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 in their 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 the _Herald_, on the very morning that
he took control of his property, a seven column streamer headline
which leaped out to threaten him.
"SUNDAY THEATRES AND AMUSEMENTS
MUST GO!"--MIX
Prominent Business Man Turns Reformer
THEODORE MIX CHOSEN TO MANAGE
CAMPAIGN OF LEAGUE
Pledges 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. When
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 any
_average_ folks. 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. There 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 have _they_ got 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 bother _us_?"
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, if _you_ had 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 a poor 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 that _is_
valid oughtn't to be winked at. And if pressure _should_ be 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 they
_do_ put the kibosh on Sunday shows, why I'll be elected to the
Hohenzollern Club. And the cream of _that_ joke is that Aunt
Mirabelle's outfit'd get itself endowed for putting me out of
commission!"
"They won't do it, Henry. These organizations always 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 in town (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'd _spend_ what 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 to _make_ it--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."
Anna glanced at her hands--slim, beautiful hands they were--and shook
her head obstinately. "No, dear. Because what we save now _might_ be
our only capital later."
"But we're going to _win_. We're going to exert our resistless wills
to the utmost. What's the use of being tightwads?"
"But if we _shouldn't_ win, 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, rich 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 keeping my own books, so
nobody's going to crack the till, the way they did with grandfather.
Can't we even have a _cook_?"
"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 facade. 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 building trades, 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, sympathetically. "Darn
it, we _can_ afford 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 most _awful_ smell 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 going
up--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 think _I_'m making any big profit out of this. To
tell the truth--"
"Oh, _I_ know," 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, but 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."
"_This_ September? 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, and 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.
"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 under _modern_ conditions, 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't _be_ any 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--_Polly_anna. 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 remember that. 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, the _Herald_ told 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 just under 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 of _any_ Mayor's office. And if they _should_ get 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?"
"_They_ don'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."