“Well, I’ve seen it!”
“Whereabouts?”
“Wait.... And remember your talking to Mr. Mix, when he said you ought to go to a League meeting and air your views?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I went!”
He gazed at her. “You what?”
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 192 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 193 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.