When Henry told his wife that he was counting on her for brilliant
ideas, he meant the compliment rather broadly; for he couldn't imagine
how a girl brought up as Anna had been brought up could supply any
practical schemes for increasing the patronage of a motion-picture
theatre. Indeed, when she brought him her first suggestion he laughed,
and kissed her, and petted her, and while he privately appraised her
as a dear little dreamer, he told her that he was ever so much
obliged, but he was afraid that her plan wouldn't work.
"You see," he said, "you haven't had very much experience in this
business--"
"Methuselah!" she retorted, and Henry laughed again.
"That's no way for a wife to talk. When I mention business you're
supposed to look at me with ill-concealed awe. But to get down to
brass tacks, I've watched the audiences for four or five weeks, and I
_am_ beginning to size them up. And I don't believe you can put over
any grand-opera stuff on 'em."
"It doesn't make the least bit of difference whether it's grand-opera
or the movies, my lord. It'll work."
He shook his head dubiously. "Well, even suppose it would, I still
don't like it. You don't make friends simply to use 'em for your own
purposes."
"Why, of _course_ not. But after you've made 'em, you're silly not to
let 'em help you if they can. And if they want to. And if they don't
then they aren't really your friends, are they? It's a good way to
find out."
Henry frowned a little. "What makes you think it would work?"
"Human nature.... Now you just think it all over from the beginning.
All our friends come to the Orpheum _some_ night, don't they? They'd
go to _some_ picture, anyway, but they come to the Orpheum for two
reasons--one's because it's a nice house now, and the other's because
it's ours. And sometimes they're in time to get good seats, and
sometimes they aren't. Well, we aren't asking any special favour of
them; we're just making sure that if they all come the same night,
they'll have the same seats, time after time. And they'll like it,
Henry."
"But to be brutally frank, I still don't see where _we_ get off any
better."
"You wait.... So we sell for just one particular performance--say the
8.45 one, one night a week--season tickets. Boxes, loges, and some of
the orchestra seats. And it would be like opera; if they couldn't
always come, they couldn't return their tickets, but they could give
them to somebody else. And that night we'd have special music, and--"
"Confirming today's conversation, including brutal frankness as per
statement, I still don't see--"
"Why, you silly. It'll be _Society Night_! And I don't care whether
it's movies or opera, if you make a thing fashionable, then it gets
_every_body--the fashionable ones, and then the ones who _want_ to be
fashionable, and finally the ones who know they haven't a ghost of a
chance, and just want to go and look at the others!"
Henry laboured with his thoughts. "Well, granted that we could herd
the hill crowd in there, and all that, I _still_ don't--"
"Why, Henry darling! Because we'd make it _Monday_ night--that's our
worst night in the whole week, ordinarily--and have _all_ reserved
seats that night, and then of course we'd raise the prices!"
"Oh!" said Henry. "Now I get it. I thought it was just swank."
"And it's true--it's _true_ that if you get people to thinking there's
something exclusive about a shop, or a hotel, or a club, or even a
theatre, they'll pay _any_ amount to get in. And _our_ friends don't
care when they come, and they'll _love_ all sitting together in the
boxes, or even in the orchestra."
"Who was Methuselah's wife?" asked Henry, irrelevantly.
"Why, he had several, didn't he?"
"Cleopatra, Portia, Minerva, Nemesis, and the Queen of Sheba," said
Henry, "and you're all five in one package. I retract everything I
said. And if I may be permitted to kiss the hem of your garment, to
show I'm properly humbled, why--in plain English, that idea has a full
set of molars!"
He left the mechanics of it to Anna, who merely conferred with Bob
Standish, and then with one of her girl-friends, and sent out a little
circular among the high elect; but even Anna was amazed at the prompt
response. The response was due partly to friendship, and partly to
convenience, but whatever the reason, Anna brought in checks for a
hundred season-tickets, and turned the worst night of the week into
the best. As she had sensed, because the insiders of society were
willing to commit themselves to Monday, the outsiders would have paid
four times, instead of merely double, to be there, too. It was
socially imperative.
"That boosts us up another fifty a week," said Henry appreciatively.
"And we must have a thousand in the bank, haven't we?... Say, Anna,
this bread and cheese racket is all right when you can't afford
anything else, but honestly, won't you just get a cook? I don't care
if she's rotten, but to think of you giving those dishes a sitz-bath
twice a day--"
"Not yet, dear. We aren't _nearly_ out of the woods. Society Night's
helped a lot, but we aren't averaging over two hundred and twenty yet,
are we? That's eighty a week short. So if we don't think up some more
schemes, why, what we're saving now'll have to be our capital _next_
year."
"But when a man has this much income--"
"Yes, and you owe ten thousand on a mortgage, and the tax bills
haven't come in yet, and you'll have an income tax to pay.... We'll
save awhile longer."
It was greater heroism than he realized, for she had never lost, for a
single instant, her abhorrence of the kitchen; nor was she willing to
cater to her prejudice, and work with only the tips of her fingers.
She had two principal defences--she wore rubber gloves, and she
sang--but whenever she had to put her hands into greasy water,
whenever she scrubbed a kettle, whenever she cleaned the sink, a
series of cold chills played up and down her spine as fitfully as a
flame plays on the surface of alcohol. She detested every item which
had to do with that kitchen; and yet, to save Henry the price of a
cook--now seventy dollars a month--she sacrificed her squeamishness.
There were nights when she simply couldn't eat--she couldn't draw a
cloud over her imagination, and forget what the steak had looked like,
and felt like, uncooked. There were six days in seven when the mere
sight of blackened pots and pans put her nerves on edge. But she
always remembered that Henry was supposed to be irresponsible, and
that a penny in hand is worth two in prospect; so that she sang away,
and tried to dispel her thoughts of the kitchen by thinking about the
Orpheum.
It was in early December that she conceived the Bargain Matinee,
which wasn't the ordinary cut-price performance, but the adaptation of
an old trick of the department stores. The Tuesday and Friday
matinees were the poorest attended, so that Anna suggested--and
Henry ordered--that beginning at half past four on Tuesdays and
Fridays, the fifty-cent seats were reduced at the rate of a cent a
minute. In other words, the Orpheum challenged the public to buy its
entertainment by the clock; a person who came a quarter hour late
saved fifteen cents, and the bargain-hunter who could find a vacant
seat at twenty minutes past five could see the last two reels for
nothing. It didn't bring in a tremendous revenue, but it caught the
popular fancy, and it was worth another thirty dollars a week.
And Anna discovered, too, that the unfinished second story of the
theatre had possibilities. She had it plastered and gaily papered, she
put up a frieze of animals from Noah's ark; she bought toys and games
and a huge sand-box--and for a nominal fee, a mother could leave her
angel child or squalling brat, as the case might be, in charge of a
kindergarten assistant, and watch the feature film without nervousness
or bad conscience. There was no profit in it, as a department, but it
was good advertising, and helped the cause.
In the meantime Henry, who at this season of the year would ordinarily
have gone to Lake Placid for the winter sports or to Pinehurst for
golf, was watching the rise and fall of the box-office receipts as
eagerly as he would have watched the give and take of match-play in
tournament finals. He kept his records as perfectly, and studied them
with as much zest, as once he had kept and studied the records of the
First Ten in the tennis ranking, and of all teams and individuals in
first-class polo. To Henry, the Orpheum had long ceased to be a
kitchen; he had almost forgotten that a few months ago, his soul had
been corrugated with goose-flesh at the prospect of this probation.
Since August, he had done more actual work than in all his previous
life, and the return from it was approximately what his allowance had
been from Mr. Starkweather, but Henry had caught the spark of personal
ambition, and he wouldn't stop running until the race was over. He
wouldn't stop, and furthermore he wouldn't think of stopping. But now
and then he couldn't help visualizing his status when he did stop, or
was ruled off the track.
He hadn't quite recovered, yet, from his surprise at the continuing
reaction of his friends. He was deeply touched by the realization that
even those who were most jocular were regarding him with new respect.
Instead of losing caste, he seemed to have risen higher than before;
certainly he had never been made to feel so sure of his place in the
affection of his own set. And almost more satisfactory than that, the
older men in the Citizens Club were treating him with increasing
friendliness, whereas in the past, they had treated him rather as an
amusing young comedian, to be laughed at, but not with. And finally,
he was flattered by the growing intimacy with Mr. Archer.
"A year ago," Mr. Archer once said to him, "I used to think you were a
spoiled brat, Henry. Now I think you're--rather a credit to your
uncle."
Henry grinned. "And I used to think some very disrespectful things
about you, and now I'd rather have you on my side than anybody I know.
I _must_ have been a raw egg."
"You'll win out yet, my boy--Ted Mix to the contrary notwithstanding."
"Oh, sure!" said Henry, optimistically. "I don't gloom much--only
fifteen minutes a day in my own room. I got the habit when I was
taking my correspondence course on efficiency." Even in these
occasional sessions of gloom, however, (and his estimate of time was
fairly accurate) he never felt any acute antagonism either towards his
aunt or towards Mr. Mix, he never felt as though he were in
competition with them. He was racing against time, and it was the
result of his own individual effort which would go down on the record.
As to his aunt, she had been perfectly consistent; as to Mr. Mix,
Henry didn't even take the trouble to despise him. He carried over to
business one of his principles in sport--if the other fellow wanted so
badly to win that he was willing to cheat, he wanted victory more than
Henry did, and he was welcome to it. After the match was over, Henry
might volunteer to black his eye for him, but that was a side issue.
Mr. Mix had said to him, sorrowfully, at the Citizens Club: "One of
the prime regrets of my life, Henry, was that you--the nephew of my
old friend--should have suffered--should have been in a _position_ to
suffer--from the promotion of civic integrity."
Henry laughed unaffectedly. "Yes," he said, "it must have raised
perfect Cain with you."
"I don't like your tone, Henry. Do you doubt my word?"
"Doubt it? After I've just sympathized with the awful torture you must
have gone through?... Tell me something; what's all this gossip I hear
about you and Aunt Mirabelle? Somebody saw you buggy-riding last
Sunday. Gay young dog!"
Mr. Mix grew red. "Buggy-riding! Miss Starkweather was kind enough to
take me out to the lake in her car."
"That's buggy-riding," said Henry, affably. "Buggy-riding's a generic
term. Don't blush. I was young myself, once."
Mr. Mix fought down his anger. "You're very much of a joker, Henry. It
seems to run in the family. Your uncle--"
"Yes, and Aunt Mirabelle, too."
"What?"
"Oh, yes," said Henry. "Aunt Mirabelle's a joker, too. She advised me
not to run the Orpheum in the first place; she'd rather have had me
trade it and go into something more respectable, and profitable.
Doesn't that strike you as funny? It does me."
Mentally, Mr. Mix bit his lip, but outwardly he was ministerial. "I'm
afraid you're too subtle for me."
"I was afraid of that myself."
"Isn't business good?" His voice was solicitous.
Henry was reminded of what Judge Barklay had twice expressed, and for
a casual experiment, he tried to plumb the depths of Mr. Mix's
interest.
"Oh, with a few new schemes I've got, I guess I'll clean up eleven or
twelve thousand this year."
Mr. Mix shook his head. "As much as that?"
Henry inquired of himself why, to accompany a question which was
apparently one of mere rhetorical purport, Mr. Mix should have shaken
his head. The action had been positive, rather than interrogative.
"Easy," said Henry. "Come in next week, and see how we're going to
turn 'em away. I've got a new pianist; you'll want to hear him. He
looks like a Sealyhan terrier, but he's got a repertoire like a
catalogue of phonograph records. I dare the audience to name anything
he can't play right off the bat--songs, opera, Gregorian chants,
sonatas, jazz--and if he can't play it, the person that asked for it
gets a free ticket."
"So--to use a colloquialism--you're going very strong?"
"To use another colloquialism," said Henry, "we fairly reek with
prosperity, and we're going to double our business. That is, unless
you Leaguers stop all forms of amusement but tit-tat-toe and
puss-in-the-corner."
Mr. Mix smiled feebly. "One expects to be rallied for one's
convictions."
Henry nodded, engagingly. "I certainly got rallied enough for mine.
That justice of the peace rallied me for twenty-five to start with,
and followed it up with twenty more.... But if you want my opinion,
Mr. Mix, you'll lay off trying to promote civic integrity with a
meat-ax. All you did with that Sunday row was to take a lot of money
away from the picture houses, and give it to the trolley company and
the White City--white when it was painted. And if you don't behave, I
won't vote for you next election."
Mr. Mix ignored the threat. "Come to a meeting of the League some
time, Henry, and we'll give you a chance to air your views."
He reported the interview to Anna, and she seemed to find in it the
material for reflection. She asked Henry if he thought that Mr. Mix
was deliberately making up to Mirabelle. Henry reflected, also.
* * * * *
In January, Henry had an interview with Mr. Archer, who went over his
books with a fine-tooth comb, and praised him for his accomplishment.
"But it only goes to show how the best intentions in the world can get
all twisted up," said Mr. Archer, gravely. "Here you've done what you
were supposed to do--you've done it better than you were supposed to
do it--and then because of that cussed enforcement that neither your
uncle nor I ever dreamed about, you're liable to get punished just as
badly as if you'd made a complete failure. It's a shame, Henry, it's
a downright shame!"
"We're packing 'em in pretty well," said Henry. "I figured out that if
we sold every seat at every performance we'd collect fourteen hundred
a week gross. We're actually taking in about eight fifty. That's a
local record, but it isn't good enough."
"No, you seem to be shy about--three thousand to date. You've got to
make that up, and hit a still higher average for the next seven
months, and I'm blessed if _I_ can see how you're going to do it."
"Oh, well, I'll have the theatre. That's something."
"Yes, it'll bring you a good price. But not a half of what you
_should_ have had. One thing, Henry, I wish your uncle could know how
you're taking it. As far as I know, you haven't swung a golf club or
sat a horse for six months, have you?"
"Oh, shucks!... When Uncle John went to a ball game, he always liked
to see a man run like fury on a fly ball. Nine times out of ten an
outfielder'd catch it and the batter'd get a big hoot from the
grand-stand. The other time he'd drop it, and the batter'd take two
bases. That's all I'm doing now. Playing the percentage. And golf
takes too much time--even if there weren't snow on the ground--and
stable feed's so high _I_ can't afford it. The fool horse would cost
more to feed than I do myself."
"And even if the percentage beats you, you've got something you never
had before, Henry, and that's the solid respect of your community.
Everybody knows you hated this job. Everybody's back of you."
"Up on the farm," said Henry, thoughtfully. "There was a field-hand
with a great line of philosophy. Some of it was sort of crude,
but--one day Uncle John was saying something about tough things we all
have to do, and this fellow chimed in and said: 'Yes, sir, every man's
got to skin his own skunk.'"
Mr. Archer smiled and nodded. "Your year won't have been wasted,
Henry. And when it's over, if you want to get out of the picture
business, you'll find that you can get a dozen first-rate jobs from
men who wouldn't have taken you in as their office-boy a season
ago.... Give my love to your wife, Henry, and tell her for me that
I'm proud of you."
"I'll tell her," said Henry, "but _I_ won't be proud until I've nailed
that skin over the barn-door."
* * * * *
On his way out, he dropped in for a moment to see Bob Standish. Bob
was at his old tricks again; and while his competitors in realty, and
insurance, and mortgage loans, made the same mistake that once his
classmates and instructors and the opposing ends and tackles had made,
and argued that his fair skin and his innocent blue eyes, his indolent
manner and his perfection of dress all evidenced his lack of wit and
stamina, he had calmly proceeded to chase several of those competitors
out of business, and to purchase their good-will on his own terms. It
was popularly said, in his own circle, that Standish would clear a
hundred thousand dollars his first year.
He winked lazily at Henry, and indicated a chair. "Set!" said
Standish. "Glad you came in. Two things to ask you. Want to sell?
Want to rent?"
"If you were in my shoes, would you sell, Bob?"
"I can get you twenty-eight thousand."
"That's low."
"Sure, but everybody knows you've got a clientele that nobody else
could get. Are you talking?"
"I--guess not just yet."
"Want to rent? I just had a nibble for small space; you could get
fifty a month for that attic you're using for a nursery."
"I--hardly think so, Bob. That's a pet scheme of Anna's, and besides,
we need it. It's good advertising."
His friend's eyes were round and childlike. "Made any plans for the
future, Henry? Know what you'll do if you stub your toe?"
"Sell out and strike you for a job, I guess."
"Don't believe it would work, old man."
"Don't you think so?"
"One pal boss another? Too much family."
Henry looked serious. "I'm sorry you think so. _I_ wouldn't have
kicked."
"No, I'm afraid I couldn't give you a job, old dear. I like you too
well to bawl you out. But maybe we'll do business together some other
way."
As he drove his tin runabout homeward, Henry was unusually downcast.
He didn't blame Standish--Standish had showed himself over and over
to be Henry's best friend on earth. But it was dispiriting to
realize how Standish must privately appraise him. Henry recalled the
justification, and grew red to think of the ten years of their
acquaintance--ten years of continuous achievement for Standish, and
only a few months of compulsory display for himself. But he wished
that Standish hadn't thrown in that last remark about doing
business together some other way. That wasn't like Bob, and it hurt.
It was too infernally commercial.
He found the apartment deserted. His shout of welcome wasn't answered:
his whistle, in the private code which everybody uses, met with dead
silence. Henry hung up his hat with considerable pique, and lounged
into the living-room. What excuse had Anna to be missing at the
sacred hour of his return? Didn't she know that the happiest moment of
his whole day was when she came flying into his arms as soon as he
crossed the threshold? Didn't she know that as the golden pheasants
fled further and further into the thicket of unreality, the more
active was his need of her? He wondered where she had gone, and what
had kept her so late. Was this a precedent, and had the first veneer
of their companionability worn off so soon--for Anna?
A new apprehension seized him, and he hurried from room to room to see
if instead of censuring Anna, he ought to censure himself. There were
so many accidents that might have happened to her. Women have been
burned so severely as to faint: they have drowned in a bathtub: they
have fallen down dumb-waiter shafts: they have been asphyxiated when
the gas-range went out. And to think that only a moment ago, he had
been vexed with her. The sight of each room, once so hideously
commonplace, now so charming with Anna's artistry and the work of her
own hands--her beautiful hands which ought to be so cared for--filled
him with contrition and fresh nervousness.
No, she had escaped these tragedies--yet she was missing. Missing,
but now half an hour late. And downtown there were dangerous
street-crossings, and dangerous excavations, and reckless motorists....
Once in a while a structural-iron worker dropped a rivet from the
seventh story; and there were kidnappers abroad.... The key turned in
the lock, and Henry dropped noiselessly into a chair, and caught up
day-before-yesterday's paper.
He greeted her tenderly, but temperately. "Well, where've _you_
been?"
She had to catch her breath. "Oh, my _dear_, I've had the most
_wonderful_ time! I've--oh, it's been perfectly gorgeous! And I've got
it! I've got it!"
He had never seen her keyed to such a pitch, and manlike, he attempted
to calm her instead of rising to her own level. "Got what? St. Vitus'
dance?"
"_No!_ The scheme! The scheme we were looking for!"
Henry discarded his paper. "Shoot it."
She waved him off. "Just wait 'till I can breathe.... Do you remember
what you told me a long time ago about a talk you had with your aunt?
And she said bye-and-bye you'd see the writing on the wall?"
"Yes."
"Well, I've _seen_ it!"
"Whereabouts?"
"Wait.... And remember your talking to Mr. Mix, when he said you ought
to go to a League meeting and air your views?"
"Yes."
"Well, I went!"
He gazed at her. "You what?"
She nodded repeatedly. "It was a big public meeting. I was going past
Masonic Hall, and I saw the sign. So I went in ... oh, it was so
funny. The man at the door stared at me as if I'd been in a bathing
suit, or something, and he said to me in a sort of undertaker's voice:
'Are you one of us?' And I said I wasn't, but I was thinking about it,
and he said something about the ninety and nine, and gave me a blank
to fill out--only I didn't do it: I used it for something _lots_
better: I'll show you in a minute--and then I sat down, and pretty
soon Mr. Mix got up to talk,--and you _should_ have seen the way your
aunt looked at him; as if he'd been a tin god on wheels--and he
bragged about what the League was doing, and how it had already
purified the city, but that was only a beginning--and what a lot more
it was going to do--oh, it was just _ranting_--but everybody clapped
and applauded--only the man next to me said it was politics instead of
reform--and then he went on to talk about that ordinance 147, and what
it really meant, and how they were going to use it like a bludgeon
over the heads of wrong-doers, and all that sickening sort of
thing--and the more he talked the more I kept thinking.... My _dear_,
all that ordinance says--at least, all they _claim_ it says--is that
we can't keep open on Sunday for _profit_, isn't it?"
Henry was a trifle dizzy, but he retained his perspective. "Yes, but
who'd want to keep open for charity?"
She gave a little cry of exultation. "But that's _exactly_ what we
want to do! That's what we _are_ going to do. And they can't prevent
us, either. We're going to keep open for a high, noble purpose, and
not charge a cent. And the more I thought, and Mr. Mix bragged, the
more I ... so I wrote it all down on the back of that blank the man
gave me--and there it is--and _I_ think it's perfectly gorgeous--even
if it _is_ mine. _Now_ who's Methuselah's wife?"
On the back of the blank there was written, in shaky capitals, what
was evidently intended as the copy for an advertisement. She watched
Henry eagerly as he read it, and when at first she could detect no
change in his expression, her eyes widened, and her lips trembled
imperceptibly. Then Henry, half-way down the page, began to grin: and
his grin spread and spread until his whole face was abeam with joy. He
came to the last line, gasped, looked up at Anna, and suddenly
springing towards her, he caught her in his arms, and waltzed her
madly about the living-room.
When he released her, her hat was set at a new and rakish angle, and
she had lost too many hair-pins, but to Henry she had never looked
half so adorable.
"Of course," he panted, "everybody else'll do it too, as soon as
we've showed 'em how--"
"What--what difference does _that_ make?"
"That's right, too...." He fairly doubled himself with mirth. "Can't
you just see Mix's face when he sees _this_ writing on the wall--of
the Orpheum?"
"I--I've been seeing it all afternoon. When can we start?"
"Right away. _Now._" He stopped, rigid. "No, we won't either. No we
_won't_. First, we've got to see the Judge--we've got to make sure
there's no flaw in it. And _then_--we won't _let_ anybody copy us!"
"But how can you stop them?"
Henry was electric. "What's a movie theatre worth on Sunday? When they
can't give a show anyway? I'll rent every house in town for every
Sunday from now 'till August! I'll have to go slow, so nobody'll
suspect. It may take a month, or _two_ months, but what do we care?
We'll play it sure. It won't cost too much, and we've got the cash in
the bank. We've--" He paused again, and looked down at her, and his
voice fell a semi-tone. "I don't know where I get all this _we_ stuff.
_I_'d have spent two-thirds of it by this time. You're the one that's
saved it--and earned it too, by gosh!" He lifted her hands, and while
she watched him, with shining eyes, he deliberately kissed the tip of
each of her ten fingers. "_That's_ where the money's come from," said
Henry, clearing his throat. "Out of dish-water. Only tonight we're
going out to a restaurant and eat ourselves logy, and you won't wash a
damn dish. It's my party."