t so
much of it was her own handiwork.

"Yes, but pause and reflect a minute," said Henry. "I've sold the big
car and bought a tin-plated runabout. I've sold my horse. I've sold
ten tons of old clothes and priceless jewels. Financially speaking,
I'm as liquid as a pellucid pool in a primeval forest. And there's
another grand thing to consider; I'm keeping my own books, so
nobody's going to crack the till, the way they did with grandfather.
Can't we even have a _cook_?"

"No, dear. Nobody but me. We've got to play safe. It's all part of the
game. Don't you see it is?"

Eventually, he agreed with her, and went back to the Orpheum, where a
score of workmen were busy remodelling the interior, and patching up
the facade. He stood for a moment to watch the loading of a truck with
broken-seats, jig-saw decorations, and the remains of a battered old
projector; he looked up, presently to the huge sign over the entrance:
"Closed During Alterations, Grand Opening Sunday Afternoon, August
20th. Souvenirs." There was no disputing the fact that all his eggs
were in one basket, and that if the Reform League started to throw
stones at it, they would find it a broad mark. But Henry had plenty of
assurances that he didn't need to worry, and so he sponged away the
last of his doubts, and set to work to learn his business with all
possible speed.

It was his first experience with the building trades, and he was
innocent enough to believe in schedules and estimates. In less than a
fortnight, however, he came home to his wife in a mood which she was
quick to detect, no matter how carefully he disguised it.

"Oh, I'm just peevish," said Henry. "The contractor says it'll take
four weeks instead of three, and cost six thousand instead of
forty-five hundred. But there's no use wearing a long face about it.
If I did, I didn't mean to."

Anna slipped out of her big apron, and rearranged her hair. "Of course
you didn't. I just knew."

"As a matter of fact," he said, "my face feels long enough to fit in a
churn. Only I was under the impression that I'd put on a mask of
gaiety that was absolutely impenetrable.... Well, what's happened in
the ancestral home today?"

She had burned a steak and both thumbs; there was a leak in the
plumbing, and the family overhead had four children and a phonograph.
Henry kissed the thumbs, cursed the kitchen range, and forgot his
troubles.

"You're going to ruin your hands," he said, sympathetically. "Darn