approve of him, and Aunt Mirabelle would have to revise her estimate
of him. Altogether, it was a fine arrangement, provided that his
business, whatever it was, wouldn't entirely prevent him from
keeping up with the procession, socially, and playing enough golf to
hold his present form.

He had passed 331 and 341 and 351 and his heart began to beat more
rapidly. This was almost as exciting as a Christmas stocking in the
Fauntleroy days. His eyes were searching among the numbers; there was
a four-story office building (335) and an automobile agency (339) ...
and next to that--.... Henry halted, and the laugh dried up in his
throat. He had been prepared for anything but the reality. The ark of
his fortunes was a shabby little motion-picture theatre.

Gasping, he looked up again at the number, and when he realized that
he had made no mistake, his knees turned to gelatine, and he stood
staring, fascinated, numbed. His eyes wandered blankly from the
crumbling ticket-booth to the unkempt lobby and back to the lurid
billing--the current attraction was a seven-reel thriller entitled
"What He Least Expected," but Henry missed the parallel. With
trembling fingers he produced a cigarette, but in his daze he blew out
two matches in succession. He crushed the cigarette in his palm, and
moved a few steps towards the lobby. Great Heaven, was it possible
that John Starkweather had condemned Henry the fashionable, Henry the
clubable, Henry the exclusive to a year of _this_? Was _this_ his
punishment for the past? Was _this_ the price of his future? This
picayune sordidness, and vulgarity and decay? Evidently, it was so
intended, and so ordered.

His power of reason was almost atrophied. He struggled to understand
his uncle's purpose; his uncle's logic. To break down his class
prejudice, and teach him the dimes in a dollar, and put him on the
level of a workingman? All that could have been accomplished by far
less drastic methods. It could have been accomplished by a tour of
duty with Bob. To be sure, Mr. Starkweather had promised him the
meanest job in the directory, but Henry had put it down as a figure of
speech. Now, he was faced with the literal interpretation of it, and
ahead of him there was a year of trial, and then all or nothing.

He succeeded in lighting a fresh cigarette, but he couldn't taste it.
Previously he had paid his forfeits with the best of good-nature, but
his previous forfeits hadn't obliged him to declass him