The Dream Merchants by Harold Robbins Read Free Book Online

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 Saturday 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 Saturday 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: “Hello, 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