"Yes, but pause and reflect a minute," said Henry. "I've sold the big car and bought a tin-plated runabout. I've sold my horse. I've sold ten tons of old clothes and priceless jewels. Financially speaking, I'm as liquid as a pellucid pool in a primeval forest. And there's another grand thing to consider; I'm keeping my own books, so nobody's going to crack the till, the way they did with grandfather. Can't we even have a _cook_?" "No, dear. Nobody but me. We've got to play safe. It's all part of the game. Don't you see it is?" Eventually, he agreed with her, and went back to the Orpheum, where a score of workmen were busy remodelling the interior, and patching up the facade. He stood for a moment to watch the loading of a truck with broken-seats, jig-saw decorations, and the remains of a battered old projector; he looked up, presently to the huge sign over the entrance: "Closed During Alterations, Grand Opening Sunday Afternoon, August 20th. Souvenirs." There was no disputing the fact that all his eggs were in one basket, and that if the Reform League started to throw stones at it, they would find it a broad mark. But Henry had plenty of assurances that he didn't need to worry, and so he sponged away the last of his doubts, and set to work to learn his business with all possible speed. It was his first experience with the building trades, and he was innocent enough to believe in schedules and estimates. In less than a fortnight, however, he came home to his wife in a mood which she was quick to detect, no matter how carefully he disguised it. "Oh, I'm just peevish," said Henry. "The contractor says it'll take four weeks instead of three, and cost six thousand instead of forty-five hundred. But there's no use wearing a long face about it. If I did, I didn't mean to." Anna slipped out of her big apron, and rearranged her hair. "Of course you didn't. I just knew." "As a matter of fact," he said, "my face feels long enough to fit in a churn. Only I was under the impression that I'd put on a mask of gaiety that was absolutely impenetrable.... Well, what's happened in the ancestral home today?" She had burned a steak and both thumbs; there was a leak in the plumbing, and the family overhead had four children and a phonograph. Henry kissed the thumbs, cursed the kitchen range, and forgot his troubles. "You're going to ruin your hands," he said, sympathetically. "Darn it, we _can_ afford a cook, Anna. Come on; be reasonable." She shook her head. "Oh! And I meant to tell you the wall-paper's peeling off in the dining room, and the most _awful_ smell of fried onions keeps coming up the dumb-waiter shaft." Henry gathered her into his arms. "Dearest, in a year you can have a dipperful of attar of roses for every fried onion. And we'll be so rich you can mingle practically on equal terms with the plumber's wife.... Now let's go put on the feed-bag. And by the way, I prefer my steak slightly burned--it's more antiseptic."