“I suppose,” said Standish, “maybe you’re wishing you’d taken that check.”
“Not that, exactly––but I’ve thought about it.”
“Strikes me that you’re in the best position of anybody in town, Henry. You’ve got a following that’ll see you through, if it’s humanly possible.”
“Sounds like passing the hat, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, no. And the side that scores first doesn’t always win the game, either––I dare say you’ve noticed it. It’ll come out all right––you just wait and see what happens.”
Henry waited, and he saw. And to Henry’s dismay, and to the Mayor’s chagrin, and to Miss Mirabelle Starkweather’s exceeding complacence, nothing happened at all.
The public petition, which had been advertised as “monstrous,” caught hardly five hundred names, and two thirds of them were Mr. A. Mutt, Mr. O. Howe Wise, Mr. O. U. Kidd, and similar patronymics, scribbled by giggling small boys. The blue-law was universally unpopular, and no doubt of it, but the citizenry hesitated to attack it; the recent landslide for 153 prohibition showed an apparent sentiment which nobody wanted to oppose––Why, if a man admitted that he was in favour of Sunday tolerance, his friends (who of course were going through exactly the same mental rapids) might put him down in the same class with those who still mourned for saloons. Each man waited for his neighbour to sign first, and the small boys giggled, and filled up the lists. Besides, there was a large amusement park just beyond the city line, and the honest workingman proceeded to pay his ten-cent fare, and double the profit of the park.
The Exhibitors Association put up its fists to the Mayor, and the Mayor proposed a public hearing, with the Council in attendance. At this juncture the Reform League sent a questionnaire to each Councillor, and to each member of the Association. The phraseology was Socratic (it was the product of Mr. Mix’s genius) and if any one answered Yes, he was snared: if he said No, he was ambushed, and if he said nothing he was cooked. It reminded the Mayor of the man who claimed that in a debate, he would answer every question of his 154 adversary with a simple No or Yes––and the first question was: “Have you stopped beating your wife?”
The Exhibitors held a meeting behind closed doors, and gave out the statement that nothing was to be gained by a public hearing. But they launched a flank attack on the Council only to discover that the Council was wide awake, and knew that its bread was buttered on one side only.