There was no noise of trumpets, and no publicity of any sort. Mr. Drury
insisted that what they needed first and most was not newspaper
attention, and not even organization, but exact information. So for many
days a group of puzzled and increasingly astonished people set about the
study of their own town's principal street, as though they had never
seen it before. And, in truth, they never had.

It was no different from all other small town business districts. The
Gem Theater vied with the Star and the Orpheum in lavish display of
gaudy posters advertising pictures that were "coming to-morrow," and in
two weeks of observation the investigators learned what sort of moving
pictures Delafield demanded, or, at least what sort it got. They took
note of the Amethyst Coterie's Saturday night dances--"Wardrobe, 50
cents, Ladies Free"--and of the boys and girls who patronized the place.
The various cigar and pocket-billiards combinations were quietly
observed, some of the observers learning for the first time that young
men are so determined to get together that they are not to be deterred
by dirt or bad air or foul and brainless talk.

The candy stores with soda fountains and some of the drug stores which
served refreshments took on a new importance. Instead of being no more
than handy purveyors of sweets, of soft drinks and household remedies,
they were seen to be also social centers, places for "dates" and
telephone flirtations and dalliance. Much of their doings was the merest
silly time-killing, but generally the youthful patrons welcomed all this
because it was a change from the empty dullness of homes that had missed
the home secret, and from the still duller and wasting monotony of
uninteresting toil.