Rope Part 23

"Don't you believe there's any chance of our catching up, then?"

"Looks pretty black," he admitted. "They've got us eight down and nine to go, but if this amendment holds off we've still got eight weeks left to think up some wild scheme."

She squeezed his arm. "I'm not afraid of the future, no matter what happens. 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.

He brought her, then, the morning edition of the _Herald_, and pointed out a telegraphic item on the first page. "They must think it's a sure thing," he said, "and the devil of it is that I guess they're pretty nearly right."

Anna glanced at the headlines, and gasped. "Mix elected second vice-president of the national organization--and pledges twenty-five thousand dollars to the national campaign fund! Oh!... I _wish_ I could say what I think!"

"If a hearty oath would relieve you, don't mind me," said Henry. His chin was squarer than usual, and his eyes were harder. "You can see what happened, can't you? Aunt Mirabelle railroaded him through--and the pompous old fool looks the part--and she let him promise money she expects to get in August. And I'll bet it hurt him just as much to promise it as it does me to have him!"

She threw the paper to the floor. "Henry, can't we do _some_thing?

We're only a few hundred dollars short! Can't we make up just _that_ little bit?"

"It's a thousand, now," he said. "A thousand, and we're falling further behind every time the clock ticks." He retrieved the _Herald_, and abstractedly smoothed out the pages. "That was a great spread-eagle speech of Mix's wasn't it? Talking about his model ordinance, and what he's going to do next year!... Nothing I'd love better than to give that fellow a dose of his own tonic. But that's the deuce of it--I can't think how to put it over.... Even if I'm licked, I wouldn't feel so badly if I just had the personal satisfaction of making him look like a sick cat. Just once."

"Yes," she said, sorrowfully. "Dad's prophecy didn't seem to work out, did it?"

"What prophecy was that?"

"Don't you remember? He said if Mr. Mix only had enough rope--"

"Oh, yes. Only Mix declined the invitation. He's handled himself pretty well; you've got to grant that. There's a lot of people around here that honestly think he's a first-cla.s.s citizen. Sometimes I'm darned if I don't think they _will_ elect him something. And then G.o.d save the Commonwealth! But if they ever realized how far that League'll go if it ever gets under way, and what a bunch of hoc.u.m Mix's part of it is--" He stopped abruptly, and froze in his place; and then, to Anna's amazement, he turned to her with a whoop which could have carried half-way to the Orpheum.

"Henry! What on earth _is_ it?"

Henry s.n.a.t.c.hed up his hat and made for the door. "More rope!" he said, exultantly, over his shoulder. "_Lots_ more rope--I'll tell you tonight!"

He arrived at the City Hall before the record room was open, and he fretted and stamped in the corridor until a youthful clerk with spats, pimples, and an imitation diamond scarf-pin condescended to listen to his wants. In twenty minutes he was away again, and he was lucky enough to catch Judge Barklay before the bailiff had opened court.

"h.e.l.lo, Henry," said the Judge. "Did you want to see me about anything?"

"Rather!" said Henry, who was slightly out of breath. "It's about a comma."

"A what?"

"A comma. Where's your copy of the ordinances?"

"On my desk. Why?"

Henry ran through the volume to the proper place, inserted his thumb as a marker, and held the book in reserve. "Judge, do you suppose the voters want any of these fool blue-laws pa.s.sed?"

"No."

"Well, who does, then, outside of the League?"

"n.o.body. All we want is a decent city."

"It's simply that the League's got the Council more or less buffaloed, isn't it?"

"That's what I've heard, Henry."

"And the first thing we know, the League'll have put in such a big wedge that it'll be too late to get it out. If this amendment gets over, Mix'll have a show in the fall, and then the League'll run wild.

Just as they said in those pamphlets that Mix published, and then squirmed out of. Isn't that so?"

"Very likely. Very likely."

"And yet everybody's afraid to stand up against it, for fear they'll be called names?"

"It looks so, Henry."

"But if the people once started a back fire--"

The Judge shook his head. "Mobs don't start without a leader."

"I know, but if they ever realized what a ghastly farce it would be--not even using any of the League's _new_ notions, but taking what we've got on the books right now--" He opened the volume of ordinances, and read slowly: "'Whosoever shall fail in the strict observance of the Lord's Day by any unseemly act, speech or carriage; or whosoever shall engage in any manner of diversion--'" Here he paused impressively. "'--or profane occupation--'" He slung the volume on the desk, and faced the Judge. "Don't you get it?"

"I'm afraid I don't--quite."

"Why," said Henry, with a beatific grin. "Why, _there's a comma after that word 'diversion.'_ I've just come from the City Hall.

I've seen the original copy. There _is_ a comma. 'Any manner of diversion'--that's one thing: '_or_ any manner of profane occupation for profit--' that's something else again, and different entirely.

And the Reform League has been shrieking to have that ordinance enforced--to say nothing of the amendment. Well, why not enforce it once. 'Any manner of diversion?'" He began to laugh, helplessly.

"Oh, come on, Judge--take the pins out and let your imagination down.

_Any_ manner of--"

The Judge was whistling softly. "By George, Henry--"

"Can't you _see_ it working? I'm not sure anybody could even take a nap! And--"

The Judge stepped past him. "That's all right, Henry. Stay where you are. I'm just going to telephone Rowland.... h.e.l.lo: Mayor's office, please--" He motioned to his son-in-law. "Make yourself comfortable--I shouldn't wonder a bit if these blue-laws weren't going to get just a little bit--bleached."

On his delirious way to the Orpheum, he stopped in to see Bob Standish, not to share the joke with him, for Judge Barklay had laid great stress on the closest secrecy, but in answer to a recent message asking him to call.

"What's the excitement, Bob?"

His friend regarded him with the innocent stare which had made his fortune. "Remember I spoke to you some time ago about renting that s.p.a.ce over the Orpheum?"

"The nursery? Yes."

"Well, it's come up again. Different party, this time. Of course he hasn't seen it yet, but it's a chap who wants about that much s.p.a.ce--might want to enlarge it a little, but we'd arrange that; he'd do it at his own expense--and he'd pay fifteen hundred a year."