Rope Part 19

"Oh, no, it's only a fact. But here--I'll run through the list for you. Have me pinched under the ordinance? Can't be done; the City Attorney's said so, and I saw the Chief of Police was in on it. Get an injunction? You can't do that either, because--"

"Why can't we?"

"Because I've got one already."

Mr. Mix's jaw dropped. "What's that? _How_ could you--"

"Oh, I got Bob Standish--just as a citizen tax-payer--to apply for a temporary injunction yesterday, to test it out. It's being argued this morning. Don't you want to come over and hear it? If I lose, I won't open next Sunday at all; and if I win, then the League can't get an injunction later.... What else can you do?"

"We may have other cards up our sleeves," said Mr. Mix, stiltedly.

"Just the place I'd have looked for 'em," said Henry, but his tone was so gentle and inoffensive that Mr. Mix only stared.

He shook hands with Henry, and hurried over to the Court House, where he arrived just in time to hear the grey-haired jurist say, dispa.s.sionately: "Motion denied."

Mr. Mix swabbed his face, and thought in lurid adjectives. He wouldn't have dared, in view of Mirabelle's opinion, to ask for an injunction on behalf of the League itself, but it had occurred to him that he might arrange the matter privately. He could persuade one of the old moss-backs that Mirabelle might be swayed by her relationship to Henry (this struck him as the height of sardonic humour), and the moss-back could go into Court as an individual, to enjoin the Sunday performance as opposed to public policy. But Henry had outstripped him; and furthermore, there was no question of judicial favour. The Judge who had refused the application was no friend of Henry, or of Judge Barklay. And Bob Standish's attorney, who by a fiction was attacking Henry's position, had claimed that the Sunday show was designed for profit, and that the price was merely collected in advance. This would have been precisely Mr. Mix's thesis. Henry's own lawyer had replied that since there was no advance in the price of tickets during the week, there was no charge for Sunday. A ticket during the week included an invitation. To be sure, one couldn't get the invitation without the ticket, but where was the ordinance violated? Would the Court hold, for example, that a grocer couldn't invite to a lecture, for charity, on Sunday, every one who had patronized his shop during the previous week? Would the Court hold that an author couldn't invite to a public reading on Sunday, every one who had bought his book on Sat.u.r.day?

The Court wouldn't.

And Mr. Mix, who knew Henry's income to the nearest dollar, went home and got a pencil, and covered sheet after sheet with figures.

Presently, he sat back and laughed. Why, he had had his hysterics for nothing! Henry couldn't overcome his handicap unless he jammed his house to capacity from now until August. No theatre had even yet accomplished such a feat. And it wasn't as though Henry had a monopoly on this scheme; in another week, all his compet.i.tors would be open Sundays, too, with strictly moral shows, and no money taken at the door, and he would have the same compet.i.tion as always. And yet, to be perfectly safe, (for Henry was fast on his feet) Mr. Mix had better frame his amendment to the ordinance, and set the wheels in motion.

With good luck, he could have Henry blanketed by April.

That evening, Mirabelle found him more animated than usual; and more lavish with compliments.

Since he had first seen Henry's advertis.e.m.e.nt, Mr. Mix had been as uncertain of his prospects as a child with a daisy; he had foreseen that it was only a part of a very narrow margin of fortune which would determine whether he was to be a rich man, poor man, beggar man--or jilt. Now, however, his confidence was back in his heart, and when, on Sunday afternoon, he placed himself inconspicuously in the window of an ice-cream parlour, squarely opposite the Orpheum, it was merely to satisfy his inquisitiveness, and not to feed his doubt.

He had to concede that Henry was clever. Henry had introduced more fresh ideas into his business than all his compet.i.tors in bulk. What a customers'-man Henry would have been, if he had entered Mr. Mix's brokerage office! Yes, he was clever, and this present inspiration of his was really brilliant. Mr. Mix could see, clearly, just what Henry had devised. He had devised a rebate: from a book-keeping standpoint he was cutting his own prices during the week (for of course the Sunday performance was costly to him) but he was cutting them in such a subterranean manner that he wouldn't expect to lose by it. Palpably, he thought that Orpheum stubs would become negotiable, that they would pa.s.s almost as currency, that when people hesitated between the Orpheum and any other theatre, they would choose the Orpheum because of the Sunday feature. But did Henry imagine that his scheme was copyrighted? Mr. Mix had to smile. Across the street, there were fully a hundred people waiting for the doors to open ... the doors _had_ opened, and the crowd was filing past the ticket-booth. The house would be packed solid from now until late evening. But when _next_ Sunday came, and all the other houses, relying upon Henry's triumph over the City Attorney and the District Court, stole Henry's thunder.... It was to laugh. Week-day business would be spread thin, as always; people could suit their own choice, and have the same Sunday privilege. And this would knock all the profit out of it.

Mr. Mix retired, in the blandest of good-humour, and on Monday he visited the manager of the largest picture house in town.

"I suppose," he said, "you're going to follow the procession, aren't you?"

The manager looked at him queerly. "Well--no."

"Really?"

"No. That bird Devereux put it all over us like a tent." He snorted with disgust. "Man from Standish's office come round here a while back and asked for a price for the house for Sundays up to August. _We_ thought it was for some forum, or something; and the d.a.m.n place was shut down anyway; so we made a lease. Next twenty Sundays for four hundred and seventy-five beanos, cash in advance. Then it turns up that Standish's office was actin' for Devereux."

The bloom of apoplexy rose to Mr. Mix's cheeks. "You mean he--do you know if he leased more theatres than _this_ one? Did he?"

"_Did_ he! He signed up the whole d.a.m.n Exhibitors' a.s.sociation.

There's twenty-two houses in town, and he's tied up twenty-one and he owns the other. Far's I can find out, it only cost him about six thousand to get an air-tight monopoly on Sunday shows for the next six months."

Mr. Mix drew breath from the very bottom of his lungs. "What can you--do about it?"

"Do? What _is_ there to do? All we can do is put on an extra feature durin' the week, to try and buck him _that_ way--and it won't pay to do it. He's got a cinch. He's got a graft. And all the rest of us are in the soup."

Mr. Mix was occupied with mental arithmetic. "Tell me this--is it going to pay him?"

"Pay him!" echoed the manager scornfully. "Six thou for twenty weeks is three hundred a week. Fifty a day. Twelve-fifty a performance.

Twelve-fifty calls for about twenty-five people. Don't you think he'll draw that many new patrons, when he can give 'em on Sundays what n.o.body else can? And everything over twenty-five'll be velvet. He'll clean up two, three thousand easy and maybe more. What beats _me_ is why he didn't get leases for the next hundred years. _We_ wouldn't have had the sense to block him."

"I'll tell you why," said Mr. Mix, choking down his pa.s.sion. "Because there's going to be a new ordinance. It'll deal with Sunday entertainments. And it's going to prohibit any such horse-play as this." He surveyed his man critically. "Does Henry Devereux belong to your a.s.sociation?"

"No, he don't. And he won't either. We don't want him."

"Then as long as you people can't keep open Sundays anyway," observed Mr. Mix carelessly, "maybe you'd find it to your advantage to support the Mix amendment when it gets up to the Council. It'll kill off any such unfair compet.i.tion as this."

The manager shrugged his shoulders. "If it wasn't for your d.a.m.n League we'd _all_ be makin' money."

"I'm sorry we don't all see this thing in the same light. But as long as the rest of you _are_ out of it--"

"Oh, I can see _that_.... And you and me both understand a little about politics, I should imagine." He grinned wryly. "Never thought I'd link up with any reform outfit--but why don't you mail me a copy of your amendment, and I'll see how the boys take it."

Mr. Mix agreed to mail a copy as soon as the final draft was completed, and he was as good as his word. On the same evening, he read the masterpiece to Mirabelle with finished emphasis.

"It's perfect," she said, her eyes snapping. "It's perfect! Of course, I wish you'd have made it cover more ground, but just as a Sunday law, it's perfect. When are we going to offer it to the Council?"

"Mirabelle," said Mr. Mix, "we've got to do some missionary work first. And before you can do missionary work, whether it's for religion or politics or reform, you've got to have a fund."

"Fund? Fund? To get an ordinance pa.s.sed? Why don't you walk in and _hand_ it to 'em?"

He shook his head. "I was in politics a good many years. We've got to get out printed matter, we've got to spend something for advertising, we've got to--approach some of the Councillors the right way."

She sat up in horror. "Not--_bribe_ them!"

"Oh, dear, no! You didn't think _that_ of me!"

"No, but when you _said_--"

"I said they had to be 'approached.' I didn't mean corruption; I meant enlightenment." He rubbed his nose reflectively. "But the cost is approximately the same."

"Of course, I trust your judgment, Theodore, but ... how big a fund do you suppose we'll want."

"Oh, I should think five thousand would do it."

"Five--! Theodore Mix, _how_ could you spend five thousand _dollars_ for such a thing? There isn't that much in the treasury! There's hardly _one_ thousand."

"My dear, if I were in your place, I'd protect my ante. I'd--"

"What's all that gibberish?"

"I said," he corrected hastily, "we've got too much at stake to risk any failure when a little money would guarantee success."

"Would five thousand dollars guarantee it?"

"If I had that much in cash, to spend here and there as I saw the need of it--take one type of man out to dinner a few times, where I could get close to him--loan another type fifty dollars if he asked me for it (and some of 'em would)--hire detectives to shadow another type--"