Rope Part 14

He had committed himself to the preparation of an amendment to the ordinance, which should be more definite, and more cerulean, than the original, but he knew that if he pressed it too soon, it might topple back and crush him. The people could be led, but they couldn't be driven. And therefore Mr. Mix, who had naturally made himself solid with the reactionaries and the church-going element (except those liberals who regarded him as an officious meddler), and who had actually succeeded in being mentioned as the type of man who would make a good Mayor, or President of Council, followed out a path which, unless his geography of common-sense was wrong, could hardly end at a precipice.

He became, overnight, a terror to the boys and young men who rolled dice in the city parks, and on the alley sidewalks in the business district; and this was held commendable even by the church-goers who played bridge at the Citizens Club for penny points. He headed a violent onslaught upon the tobacconists who sold cigarettes to minors, and this again was applauded by those who in their youth had avoided tobacco--because it was too expensive--and smoked sweet-fern and cornsilk behind the barn. He nagged the School Board until there went forth an edict prohibiting certain styles of dress; and the mothers of several unattractive maidens wrote letters to him, and called him a Christian. The parents of other girls also wrote to him, but he didn't save the letters. He made a great stir about the Sanitary Code, and the Pure Food regulations, and although the marketmen began to murmur discontentedly--and why, indeed, should the grocery cat not sleep in a bed of her own choosing; and why should not the busy, curious, thirsty fly have equal right of access with any other insect?--yet Mr. Mix contrived to hold himself up to the public as a live reformer, but not a radical, and to the League as a radical but not a rusher-in where angels fear to tread. It required the equilibrium of a tight-rope walker, but Mr. Mix had it. Indeed, he felt as pleased with himself as though he had invented it. And he observed, with boundless satisfaction, that the membership of the League was steadily increasing, and that the Mayoralty was mentioned more frequently. He was aware, of course, that a reform candidate is always politically anemic, but he was hoping that by the injection of good-government virus, he might be strong enough to catch a regular nomination, to boot, and to run on a fusion ticket. From present indications, it wasn't impossible. And Mr. Mix smirked in his mirror.

Mirabelle said, with a rolling-up of her mental shirt-sleeves: "Well, now let's get after something _drastic_. I've heard lots of people say you ought to get elected to office; well, show 'em what you can do. Of course, what we've been doing is all _right_, but it's kind of small potatoes."

Mr. Mix looked executive. "Mustn't go too fast, Miss Starkweather.

Can't afford to make people nervous."

"Humph! People that don't feel guilty, don't feel nervous. I say it's about time to launch something drastic. Next thing for us to do is to make the League a state-wide organization, and put through a Sunday law with teeth in it. That amus.e.m.e.nt park's got to go. Maybe we'd better run over to the capital and talk to the Governor."

Mr. Mix was decisively opposed, but he couldn't withstand her. He had a number of plausible arguments, but she talked them into jelly, and eventually dragged him to an interview with the Governor. When it was over, she beamed victoriously.

"There! Didn't I tell you so? He's with us."

Mr. Mix repressed a smile. "Yes, he said if we draft a bill, and get it introduced and pa.s.sed, he'll sign it."

"Well, what more could he say?"

He wanted to ask, in turn, what less could be said, but he contained himself. "You know," he warned her, "as soon as we put out any really violent propaganda, we're going to lose some of our new members, and some of our prestige."

"Good! Weed out the dead-wood."

"That's all right, but after what we've done with the food laws and stopping the sale of cigarettes to boys, and so on, people are looking at us as a switch to chastise the city. But we don't want them to look at us as a cudgel. And this state law you've got in mind hits too many people."

"Let it hit 'em."

"Well, anyway," he pleaded, "there's no sense in going out and waving the club so everybody's scared off. We ought to take six months or a year, and do it gradually. And we ought to pa.s.s a model ordinance here first, before we talk about statutes. I'd suggest a series of public lectures, and a lot of educational pamphlets for a start. I'll write them myself."

She was impatient, but she finally yielded. "Well, we'll see how it works. Go ahead and do it."

"I will--I'll have the whole thing done by late this spring."

"Not 'till _then_?" she protested, vigorously.

Mr. Mix shook his head. "Perfect the organization first, and begin to fight when we've got all our ammunition. It'll take me three months to get that ready. So far, all we've had is a battle, but now we're planning a war. I want to be prepared in every detail before we fire a single more shot."

She regarded him admiringly. "Sounds reasonable at that. You do it your own way."

He was feeling a warm sense of power, and yet he had his moments of uncertainty, did Mr. Mix, for even with his genius for hypocrisy, he sometimes found it difficult to be a hypocrite on both sides of the same proposition. His status was satisfactory, at the moment, but he mustn't let Mirabelle get the bit in her teeth, and run away with him.

As soon as ever she got him on record as favouring the sort of legislation which she herself wanted, Mr. Mix's power was going to dwindle. And Mr. Mix adored his power, and he hated to think of losing it by too extravagant propaganda.

There were moments when he wished that Henry were more belligerent, so that special measures could be taken against him, or that Mirabelle were more seductive, so that Mr. Mix could be more spontaneous. He knew that he was personally responsible for the present enforcement; he believed that because of it, Henry Devereux didn't have a Chinaman's chance; he knew that if Mirabelle got her legacy, she would have Mr. Mix to thank for it. But Henry was too cheerful, and Mirabelle was too coy, and the two facts didn't co-ordinate.

Certainly there was no finesse in hailing Mirabelle as an heiress until Henry's failure was more definitely placarded. To be sure, she had plenty of money now, and she was spending it like water, but he knew that it included the income from the whole Starkweather estate.

She probably had--oh, a hundred thousand or more of her own. And that wasn't enough. Yes, it was time for Mr. Mix to think ahead; he had identified himself so thoroughly with the League that he couldn't easily withdraw, and Mirabelle still held his note. Of course, if the League could furnish him with a stepping-stone to the Mayoralty, or the presidency of Council, Mr. Mix didn't care to withdraw from it anyway; nor would he falter in his allegiance as long as he had a chance at an heiress. He wished that Henry would show fight, but Henry hadn't even joined the Exhibitors a.s.sociation. It was so much easier to fight when the other fellow offered resistance. Henry merely smiled; you couldn't tell whether he were despondent or not. But if he wouldn't fight, there was always the thin possibility that he might be satisfied with his progress. And that would be unfortunate for Mr.

Mix.

There was something else; suppose Mirabelle got her legacy, and Mr.

Mix volunteered to share it with her. He was reasonably confident that she would consent; her symptoms were already on the surface. But how, in such event, could Mr. Mix regulate the habits which were so precious to him? How could he hide his fondness for his cigar, and his night-cap, his predilection for burlesque shows and boxing bouts and blonde stenographers? It was difficult enough, even now, and he had eaten enough trochees and coffee beans to sink a frigate, and he had been able only once to get away to New York--"to clean up his affairs." How could he manage his alternative self when Mirabelle had him under constant and intimate supervision?

Still, all that could be arranged. For twenty years he had gone to New York, regularly, on irregular business and not a soul in town was any the wiser; it was simply necessary to discover what "business" could summon him if he were married, independent, and a professional reformer. Mr. Mix, who was always a few lengths ahead of the calendar, procured the addresses of a metropolitan anti-cigarette conference, and a watch-and-ward society, and humbly applied by mail for membership. An alibi is exactly the opposite of an egg; the older it is, the better.

CHAPTER X

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 bra.s.s 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 sw.a.n.k."

"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!"