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 god 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, noble 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 advertisement. 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?"
"I--I've been seeing it all afternoon. When can we start?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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