His first reaction was one of bewilderment, and after that, one of consternation. His friend Bob Standish tried to laugh it off for him, but Henry hadn’t a smile in his system.
“All right, then,” said Bob Standish. “Go see the judge. He’ll tell you the same thing. Mix’s nothing but a bag of wind. He’s an old blowhard.”
“Maybe he is,” conceded Henry, soberly. “But I’d be just as satisfied about it if he blew in some other direction.”
Henry took the paper to Judge Barklay, who had already seen it, and made his own deductions. “Oh, no,” he said, “I’m not astonished. 103 When a man’s in hot enough water, he’ll cut up almost any kind of caper to get out. There’s only two kinds of people who ever go into these radical movements––great successes and great failures. Never any average folks. I’d say it’s a pretty good refuge for him, and you drove him to it.”
“Well––does he mean what he says there?”
“Not too much of it. How could he? If he does half he says he will, he’ll lose his job. The town would be as pure as Utopia, and there wouldn’t be any League.”
“How about the ordinance he quotes, though?”
“Oh, that ... it’s Ordinance 147. It’s so old it’s toothless. The City Council doesn’t quite dare to repeal it––nobody’s sure enough, these days, to get up and take a chance––but they don’t want it enforced, and they haven’t for ages.”
Henry frowned. “That’s all right. But suppose they did arrest somebody under that Ordinance? What would you do?”
“Fine ’em, of course. I’d have to. But I’ve never had such a case that I can remember. 104 There haven’t been any arrests. It’s an understood thing.”