The Magic Christian Read Online Free PDF

it?” asked Ginger Horton seriously, setting her own cup down squarely, pressing the napkin briefly to her lips.
    Esther started to answer, but in the end looked to Guy instead.
    “Oh, it’s just a manner of speaking,” said Guy Grand easily. “What really gives the expression bite, of course, is that six is generally an easy point to make, you see, and, well. . . but then the fact is really, that the . . . uh, the national economy, so to speak, isn’t in the best of shape just now. Not a buyer’s market at all really. A bit bearish as a matter of fact.” He gave a chuckle, looking at the Pekinese.
    Ginger Horton seized the opportunity to bring the dog into it.
    “Well, it’s all over our head, isn’t it, Bitsy? Hmm? Isn’t it over your Bitsy-witsy head? Hmmm?”
    “ Bearish . . .” Esther began to explain.
    “I think we all know what that means, Esther,” said Agnes shortly, raising one hand to her throat, her old eyes glittering no less than the great diamonds she clutched there.
    Evidently Grand liked playing the donkey-man. In any case, he had bought himself a large motion-picture house in Philadelphia. The house had been losing money badly for six months, so it was natural that the manager and his staff, who knew nothing of Grand’s background, should be apprehensive over the probable shake-up.
    The manager was a shrewd and capable man of many years’ experience in cinema management, a man whose position represented for him the fruit of a life’s work. He decided that his best move, under the circumstances, would be to go to Grand and cheerfully recommend salary cuts for all.
    During their first conference, however, it was Grand, in his right as new owner, who held the initiative throughout.
    By way of preliminary, and while the manager sat alertly on the edge of a big leather chair, Grand paced the floor of the comfortable office, his hands clasped at his back, and a slight frown on his face. Finally he stopped in the center of the room and addressed the manager:
    “The Chinese have an expression, Mr . . . Mister Manager, I believe it occurs in the book of the I Ching: “Put your house in order,” they say, “that is the first step.”
    This brought a flush to the manager’s face and caused him to shift in his chair.
    “My dad,” said Grand then, and with severe reverence, “pushed out here in . . . 1920. There were few frontiers open for him at that time. There are fewer still . . . open-for-us-today!”
    He faced the manager and would have let him speak; in fact, by looking straight into his face, he invited him to do so, but the man could only nod in sage agreement.
    “If there is one unexplored territory,” Grand continued, waxing expansive now, “one virgin wood alive today in this man’s land of ours—it is cinema management! My dad—“Dad Grand”—was a championship golfer. That may be why . . . now this is only a guess . . . but that may be why he always favored the maxim: ‘If you want them to play your course—don’t put rocks on the green!’”
    Grand paused for a minute, staring down at the manager’s sparkling shoes as he allowed his great brow to furrow and his lips to purse, frantically pensive. Then he shot a question:
    “Do you know the story of the Majestic Theatre in Kansas City?”
    The manager, a man with thirty years’ experience in the field, who knew the story of every theatre in the country, did not know this one.
    “In August, 1939, the management of the K.C. Majestic changed hands, and policy. Weston seats were installed—four inches wider than standard—and ‘a.p.’s,’ admission prices, were cut in half . . . and two people were to occupy each seat. The new manager, Jason Frank, who died of a brain hemorrhage later the same year, had advanced Wyler Publicity nine hundred dollars for the catch-phrase, ‘Half the Price, and a Chance for Vice,’ which received a wide private circulation.”
    Grand broke off his narrative to give the manager a