A GLOWING PROSPECT
“It’s ruin! 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 into the 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 down to 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 of the
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!”