CHAPTER IXA GLOWING PROSPECT
“It’sruin! All my fine plans gone for nothing! Durham, those rascals have outwitted us! They have got the lease of that place and our educational film project has tumbled to pieces like a house of cards!”
Professor Barrington came bursting out of the store building into which he had just rushed precipitately, like a man out of his senses. His spectacles hung from one ear. With one hand he clutched a bunch of his sparse hair. His hat was on awry and he looked as if he had lost his last friend.
“Hold on,” said Frank gently, as he caught hold of the speaker, who seemed about to collapse from excess of emotion. “See here, you’re all wrong. Those fellows have fallen into a trap. I’ve got something ten times better than that lease and— Help me in with him,” Frank had to appeal to the driver of the taxicab, for his charge was swaying to and fro.
The man jumped out of the machine and got their burden safely into the seat of the machine. The professor sank back among the cushions with a groan. He did not hear or was heedless of what Frank had said.
“Drive to the Parker House,” directed the latter. “He is not able to walk there.”
The doctored lemonade, his recent excitement and the shock of disappointment he had sustained, or all together, had overcome the sensitive savant. Frank supported him in the seat. When they got to the hotel he partly roused him.
“We will get to our room at once,” he suggested. “I have some good news for you.”
“Atrocious! Disreputable!” mumbled the professor, indifferent to everything but the apparent blasting of all his high ambitions. Frank managed to guide him into the lobby of the hotel and thence to the elevator. He got his charge up to their room. The professor weakly sank to a couch.
“I’ll be back as soon as I settle with the chauffeur,” said Frank, but his friend did not appear to hear him. He was moving his head from side to side and mumbling incoherent words, such as “pick of locations,” “the ideal place gone—gone!”
Frank paid the chauffeur and came back intothe hotel. He paused at the clerk’s desk long enough to order a pitcher of ice water for their room. He was starting for the elevator when a hearty slap on the back caused him to turn sharply.
“Hi, hello!” piped a cheery voice, and there was Pep Smith, brisk and lively as ever, his face on a broad grin.
“I had to bring him along, Durham,” spoke Mr. Strapp, extending his hand to his favorite.
“You bet he did!” cried Pep. “Why, as soon as that telegram came saying ‘All right,’ I told Mr. Strapp you had run against something big or you would never have wired so soon. We were at the depot inside of ten minutes and just caught the fast train.”
“Is it ‘All right,’ Durham?” inquired the ex-ranchman, showing more curiosity than doubt, as to the judgment of his young business associate.
“Mr. Strapp,” replied Frank animatedly, “it’s more than all right. It’s so good that I couldn’t take the risk of any delay. If I am not mistaken I have stumbled across one of those chances that come around about once in a lifetime.”
“Say, what is it?” pressed the excitable Pep, fairly wriggling with suspense.
“There’s something to tell before we get downto the real kernel of the proposition,” explained Frank. “Come up to the room and I’ll unfold my story. It has been quite an exciting one.”
“You don’t say so!” observed the Westerner. “Our wise old friend been making you some trouble?”
“Not a bit of it,” dissented Frank, “but other people have. You remember that fellow Slavin, who nearly put us out of business at Riverside Grove?”
“Hello!” exclaimed Pep. “Has he bobbed up again?”
“I should think he had,” replied Frank, and as they went upstairs, he recited briefly the eventful history of the missing satchel. Mr. Strapp looked pretty grim and his firm mouth set in a stern way. Pep’s fists worked as though he was ready and anxious for a fight.
“And you outwitted the miserable schemers after all; eh?” asked Mr. Strapp, as Frank told of his long distance message to New York.
“Yes, the satchel is here safe and sound,” replied Frank. “That hasn’t squelched Slavin, though. Come in,” he added, for they had reached the door of the room.
Professor Barrington lay on the couch with his eyes closed. He was apparently asleep. Frank ranged some chairs at the other end ofthe apartment and beckoned his friends to seats.
“Professor Barrington has just had a pretty bad shaking up,” Frank told them. “He must be weak and exhausted after the shock. I don’t think he had better be disturbed, and I will have an opportunity to tell you the rest of my story.”
Frank had left off at a recital of his starting out that morning to decide upon a location. He now told of the plot to trap the professor and keep him out of the way until Slavin and his fellow schemers got ahead of him, as he supposed.
“My! All that would make a regular motorphoto film,” broke in Pep.
“It makes me furious,” exclaimed Mr. Strapp—“to think that honest people are to be so pestered by such riff-raff! I have a good mind to hand this Slavin fellow over to the police on the charge of blowing us up at the Grove.”
“His associates would go right on with their plans, just the same,” said Frank. “They think they have got ahead of us.”
“Why, it looks so; doesn’t it?” observed the Westerner in a rather sober tone.
“It looks that way; but it isn’t,” answered Frank, a twinkle of confidence in his eye. “The big double store was never the place for a first-class show—I saw that at a glance.”
“But—being the only one?” suggested Mr. Strapp.
“Not at all,” was Frank’s confident reply.
“Why, you said the other store was so narrow it wouldn’t allow for four rows of seats.”
“Just that,” returned Frank, rather enjoying the perplexity of his friends. “But you see that was the professor’s point of view. This morning I made a discovery. The people who occupy the stationery shop have a lease as well of a big building at the rear. It almost connects with the shop. There is just a narrow passageway, and then you are in a great structure nearly fifty by one hundred and fifty feet. It’s been used as a warehouse. Look here.”
Frank took up from the table the sheets of paper he had been figuring and sketching on half the afternoon. He showed one which reproduced in diagram the space covered by the lease. Then he held up the columns of figures on the other sheets.
“Mr. Strapp,” he said, “I have figured it all out. We get that big building almost thrown in. It will make the finest auditorium you ever saw, as it will seat over five hundred people. Paint, gilt and other improvements will make it a playhouse. It’s away from the noise and crush of the street.”
“Yes, that’s all right, and it’s a dream; but what about the store space?”
“We will make a foyer and entrance of it,” declared Frank, growing enthusiastic as he painted the picture of his imagination.
“Think of it—the finest, roomiest entrance in Boston! Not a little box of a place, where people crowd and crush one another, but a beautifully tiled and decorated room. It will be dazzling with electric lights. The walls, frescoed, will be covered with pictures. There will be chairs, settees, comfort and elegance. We will have vases of real flowers set on graceful stands. Our patrons can rest, chat, fill their souls with their beautiful surroundings, waiting for the dispersing crowd to make room for them. We can make of the outside the most attractive front of any place of entertainment on Boston Common.”
Frank paused in his description as Mr. Strapp gave him a nudge. He turned quickly to observe that Professor Barrington had arisen from the couch. The old man, it seemed, had heard all that had been said. His eyes were eager, his face was flushed and his lips were parted in a delighted smile.
“Durham,” he said, “you’ve saved the day. It’s like a dream!”
“Which we are going to make come true,”cried Mr. Strapp, springing to his feet and waving his hand excitedly. “Durham, you’re a wizard, and we’re going to have the finest photo playhouse in the world!”