pitched laugh; he stopped abruptly. “How many people’d there be in all the houses put together?”
“Six thousand. Five of ’em at the movies.”
“They’d start a riot!”
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“Oh, I wouldn’t pinch the audiences; just the managers, and bust up the shows.Thenyou’d find out if the people want that law or not. We say they don’t, but how do we know? Let’s find out.”
The Mayor sat down at his desk, and began to chuckle. “Chief, that’s a bully idea––but what’d happen on Monday?”
“Happen? When, five, six thousand voters got put out in the street and their Sunday afternoon spoiled? Fellows with girls––Pa takin’ the family out for a treat––factory hands? They’d be a howlin’ mob in the Council chamber on Monday mornin’; that’s what’d happen. Andonedamn fool law’d be fixed so’s the Police Department’d know how to handle it.”
“It’s passing the buck!” murmured the Mayor, ecstatically. “It’s passing the buck right to the people, by George!”
“Sure. Do we go ahead with it? Want anybody tipped off?”
The Mayor was hugging his knees ecstatically. “No, we’ll make a clean sweep. No favourites. The bigger haul the better. All the boys’ll understand. Keep it dead under your126hat. We’ll talk over the details tomorrow.” Chuckling, he leaned back and opened his arms wide, his fists closed. “Rope!” he said. “Rope! Chief, we’ll give ’em a hawser!”
On Saturday evening, Henry gave a special invitation performance, to which only his personal friends and Anna’s were bidden, and if he had cherished any lingering doubt of his place in society, it must have been removed that night. His friends didn’t know the details of the Starkweather trust fund, but they knew that Henry’s future was lashed to his success with the Orpheum, and they came to help tie the knot. Naturally, since the auditorium was filled with young people who had grown up together, and with a few older people who had helped to bring them up, there was plenty of informality––indeed, a large part of it had been scheduled and rehearsed in advance. Henry didn’t have to ask any questions; he knew that Bob Standish was responsible.
With Anna beside him, he had stood for127thirty minutes in the foyer, to receive his guests, and as smile after smile encouraged him, and he heard the steady stream of sincere good-wishes, Henry began to grow curiously warm in the region of his heart, and curiously weak in the knees. Anna moved closer to him.
“I told you so,” she whispered. “I told you so. Everybody loves you.”
“It isn’t me,” he whispered back, with ungrammatical fervour. “It’s you.”
They stood together, then, at the rear of the house, to watch the high-jinks going on in front. Standish had ousted the three-piece orchestra, and taken over the piano; two other volunteers had flanked him, and the revelry began with a favourite ditty to proclaim that all reports to the contrary notwithstanding, Henry was style all the while, all the while.
Then, suddenly, there were loud shouts for Henry and Anna, and they were seized and dragged to the top of the centre aisle. Standish swung into the Mendelssohn Wedding March, and through a haze of rose-leaf confetti and paper streamers, the two Devereuxs were forced down to the orchestra-pit. The house128was on its feet to them, and Anna, half-laughing, half-crying with happiness, was sorting confetti out of her hair when Standish clambered up on the stage, and waved for silence.
“Listen, everybody.... Old Hank Devereux and wife tried to save the price of a caterer, last spring, and they got away with it. Alas, Hank’s a jealous bird, and he was afraid somebody’d kiss the bride. Furthermore, Anna didn’t want to get any wedding presents, because they clutter up the house so. And when most of your friends live in the same town, it’s hard to get rid of the stuff you don’t want. So they buncoed us out of a party. Well, so far we’ve given ’em Mendelssohn and confetti. Any lady or gent who now desires to kiss the bride, please rise and come forward.... Hey, there! This isn’t any Sinn Fein sociable! Ceremony’s postponed!... And finally, dearly beloved brethren and sistren, we come to the subject of wedding gifts.” He turned to look down at the Devereuxs, and some of the levity went out of his voice. “We thought we’d bring you a little something for good-luck, old man. It’s from all of us. Hope129you like it. If you don’t, you can swap it for a few tons of coal.... There she comes!”
It was a magnificent silver tea-service, borne down the aisle by the two men who, next to Standish, were Henry’s best friends.
Anna was utterly speechless, and Henry was coughing diligently. The service was placed on the piano; Henry touched the cool smoothness of a cream-jug, and tried to crystallize his thought into coherence.
The applause had died away; the house was quiet, expectant. From the rear, a man’s voice said: “It isn’t like a golf championship trophy, old man––you don’t have to win it three times––it’s all yours.”
In the shriek of laughter which followed, Henry, with Anna in tow, fled to shelter. “Lights!” said Henry. Abruptly, the auditorium was dim. And with Anna holding tight to his fingers, he sat down in the furthest corner, and trembled.
For the next two hours, Standish, who was on one of his periodical fits of comedy, stuck to his piano, and dominated the evening. He played grotesquely inappropriate melodies, he130commanded singing, once he stopped the show and with the assistance of a dozen recruits put on the burlesque of an amateur night at a music-hall. He made the occasion a historical event, and when at last it was over, and the guests were filing out to the lobby, he came to Henry and held out his hand.
“Big-time, Henry, big-time,” he said. “See? They’re all with you.”
Henry cleared his throat. “You’re a peach, Bob. You got it up.”
“Oh, it wasn’t anything.” Standish’s cloak of comedy had fallen away; he looked as lazy, and as innocent and childlike as ever. “Before I go––I had a letter today from one of the big movie circuit crowd. They’ll pay you thirty-seven thousand five hundred cash for the Orpheum. I’ve got a certified check for a thousand to bind the bargain. Want it?”
Henry didn’t even glance at it. “Put it back in your pocket, Bob. I wouldn’t sell it for ten times that––not after tonight.”
His friend smiled very faintly. “It’s a good price, if you care to get out from under. Between131you and me, I think it’s more than the Orpheum’s worth.”
“Don’t want it,” said Henry gruffly.
Standish gazed with vast innocence at Anna. “Third and last chance, Henry. Otherwise, I’ll mail it back tonight. Just a few hours from now this place, right where we’re standing, ’ll look like a sardine-can come to life, and you’ll be taking in money hand over fist, and you’ll be branded forever as––”
“Oh, shut up,” said Henry, affectionately.
Through the jostling, good-natured crowd which blocked the sidewalk in front of the Orpheum Theatre, that Sunday at two o’clock, a policeman in uniform pushed his way to the ticket-booth. “Where’s the manager?”
The ticket-seller bobbed her head backwards. “First door on the left.”
The policeman stalked through the lobby, and found the door; knocked belligerently, and stepped inside. “You the manager? Well,132there ain’t goin’ to be no show today, see?”
Henry jumped to his feet. “What’s that?”
“You heard what I said. No show. Close up your theatre and call it a day.”
Henry turned, for moral support, to his wife: she had already hurried to his side. “What’s all this, Mr. Officer?” she asked, unsteadily.
“It’s police orders; that’s what it is, young lady.”
She seized Henry’s hand. “But––but when we’ve––why, you don’t reallymeanit, do you?”
He dug into his pocket, and produced a tattered, dog-eared pamphlet, folded open at one of the early pages. He read aloud, slowly: “‘Whosoever shall fail in the strict observance o’ the Lord’s Day by any unseemly act, speech, or carriage, or whosoever shall engage in any manner o’ diversion or profane occupation for profit––’”
Anna, holding tight to Henry’s hand, knew that argument was futile, but she was a woman, and she had a husband to defend. Her heart was leaden, but her voice was stout with indignation.
“But Mr. Policeman! Do you know who I133am? I’m Judge Barklay’s daughter.Iknow all about that ordinance. Nobody’s ever––”
He held up his hand in warning. “That’sallright, young lady. If you’re his daughter, you oughter keep on the right side o’ the law. It won’t do you no good to bicker about it neither––you go in there an’ tell your audience to get their money back, an’ go on home.”
Henry picked up his cigarette. He had no craving to smoke, but he didn’t want Anna to see that his lips were trembling. “Well,” he said, “there goes the old ball-game. And we’ve sold every seat in the house, and thrown away three hundred dollar’s worth of souvenirs, and the sidewalk’s full of people waiting for the second show.... Knockout Mix beats Battling Devereux in the first round.” He did his best to smile, but the results were poor. “And when we held off three days just so we could start on Sunday with a grand smash!”
“Get a move on, young feller. If the show begins, you’re pinched, see? You go in there and do what I told you.”
From within there was a sudden rattle of applause. Anna gripped her husband’s arm.134“It’s ... it’s begun already,” she said, breathlessly.
The policeman stepped forward. “You heard me tell you to stop it, didn’t you? What are you tryin’ to do––play horse with me? Now you go in there an’stopit, and then you come along with me an’ explain it to the Judge. See? Now, get a wiggle on.”
135CHAPTER IX
From the moment that he went out upon the little stage of his theatre until he came wearily into his own apartment at five o’clock, Henry lived upon a mental plane so far removed from his usual existence that he was hardly aware of any bodily sensations at all. A brand-new group of emotions had picked him out for their play-ground, and Henry had no time to be self-conscious.
In the first place, he was too stunned to remember that he hated to be conspicuous, and that he had never made a public speech in all his life. He was paralyzed by the contrast between last night and today. Consequently, he made a very good speech indeed, and it had some acrid humour in it, too, and the audience actually cheered him––although later, when he reviewed the incident in his mind, he had to admit that the cheers were loudest just after he had told the audience to keep the souvenirs.