Rope Part 16

"And even if the percentage beats you, you've got something you never had before, Henry, and that's the solid respect of your community.

Everybody knows you hated this job. Everybody's back of you."

"Up on the farm," said Henry, thoughtfully. "There was a field-hand with a great line of philosophy. Some of it was sort of crude, but--one day Uncle John was saying something about tough things we all have to do, and this fellow chimed in and said: 'Yes, sir, every man's got to skin his own skunk.'"

Mr. Archer smiled and nodded. "Your year won't have been wasted, Henry. And when it's over, if you want to get out of the picture business, you'll find that you can get a dozen first-rate jobs from men who wouldn't have taken you in as their office-boy a season ago.... Give my love to your wife, Henry, and tell her for me that I'm proud of you."

"I'll tell her," said Henry, "but _I_ won't be proud until I've nailed that skin over the barn-door."

On his way out, he dropped in for a moment to see Bob Standish. Bob was at his old tricks again; and while his compet.i.tors in realty, and insurance, and mortgage loans, made the same mistake that once his cla.s.smates and instructors and the opposing ends and tackles had made, and argued that his fair skin and his innocent blue eyes, his indolent manner and his perfection of dress all evidenced his lack of wit and stamina, he had calmly proceeded to chase several of those compet.i.tors out of business, and to purchase their good-will on his own terms. It was popularly said, in his own circle, that Standish would clear a hundred thousand dollars his first year.

He winked lazily at Henry, and indicated a chair. "Set!" said Standish. "Glad you came in. Two things to ask you. Want to sell?

Want to rent?"

"If you were in my shoes, would you sell, Bob?"

"I can get you twenty-eight thousand."

"That's low."

"Sure, but everybody knows you've got a clientele that n.o.body else could get. Are you talking?"

"I--guess not just yet."

"Want to rent? I just had a nibble for small s.p.a.ce; you could get fifty a month for that attic you're using for a nursery."

"I--hardly think so, Bob. That's a pet scheme of Anna's, and besides, we need it. It's good advertising."

His friend's eyes were round and childlike. "Made any plans for the future, Henry? Know what you'll do if you stub your toe?"

"Sell out and strike you for a job, I guess."

"Don't believe it would work, old man."

"Don't you think so?"

"One pal boss another? Too much family."

Henry looked serious. "I'm sorry you think so. _I_ wouldn't have kicked."

"No, I'm afraid I couldn't give you a job, old dear. I like you too well to bawl you out. But maybe we'll do business together some other way."

As he drove his tin runabout homeward, Henry was unusually downcast.

He didn't blame Standish--Standish had showed himself over and over to be Henry's best friend on earth. But it was dispiriting to realize how Standish must privately appraise him. Henry recalled the justification, and grew red to think of the ten years of their acquaintance--ten years of continuous achievement for Standish, and only a few months of compulsory display for himself. But he wished that Standish hadn't thrown in that last remark about doing business together some other way. That wasn't like Bob, and it hurt.

It was too infernally commercial.

He found the apartment deserted. His shout of welcome wasn't answered: his whistle, in the private code which everybody uses, met with dead silence. Henry hung up his hat with considerable pique, and lounged into the living-room. What excuse had Anna to be missing at the sacred hour of his return? Didn't she know that the happiest moment of his whole day was when she came flying into his arms as soon as he crossed the threshold? Didn't she know that as the golden pheasants fled further and further into the thicket of unreality, the more active was his need of her? He wondered where she had gone, and what had kept her so late. Was this a precedent, and had the first veneer of their companionability worn off so soon--for Anna?

A new apprehension seized him, and he hurried from room to room to see if instead of censuring Anna, he ought to censure himself. There were so many accidents that might have happened to her. Women have been burned so severely as to faint: they have drowned in a bathtub: they have fallen down dumb-waiter shafts: they have been asphyxiated when the gas-range went out. And to think that only a moment ago, he had been vexed with her. The sight of each room, once so hideously commonplace, now so charming with Anna's artistry and the work of her own hands--her beautiful hands which ought to be so cared for--filled him with contrition and fresh nervousness.

No, she had escaped these tragedies--yet she was missing. Missing, but now half an hour late. And downtown there were dangerous street-crossings, and dangerous excavations, and reckless motorists....

Once in a while a structural-iron worker dropped a rivet from the seventh story; and there were kidnappers abroad.... The key turned in the lock, and Henry dropped noiselessly into a chair, and caught up day-before-yesterday's paper.

He greeted her tenderly, but temperately. "Well, where've _you_ been?"

She had to catch her breath. "Oh, my _dear_, I've had the most _wonderful_ time! I've--oh, it's been perfectly gorgeous! And I've got it! I've got it!"

He had never seen her keyed to such a pitch, and manlike, he attempted to calm her instead of rising to her own level. "Got what? St. Vitus'

dance?"

"_No!_ The scheme! The scheme we were looking for!"

Henry discarded his paper. "Shoot it."

She waved him off. "Just wait 'till I can breathe.... Do you remember what you told me a long time ago about a talk you had with your aunt?

And she said bye-and-bye you'd see the writing on the wall?"

"Yes."

"Well, I've _seen_ it!"

"Whereabouts?"

"Wait.... And remember your talking to Mr. Mix, when he said you ought to go to a League meeting and air your views?"

"Yes."

"Well, I went!"

He gazed at her. "You what?"

She nodded repeatedly. "It was a big public meeting. I was going past Masonic Hall, and I saw the sign. So I went in ... oh, it was so funny. The man at the door stared at me as if I'd been in a bathing suit, or something, and he said to me in a sort of undertaker's voice: 'Are you one of us?' And I said I wasn't, but I was thinking about it, and he said something about the ninety and nine, and gave me a blank to fill out--only I didn't do it: I used it for something _lots_ better: I'll show you in a minute--and then I sat down, and pretty soon Mr. Mix got up to talk,--and you _should_ have seen the way your aunt looked at him; as if he'd been a tin G.o.d on wheels--and he bragged about what the League was doing, and how it had already purified the city, but that was only a beginning--and what a lot more it was going to do--oh, it was just _ranting_--but everybody clapped and applauded--only the man next to me said it was politics instead of reform--and then he went on to talk about that ordinance 147, and what it really meant, and how they were going to use it like a bludgeon over the heads of wrong-doers, and all that sickening sort of thing--and the more he talked the more I kept thinking.... My _dear_, all that ordinance says--at least, all they _claim_ it says--is that we can't keep open on Sunday for _profit_, isn't it?"

Henry was a trifle dizzy, but he retained his perspective. "Yes, but who'd want to keep open for charity?"

She gave a little cry of exultation. "But that's _exactly_ what we want to do! That's what we _are_ going to do. And they can't prevent us, either. We're going to keep open for a high, n.o.ble purpose, and not charge a cent. And the more I thought, and Mr. Mix bragged, the more I ... so I wrote it all down on the back of that blank the man gave me--and there it is--and _I_ think it's perfectly gorgeous--even if it _is_ mine. _Now_ who's Methuselah's wife?"

On the back of the blank there was written, in shaky capitals, what was evidently intended as the copy for an advertis.e.m.e.nt. She watched Henry eagerly as he read it, and when at first she could detect no change in his expression, her eyes widened, and her lips trembled imperceptibly. Then Henry, half-way down the page, began to grin: and his grin spread and spread until his whole face was abeam with joy. He came to the last line, gasped, looked up at Anna, and suddenly springing towards her, he caught her in his arms, and waltzed her madly about the living-room.

When he released her, her hat was set at a new and rakish angle, and she had lost too many hair-pins, but to Henry she had never looked half so adorable.

"Of course," he panted, "everybody else'll do it too, as soon as we've showed 'em how--"

"What--what difference does _that_ make?"

"That's right, too...." He fairly doubled himself with mirth. "Can't you just see Mix's face when he sees _this_ writing on the wall--of the Orpheum?"