The Habit of Happiness

Summary

The narrative unfolds around Sunny Wiggins, an amiable but socially marginalized scion of a family aggressively climbing the social ladder. While his sister meticulously prepares to host an assembly of vapid socialites, including her intended, a mentally vacuous suitor, Sunny orchestrates his own counter-cultural gathering. His bedchamber, a tableau of democratic camaraderie, houses a motley crew of down-on-their-luck individuals, recruited from the breadline, sharing his bed, floor, and even the bathtub in a testament to his egalitarian spirit. A forced ablution precedes a chaotic breakfast, where Sunny's uninvited guests, mistaking the opulent spread for their personal feast, leave little for the arriving societal butterflies. This transgression swiftly leads to Sunny's familial rebuke, isolating him save for one enigmatic female guest who perceives his inherent brilliance. Dispatched by his exasperated father to the Bowery to test his "sociological theories," Sunny embarks on a mission of morale, transforming a lodging house of despair into a haven of laughter. His unexpected success attracts the attention of an eminent specialist, who enlists him to cure a millionaire's chronic dyspepsia. In this new gilded cage, Sunny discovers his sole admirer is the millionaire's daughter, a spirited accomplice to his unconventional methods. Their burgeoning romance, however, clashes with the household's dominant influence: an aged 'cellist whose melancholic devotion to Chopin's "Funeral March" mirrors the patriarch's gloom. A confrontation ensues when the father discovers the clandestine affection, culminating in his humorous imprisonment and a forced "starvation cure." Concurrently, a spurned suitor, a broker, schemes to dismantle the millionaire's empire on Wall Street. The subsequent unfolding details Sunny's audacious intervention, his successful rehabilitation of the "grouch," his eventual marriage to the daughter, and his integration into both the millionaire's business and, by extension, his own estranged family's good graces, solidifying his once-disregarded philosophies as the bedrock of enduring happiness and prosperity.

Synopsis

Sunny Wiggins is regarded as worthless by the other members of his family, who have risen to the social station where they are snubbed by the best people. The morning of the day the play begins his sister is preparing to entertain a party of butterflies, among whom is the mentally lacking beanpole she intends to marry. Sunny is in bed with as queer a lot of associates as could be collected. He has recruited his following from the bread line; two of them are in bed with him while the others are sleeping on the carpet, and one has even gone to rest in the bathtub. Not too willingly do all hands go to the shower, but it is a wash or no breakfast. Downstairs goes the motley array and into the dining room. Sunny thinks it fine that such a spread has been prepared for his guests and there is little left when sister enters with her guests. Of course, Sis at once tells father and Sunny is called to book. Dismissing his own guests, he finds that he has only one friend in the place, one of his sister's guests, and he doesn't know her name. She thinks Sunny is splendid and when his father has sent him out to try his sociological theories along the Bowery, she wishes him luck. There in a cheap lodging house Sunny teaches the derelicts to laugh, and with such success that an eminent specialist drafts him to cure a millionaire grouch of dyspepsia. In the rich home of the dyspeptic he finds that the girl is the millionaire's daughter. She enters heartily into his plans but an aged 'cellist, whose favorite music is Chopin's "Funeral March," exerts more influence in the household than he. But when father has discovered his daughter and the supposed physician in fond embrace there is a fight, which ends with father a prisoner in his room, to be cured by starvation. Meanwhile a broker, whose offer of marriage has been refused by the daughter, is plotting to ruin her father in Wall Street. How Sunny thwarts the attempt, cures the grouch, becomes his son-in-law and partner and thereby is reinstated in the good graces of his own family, is the story this comedy tells.