In the Still of the Night

pay, you know. How would we explain that part?“
    “I’ve got that figured out, too. Have you ever been to the Catskills?“
    “Not that I remember.“
    “I have and I had a swell time. Over there they take guests into hotels and even their houses and they provide entertainment. The wealthy Jewish families in the city often spend whole summers there.“
    “Entertainment? What sort of entertainment?”
    “Oh, musical shows and comedy acts and swimming and boating and lectures.”
    Lily frowned. “But the people we know have all that at their disposal anyway.“
    “But they don’t have—wait for it, Lily—celebrities. Imagine if they could come here and spend a friendly week with Dorothy Parker or Sinclair Lewis or Amelia Earhart?”
    Lily laughed. “I don’t think a week with Dorothy Parker would be a whole lot of fun.“ Then she added, more seriously, “And we don’t actually know any of those people except by reputation. How would we get them to come?“
    “Lily, you don’t read the newspapers like I do. People like that gad about all over the place. Showing off, mostly. We just write and invite them to visit for free in a great mansion.“
    “And they’d do that?“
    “They might. We won’t know until we give it a try.”
    Lily thought for a long moment. “Back when we were rich, I’d have loved to have shared a private house for a couple days with someone like Sinclair Lewis. I love his work.“
    “I’ve convinced you?“
    “Not entirely. But it’s an appealing idea, I have to admit. The person you have to convince is Mr. Prinney. There would be a considerable investment involved.”
    Lily was always the one who thought about money. Robert regarded not having it as an inconvenience. Lily considered losing track of a single penny a criminal act.
    “What for? We’ve got the house, all we need is a few celebrities. Classy celebrities, not the Marx Brothers. Celebrities that snobs like you would like.“
    “Yes, but the house would have to be more elegant. What we’ve got is a lot of rooms and furniture under dust sheets. We’d need lots of fresh bed linens, lots of cleaning help. Dozens of nice towels and a full-time girl to wash them. And Mrs. Prinney would never get out of the kitchen having to feed that many people. Think of the cost of food. And the cost of getting her helpers for the cooking.“
    “Mrs. Prinney is never out of the kitchen now,“ Robert argued. “She practically lives there and Mr. Prinney has already agreed that the kitchen is a disgrace and needs to be expanded out the back of the house. And the guests would be paying for the food and the service. We couldn’t start right off, but we could be planning now for spring. Mrs. Prinney would love having kitchen girls to boss around and you and I could swan about as host and hostess.“
    “Oh, Robert, it would be fun, wouldn’t it. I just don’t know—“
    “Let’s think about it for a while before we spring it on Mr. Prinney,“ he suggested. “He thinks like you do. You need to line up all the objections he’s likely to have and we’ll plan how to counter them.”
    Mr. Prinney bubbled forth objections like a veritable fountain when they brought up the matter a month later. And Lily was prepared for all of them. “What if you can’t get a celebrity to come here?“ he asked.
    “Then we’d have a very up-to-date boardinghouse,“ Lily said.
    “It would cost an extraordinary amount to really fix the house up well enough to impress the class of people you’re thinking of inviting,“ Mr. Prinney said.
    “But that’s a good investment, isn’t it, improving the house? Isn’t that why you’re adding on to the kitchen?”
    Mr. Prinney huffed. He knew perfectly well that he was allowing that expense for his wife’s sake, not the Brewsters. And he knew they knew it.
    “Where would you get the extra help you’d need?”
    Lily almost laughed at this. “If we offered jobs, we’d have people lined up for them clear down the road. So many people are desperate for paying work. Including Robert and me.”
    Mr. Prinney massaged his silly little moustache. “Mr. Prinney, you must correct me if I’m wrong,“ Robert said, “but I think Uncle Horatio’s real purpose in giving this house to us but no money with it was to make us prove we could be worthwhile business people instead of society bums. He’d have been pleased to see us making our own money from the society bums.”
    Mr. Prinney nodded. “You