n _mad_?" she demanded. "I thought you'd be
furious. I thought you'd be tearing your hair and--and _every_thing."

Henry laughed explosively. "Impatience, as I've pointed out so often
to Aunt Mirabelle, dries the blood more than age or sorrow. Yes, I'm
mad, but I've put it on ice. I'm trying to work out some scheme to
keep us in the running, and not give Mix too good an excuse to hoot at
us. No--they say it's darkest just before the dawn, so I'm trying to
fix it so we'll be sitting on the front steps to see the sunrise. Only
so far I haven't had a mortal thought."

"As a matter of fact," she confided, "I loathed the idea of our
running the Orpheum on Sundays. Didn't you?"

"Naturally. Also on Thursdays, Saturdays, Mondays, Fridays,
Wednesdays and Tuesdays. But Sundays did sort of burrow a little
further under my tough hide. And you know that's quite an admission
for anybody that was brought up by Aunt Mirabelle." He smiled in
reminiscence. "She used to make virtue so darned scaly and repulsive
that it's a wonder I've got a moral left. As it is, my conscience
may be all corrugated like a raisin, but I'm almost glad we
_can't_ run Sundays. That is, I would be if my last remaining moral
weren't going to be so expensive."

"Don't you think they'll probably change that ordinance now, though?
Don't you think people will insist on it? After today?"

"Guess work," said Henry. "Pure guesswork. But _my_ guess is that
we're ditched."

"Well, why don't you join the Exhibitors Association, and fight?"

He shook his head. "No, because that's just what Mix and Aunt
Mirabelle expect me to do. This campaign of theirs is impersonal
towards everybody else, but it's slightly personal towards me. I mean,
Aunt Mirabelle's sore on general principles, and Mix is sore because I
wouldn't come up and eat out of his hand and get myself sheared. We
won't fight. We'll outwit 'em."

"But _how_?"

"Now that question," he said reproachfully, "was mighty tactless. _I_
don't know how. But I know I'm not going to stick my head over the
ramparts for 'em to shoot at. I'm no African Dodger--I'm an
impresario. Maybe they'll hit me in the eye, all right, but I'm not
going to give 'em a good cigar for it."

"I know, dear, but how are we going to make up all that tremendous
loss?"

"Sheer brilliance," said Henry, easily. "Which is what I haven't got
nothing but, of. So I'm banking on you.... And in the meantime, let's
go ahead with the orgy of lam