Holworthy Hall

“ Simply marrying for money? If it didn’t make any difference to Mirabelle, it certainly didn’t to Mr. Mix. And what booted the rest of the world? Why should he concern himself with all the petty spite and gossip of a town which wasn’t even progressive enough to have an art museum or a flying field, to say nothing of a good fight-club? Let ’em gossip.... But just the same, he wished that Mirabelle had been willing to keep the engagement a secret. Mr. Mix was sure to encounter Henry, once in a while, at the Citizens Club, and he didn’t like to visualize Henry’s smile. ”

“ It would make them the most conspicuous pair in the whole community: older people would point to them as an illustration of justice visited on blind youth, and would chuckle to observe Henry in the process of receiving his come-uppance: the younger set would quake with merriment and poor jokes and sly allusions to Henry’s ancient grandeur. Even Bob Standish would have to hide his amusement; why, Bob himself had made society and success his fetiches. And Anna––Anna who was so ambitious for him––how could she endure the status of a cheap showman’s wife? ”

“ Mr. Mix sat back and pondered. He knew enough about the motion-picture business to realize that the Sunday performances made up the backbone of the week. He knew enough about the Orpheum to know that Henry’s quota, which under normal conditions would require only diligence, and initiative, and originality to reach, would be literally impossible if Sundays were taken from the schedule. ”

“ His friend Standish, gazing with childlike solemnity out of his big blue eyes, listened to both sides of the story, and to Henry’s miscalculation, at no time during the recital did he laugh uproariously, or exclaim compassionately, or indicate that he shared any of Henry’s conclusions:
“Oh, yes,” he said, “people might giggle a bit. But they always giggle at a man’s first shot at business, anyway. Like his first pair of long trousers. It’s done. But how many times will they do it? A thousand? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? At maybe seven dollars a giggle? ”

“ The League’s 90 blue-law campaign, if it proved successful, would make Henry Devereux even bluer than Mr. Mix. “Three rousing cheers for reform!” said Mr. Mix, and grinned at the pamphlet.
Another brilliant thought infected him. He had long since passed the stage in which women were a mystery to him: he had long since realized that unless a man’s passions intervene, there is nothing more mysterious about women than about men. ”

“ We can take care of ourselves.”
“Sure we can,” he said, easily. “Maybe I could get a job keeping the books for the League!... Seriously, though, I’ve had two or three different propositions put up to me over at the Club ... but Lord! how I hate to be licked! Well––let’s train our gigantic intellects on the job, and finish out the heat, anyway.”
She went back to her hated housekeeping, and Henry went back to his hated theater, and for another week they labored and pinched and saved, each in a specific purpose, and each in desperate support of the other’s loyalty and sacrifice. ”

“ Mix knew that he was brainier than John Starkweather; he admitted it. Brainier, smoother, quicker of wit, and more polished. But Starkweather’s office handled the bulk of local realty transactions; it wrote more insurance than all of its competitors in a mass; it loaned almost as much money, on mortgage, as the Trust and Savings. And Mr. Mix, Broker, was on the verge of bankruptcy. Luck! ”

“ Mix had shaken with consternation when he saw the advertisement of the Orpheum, Henry shook with far different sentiments when he saw the announcement in eulogy of Mr. Mix. It was clear in his mind, now, that Mr. Mix wasn’t the sort of man to marry on speculation; Henry guessed that Mirabelle had confided to him the terms of the trust agreement, and that Mr. Mix (who had shaken his head, negatively, when Henry estimated his profits) had decided that Henry was out of the running, and that Mirabelle had a walkover. ”

“ And it was a tribute to the mutual affection of all three men that Henry had never been irritated at Mr. Starkweather, nor resentful towards his friend. On the contrary, he admitted that unless he were himself, he would rather be Standish than anyone else. He wondered if his uncle could have planned for him so delightful a penance as a year or two of happy servitude under Bob. He must see Bob and congratulate him. Only twenty-seven, and the head of the most important concern of its type in several counties.
Aunt Mirabelle sniffed. “Good for nothing. He’s most as scatter-brained as you are.” ”

“ Henry continued serious. “Oh, I guess I can sleep nights all right without any paregoric, but what right have they got to butt into the only day of recreation the working people have? If their immortal souls hurt ’em as much as all that, why don’t they go off and suffer where they can do it in peace and not bother us?” ”

“ Mirabelle made herself too conspicuous. But even if Mirabelle 273 stuck to her colours, Mr. Mix needn’t hesitate to drift away––that is, after he had received his settlement. Late in August, he would make a trip to New York on business––reform business––and in the glare of the flaming-arcs, he would compensate himself for his years of penance. Mirabelle was sharp, but (he smiled reminiscently) in Chicago he had once managed to hoodwink her; and what man has done, man can do. ”

“ Henry was mystified; for the Herald had always professed to be in utter sympathy with the workingman.
Later in the day, however, he saw the leading exhibitor in town, who winked at him. “Clever stuff, Devereux, clever stuff. ’Course, if we put up a roar, they’ll say it’s because we’ve got an ax to grind. Sure we have. But the Herald wants the people––the people that come to our shows––to get up and blat. Then it wouldn’t be the League against the Association––it’d be the people against the League, and the laugh’d be on the other foot.” ”

“ Henry laughed explosively. “Impatience, as I’ve pointed out so often to Aunt Mirabelle, dries the blood more than age or sorrow. Yes, I’m mad, but I’ve put it on ice. I’m trying to work out some scheme to keep us in the running, and not give Mix too good an excuse to hoot at us. No––they say it’s darkest just before the dawn, so I’m trying to fix it so we’ll be sitting on the front steps to see the sunrise. Only so far I haven’t had a mortal thought.”
“As a matter of fact,” she confided, “I loathed the idea of our running the Orpheum on Sundays. ”

“ He should always feel as though he had worked for it, instead of having it handed out to him on a platter, regardless of his personal deserts. Yes, he would work faithfully, and because the task would be within his capabilities, (for Mr. Starkweather was sane and practical, and Mr. Archer had prophesied a finish with something to spare) he would end his probation in a blaze of glory, and Anna would be proud of him, Judge Barklay would approve of him, and Aunt Mirabelle would have to revise her estimate of him. ”

“ Miss Starkweather, who met him on the 151 street that morning, told him the same thing. “Some people,” she remarked, altitudinously, “are always getting their toes stepped on, aren’t they? Well, there’s another way to look at it––the toes oughtn’t to have been there.”
“Oh, give us time,” said Henry, pleasantly. “Even the worm turns, you know.”
“Humph!” said Aunt Mirabelle. “Let a dozen worms do a dozen turns! I never thought I’d see the day when a Devereux––almost the same thing as a Starkweather––’d figure in a disgrace such as yours. You’ve heaped muck on your uncle’s parlour-carpet. ”

“ And so, at college, a full battalion of kindly sophomores had volunteered to teach him poker, and couldn’t understand why the profits went not to the teacher, but to the pupil. Immature professors, who liked to score off idlers and fat-brained sons of plutocrats, had selected him as the perfect target, and some of them had required several terms to realize that Standish, always baby-eyed, beau-attired and apparently dreaming of far distant things, was never lower in rank than the top twenty of his class. ”

“ Mix was always urging her to live in a better neighbourhood, 301 but with only her own two hundred and fifty a month, and four hundred more from Henry, she could hardly afford it,––certainly not while she gave so generously to the Reform League.
She thought of the big brick house on the hill and sighed profoundly. She would have made it a national shrine, and Henry––Henry was even worse than his uncle. He kept it full of people who were satisfied to squander the precious stuff of life by enjoying themselves. It made her sick, simply to think of Henry. ”

“ And even if she had been willing to ally himself with such a business, how could he conceivably make ten thousand dollars out of it in a single year? Ten? It would take a genius to make five. An inexperienced man, with luck, might make two or three. He couldn’t afford to hire a trained man to manage it for him: the place was too small to support such a man, and still to net any appreciable profit. Mr. Starkweather had undoubtedly foreseen this very fact––foreseen that Henry couldn’t sit back as a magnate, and pile responsibility on a paid 66 employé. ”

“ Henry reddened. “Strictly between the two of us, I don’t like the idea of Sunday business, anyway. But unfortunately, that’s the big day.... But, if you had to work indoors, eight hours a day, six days a week, maybe you’d be satisfied to spend Sundays picking sweet violets out by the barge canal, but what would you do when it rained?”
“Of course,” admitted the Judge, “it’s a 105 poor policy to have a law on the books, and ignore it. Both of us must admit that. A good law ought to be kept; a bad one ought to be repealed; but any law that is valid oughtn’t to be winked at. ”

“ He struggled to understand his uncle’s purpose; his uncle’s logic. To break down his class prejudice, and teach him the dimes in a dollar, and put him on the level of a workingman? All that could have been accomplished by far less drastic methods. It could have been accomplished by a tour of duty with Bob. To be sure, Mr. Starkweather had promised him the meanest job in the directory, but Henry had put it down as a figure of speech. ”

“ You’ve got the wrong bird. It’s crow.”
“No, but Henry dear, you aren’t going to be a quitter, are you?”
“Wife of my bosom, do you realize what you’re talking about? It would cost a thousand dollars just to make the place clean. It’ll cost three or four more to make it attractive enough to get anybody inside of it. And I haven’t got the price.”
“What’s the matter with a mortgage?” demanded the Judge. “And you’ve got a car, haven’t you? You’ve got a saddle-horse. You’ve got all kinds of junk you can turn into money.” ”

“ She held out her hand. “I’ve always respected you as a man. Now I greet you as a comrade. We’ll make this city a place where a pure-minded man or woman won’t be ashamed to live. I tell you, I won’t be satisfied until we reach the ideal! And prohibition was only one tiny move in advance, and we’ve miles to go. I’m glad we’re going the rest of the way 98 together. And it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if you came out of it Mayor. That’s my idea.”
Mr. Mix, with the faint aroma of cloves in his nostrils, backed away. ”

“ And besides, anybody can give money––just money. What we need most is men. Let me do something different. You’re one of the big men here. You count for a good deal. We want you. I said I’d give ’em a surprise––let me make the League a present of you.” She bestowed upon him a smile which was a startling combination of sharpness and appeal. “I’m certainly going to keep my promise, Mr. Mix. I’m going to give ’em one or the other––you or the five thousand. Only I tell you in all sincerity, I’d rather it would be you.”
Mr. Mix sat up with a jerk. The climax had been reached six months too soon. ”

“ 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 the side that scores first doesn’t always win the game, either––I dare say you’ve noticed it. It’ll come out all right––you just wait and see what happens.”
Henry waited, and he saw. And to Henry’s dismay, and to the Mayor’s chagrin, and to Miss Mirabelle Starkweather’s exceeding complacence, nothing happened at all. ”

“ Standish’s cloak of comedy had fallen away; he looked as lazy, and as innocent and childlike as ever. “Before I go––I had a letter today from one of the big movie circuit crowd. They’ll pay you thirty-seven thousand five hundred cash for the Orpheum. I’ve got a certified check for a thousand to bind the bargain. Want it?”
Henry didn’t even glance at it. “Put it back in your pocket, Bob. I wouldn’t sell it for ten times that––not after tonight.”
His friend smiled very faintly. “It’s a good price, if you care to get out from under. ”

“ 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 competitors would be open Sundays, too, with strictly moral shows, and no money taken at the door, and he would have the same competition as always. And yet, to be perfectly safe, (for Henry was fast on his feet) Mr. Mix had better frame his amendment to the 219 ordinance, and set the wheels in motion. With good luck, he could have Henry blanketed by April. ”