We had done our part for Hynds House; now Hynds House had to do its part for us. It had to earn its keep, and ours. We had known that from the beginning, and Alicia mapped out the entire plan of how it was to be done; a plan which I at first looked upon as the fairy-storiest part of the whole thing!
To-night we sat facing each other across the library table, with a great pile of receipted bills between us, the total of which made me feel pale. Alicia, however, was cheerfully figuring away on her own hook; and presently she shoved a list of addresses across to me.
The first two were the head of our old firm, and the one celebrity I had ever seen or spoken to, a novelist and lecturer with record-breaking best sellers to his account. He once had some business dealings with our firm, and I attended to the details, thereby winning his cantankerous approval. He had very bad manners, of which he was totally unashamed, and very good morals, of which he was somewhat doubtful, as they didn't smack of genius; a notion that he was a superior sort of Sherlock Holmes, having the truffle-hound's flair for discovering and following up clews and unraveling mysteries, most of which didn't exist outside of his own eager mind; and such a genuine passion for old and beautiful things as Balzac had. It was upon this last foundation that Alicia was building.
"He has written that the average wealthy modern home is a combination of Pullman Palace Car and Gehenna. And that the so-called crime wave which sweeps recurrently over American cities, is very likely nothing more than the inevitable reaction of our damnable house decorations upon our immature intellects." Alicia repeated it dreamily. "I have chosen for him the upper southwestern room with the sunset effect and the pineapple four-poster. It has a claw-footed desk of block mahogany, three hand-carved walnut chairs, two Rembrandt prints, and a French prie-dieu with a purple velvet cover embroidered with green and gold swastikas. He has a purple soul with gold tassels on it, himself, Sophy, and he should be willing to pay a thumping price for it. That room is worth at least two lectures and one best seller, not to mention what he'll get out of the rest of the house."
"First catch your hare," I reminded her skeptically.
"First set your trap, and you can reckon on hare nature to do the rest. A few good photographs of this house, along with the information that it runs back to the beginning of things American and has never been exploited, will fetch him at a hand-gallop. Add a hint that we have our own brand of family spook, and you couldn't keep him away if you tried. The only trouble is that he may walk off with your brass tongs up his trouser-leg, or a print or two tucked under his shirt."
We had decided that we would have a series of photographs of the house, with all particularly good points stressed; such as, say, the library fireplace, the fan-light window at the end of the upper hall, the pillared front porch, and a corner of the drawing-room.
Also—and this was the great thing, calling for a heavy outlay—we would advertise in some two or three of the ultra periodicals, the advertisement to carry a stunning little cut of our front porch. We decided to run the risk of expending more money than we could really afford, because the people that advertisement was meant to attract would in the long run pay for it.
"Our prices will be predacious, piratical, prohibitive, and profitable. We shall stop just this side of highway robbery. Therefore our demands will be cheerfully, nay, willingly met; and everybody, including you and me, Sophy, will be satisfied and happy!"
"Boarders!" said I, limply, "boarders—in Hynds House!"