Part 4 (1/2)

Peter looked at him. ”In Yiddish we have a saying: 'What is to be must be.'”

Johnny looked around the store before he answered: ”I still can hardly believe it.” He thought back to the time when he got Peter's telegram. He had shown it to Al Santos.

”I don't know why this guy wants me back after I skipped out on three months' rent,” he had said.

”Two months,” Al Santos corrected him. ”You sent him one month's rent last payday.”

”I know,” Johnny answered, ”but I still don't get it.”

”Maybe the guy likes yuh,” Al said. ”What yuh goin' tuh do?”

Johnny looked at him in surprise. ”Go back. What do you think I'm gonna do?”

Johnny took his hand off the fortune-telling machine. ”How many shows a day do you give here?” he asked.

”One,” Peter answered.

”From now on we're giving three,” Johnny said. ”One matinee and two evenings.”

”Where we get the customers?” Peter asked.

Johnny looked at Peter to see if he was joking. Satisfied that Peter was entirely serious, he answered: ”Peter, you got a lot to learn about show business. I'll tell yuh how we're goin' to get the business. We'll advertise. We'll plaster billboards all across the countryside, we'll advertise in the newspapers. We're the only picture show in the whole section. People will travel to see it, if we let them know about it. Besides, it doesn't cost us any more to run the film three times a day instead of once. We only pay one rental for it.”

Peter looked at Johnny with a new respect. ”The kid's got common sense. Right away he figures out how we could do three times more business,” he thought, feeling a sense of relief flow over him. Now that Johnny was back, he began to realize that he didn't have to worry about the nickelodeon any more.

”That's a good idea, Johnny,” Peter said aloud, ”a very good idea.”

Late that night when Peter fell asleep he was still thinking about it. Three times more business.

4.

George Pappas stood across the street from Kessler's nickelodeon at seven thirty in the evening and watched the crowds going in to see the show. He took out his watch and checked the time. He heaved a sigh and shook his head. These moving pictures were changing the time habits of the town. Before the nickelodeon had opened, you could find only a few persons on the street after seven o'clock. And here it was nearly eight o'clock and people were going into the nickelodeon.

It wasn't only the townspeople that were there. Farmers and other people from out of town were coming to see the moving pictures, too. This fellow Edge that Kessler had with him was a live wire all right. He had covered the entire territory with signs telling about the new nickelodeon.

George Pappas sighed again. It was very strange, but he had a feeling the change was here to stay. He had been in to see the show before and he felt an important thing had come into his life. Just how it was going to affect him he did not know. He only knew that it would.

He owned a small ice-cream parlor about five blocks away. At seven o'clock he and his brother would close up the store and go home to eat. There wasn't any business in the evening, except on Sat.u.r.day nights. But here it was Tuesday and there were more people coming in to see Kessler's show than George had seen on the streets of Rochester even on a Sat.u.r.day night. He sighed again and wondered how it would be possible to attract some of these people to his ice-cream parlor.

He started to walk toward home pondering this problem, when suddenly he stopped short. A thought had come to him. It had flashed into his mind in Greek. It came so quickly and naturally that he didn't fully understand it until his mind had translated it into English. Then it was so right, so perfectly the answer to his question, that he turned back and walked across the street to the nickelodeon.

At the door he stopped. Esther was there taking change from the people as they entered. ”Hallo, Missus Kessler,” he said.

Esther was busy, so she answered briefly: ”h.e.l.lo, George.”

”Is Mr. Kessler around?” he asked in his funny stilted manner.

”He's inside,” Esther told him.

”I would like for to see him, plizz.”

She looked at him curiously; his earnest intentness had caught her attention. ”He'll be out in a few minutes, the show is about ready to go on. Is there anything I can do?”

George shook his head. ”I will wait. I got some business to make with him.”

Esther watched him walk over to the door and lean against the wall. Vaguely she wondered what business George had with Peter, but she was busy making change and in a few seconds had forgotten he was there.

George was busy too. As he stood by the door he counted about forty people going in. He looked in the door of the nickelodeon. The place was filled with people. Row after row, people sat close together chatting expectantly with one another, waiting for the show to start. Some of them had brought fruit with them and were eating it. George figured there were more than two hundred people in the place when Peter came out and shut the door. And there were still people in the street, and more were coming.

He watched Peter shut the door and hold up his hand. ”There will be another show in an hour,” he heard Peter say to those waiting. ”We're all filled up, but if you'll wait you all will get in.”

He heard a good-natured murmur of disappointment come from the crowd, but very few left; most of them settled down for a wait. And those that left were more than made up for by new arrivals. Gradually a line began to form that went down the street.

Peter stuck his head inside the door, ”All right, Johnny,” he shouted. ”Start the show.”

The audience started to applaud as the lights in the store went off; then suddenly there was silence as the first picture began to flash on the screen.

Peter had lit a cigar as George walked up to him.

”Hallo, Mr. Kessler.”

”h.e.l.lo, George, how are you?” Peter replied expansively, puffing at his cigar.

”Prooty good, Mr. Kessler,” George said politely. He looked around him. ”Lots of p.o.o.puls you got come here.”

Peter smiled. ”We certainly have, George. Everybody wants to see the moving pictures. Did you see them yet?”

George nodded his head.

”It's the coming thing,” Peter said.

”Mr. Kessler, I think so, too,” George a.s.sured him. ”You got good mind for what p.o.o.puls want.”

Peter beamed at the compliment. ”Thanks, George.” He reached into his vest pocket. ”Here, George, have a cigar.”

George took it gravely. Although he didn't like cigars and couldn't stand smoking at all, he held it expertly to his nose and smelled it. ”Good cigar,” he said.

”I have 'em sent special from New York,” Peter told him. ”They're six cents apiece.”

”If it's all right with you, Mr. Kessler,” George said, putting the cigar carefully in his pocket, ”I will smoke him after dinner to enjoy him better.”