The Merchant of Odyssey

Bart Rathbone’s lawyer persuades a judge to end Bart’s community-service sentence early. The judge considers his behavior exemplary and his offense nonviolent, granting him mercy after half the term. Bart leaves court eager to resume business and immediately offers Edwin Blackgaard five thousand dollars as a down payment to buy back the Electric Palace.

Edwin refuses to sell but praises Bart’s management and lets him continue running the store. Furious that Regis Blackgaard’s inheritance transferred the business he built to Edwin, Bart notices a possible weakness. He telephones the Internal Revenue Service and reports the inheritance.

IRS field agent Harold J. Leech soon interrupts Edwin’s rehearsal of *The Merchant of Venice*. Edwin paid the store’s property tax but owes ten thousand dollars in inheritance tax, penalties, and interest. The agency’s earlier notices went to the Electric Palace but never reached him. Unless he provides five thousand dollars by the next day, the government will attach both the store and the Harlequin Theatre.

No bank will lend to Edwin, his credit cards are exhausted, and neither Jack nor the absent Jason can supply the money. Edwin expects ticket pledges from his new production, but he will not receive them until opening night in four weeks. Bart offers the needed five thousand dollars without interest - provided Edwin signs a contract giving Bart both businesses if repayment is even slightly late.

Jack distrusts the bargain, but Edwin believes his coming ticket income makes it safe and signs. Bart then hires a cleaning company to apply a thick coat of wax to the Harlequin stage. During rehearsal, Edwin slides across the floor, falls into the orchestra pit, breaks his leg, and cannot perform his physically demanding Shylock. The production must be canceled, apparently guaranteeing that Bart will collect the properties.

Edwin accuses Bart of arranging the tax trouble, withholding the notices, and engineering the accident. Bart refuses to surrender the contract. He has technically kept its terms and argues that Edwin still has several weeks to find another way to stage the play. Without the show, however, Edwin sees no possible source of repayment.

Jack devises a performance with an audience of one. He casts Bart as Antonio in a simplified *Merchant of Venice*, where Antonio borrows money from Shylock under a contract that demands a pound of flesh if repayment is late. Bart laughs while Antonio expects his ships to bring a fortune, then panics when the ships sink and Edwin’s Shylock arrives with a rubber knife to enforce the bargain.

Jack explains that Bart has just experienced the fear of being denied mercy. A judge has released Bart from punishment early, yet Bart is using another man’s misfortune to seize everything he owns. Edwin adds that the Electric Palace supports his mother in a nursing home and that losing it could leave her without care.

Bart finally tears up the original contract and gives Edwin as much time as he needs, though he adds a five-percent interest rate to the loan. Edwin accepts the fairer terms with gratitude. Their reconciliation is interrupted by Agent Leech, who has examined Bart’s records after learning where Edwin obtained the tax payment. Bart never reported his five thousand dollars or paid tax on it, so the IRS now wants a private conversation with him. His scheme has led the tax collector directly back to its author.