“Yes, that’s fine––as long as everybody understands it the same way. But maybe Mix doesn’t––or Aunt Mirabelle either.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t worry much.”
Henry continued serious. “Oh, I guess I can sleep nights all right without any paregoric, but what right have they got to butt into the only day of recreation the working people have? If their immortal souls hurt ’em as much as all that, why don’t they go off and suffer where they can do it in peace and not bother us?”
The Judge laughed quietly. “Whence all this sudden affection for the working man, Henry?”
Henry reddened. “Strictly between the two of us, I don’t like the idea of Sunday business, anyway. But unfortunately, that’s the big day.... But, if you had to work indoors, eight hours a day, six days a week, maybe you’d be satisfied to spend Sundays picking sweet violets out by the barge canal, but what would you do when it rained?”
“Of course,” admitted the Judge, “it’s a 105 poor policy to have a law on the books, and ignore it. Both of us must admit that. A good law ought to be kept; a bad one ought to be repealed; but any law that is valid oughtn’t to be winked at. And if pressure should be brought on the Mayor to enforce that ordinance, and any arrests are made, why I’ll have to do my duty.”
“Yes––and here I’m raising a mortgage and spending the money on improvements that’ll hold us up for more than two weeks––and here Anna and I are going to live in a couple of box-stalls (every time you take a long breath in that flat you create a vacuum!)––and here I’ve been going to the City Commercial School every afternoon for two solid hours, and studying like a dog every night––and here I’ve resigned from the Golf Club, and everything else but the Citizens––and if they do put the kibosh on Sunday shows, why I’ll be elected to the Hohenzollern Club. And the cream of that joke is that Aunt Mirabelle’s outfit’d get itself endowed for putting me out of commission!”
“They won’t do it, Henry. These organizations 106 always make the same mistake. They go too far. They aren’t talking reform; they’re talking revolution, and people won’t stand for it. These reform crowds always start out to be a band-wagon, and if they kept their senses, they could do some real good––and then they march so fast that pretty soon they find they’ve winded everybody else, and there isn’t any parade. All they need is rope. Give ’em enough of it, and they always hang themselves. That speech of Mix’s has done more harm to the League than it has good. You go right ahead with your improvements.”
In view of the Judge’s official position, this was in the nature of an opinion from headquarters; and yet Henry delayed for a day or two before he signed his contract for the alterations. In the meantime, he saw Mr. Archer and got an interpretation of the will; Mr. Archer was sorry, but if Sundays were ruled out, there was no provision for reducing the quota, and Henry would have to stand or fall on the exact phraseology. He had another session with the Judge, and three a day with Anna, and one with the largest exhibitor in 107 town (who pooh-poohed the League, and offered to back up his pooh-poohs with a cash bet that nothing would ever come of it) and eventually he was persuaded to execute the contract.
Through Bob Standish, he negotiated a mortgage which would cover the cost of the work, and leave a comfortable balance. “We’re not going to be as poor as I thought we were,” he said cheerfully to Anna who had put in two hectic weeks on the apartment she had chosen because it was the cheapest in the market. “We’ve got something in the bank for emergencies, and ten thousand a year is two hundred a week besides.”