Rope Part 15

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 princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sistant, 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-cla.s.s 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 compet.i.tion 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 amus.e.m.e.nt but t.i.t-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."