Big Money

Richard Ellsworth Savage

Dick Savage walked down Lexington to the office in the Graybar Building. The December morning was sharp as steel, bright glints cut into his eyes, splintering from storewindows, from the glasses of people he passed on the street, from the chromium rims of the headlights of automobiles. He wasn’t quite sure whether he had a hangover or not. In a jeweler’s window he caught sight of his face in the glass against the black velvet backing, there was a puffy boiled look under the eyes like in the photographs of the Prince of Wales. He felt sour and gone in the middle like a rotten pear. He stepped into a drugstore and ordered a bromoseltzer. At the sodafountain he stood looking at himself in the mirror behind the glass shelf with the gingeralebottles on it; his new darkblue broadcloth coat looked well anyway. The black eyes of the sodajerker were seeking his eyes out. “A heavy evening, eh?” Dick nodded and grinned. The sodajerker passed a thin red-knuckled hand over his patentleather hair. “I didn’t get off till one thirty an’ it takes me an hour to get home on the subway. A whale of a chance I got to…” “I’m late at the office now,” said Dick and paid and walked out, belching a little, into the sparkling morning street. He walked fast, taking deep breaths. By the time he was standing in the elevator with a sprinkling of stoutish fortyish welldressed men, executives like himself getting to their offices late, he had a definite sharp headache.

He’d hardly stretched his legs out under his desk when the interoffice phone clicked. It was Miss Williams’ voice: “Good morning, Mr. Savage. We’ve been waiting for you… Mr. Moorehouse says please step into his office, he wants to speak with you a minute before the staff conference.” Dick got up and stood a second with his lips pursed rocking on the balls of his feet looking out the window over the ashcolored blocks that stretched in a series of castiron molds east to the chimneys of powerplants, the bridge, the streak of river flashing back steel at the steelblue sky. Riveters shrilly clattered in the new huge construction that was jutting up girder by girder at the corner of Fortysecond. They all seemed inside his head like a dentist’s drill. He shuddered, belched and hurried along the corridor into the large corner office.

J.W. was staring at the ceiling with his big jowly face as expressionless as a cow’s. He turned his pale eyes on Dick without a smile. “Do you realize there are seventyfive million people in this country unwilling or unable to go to a physician in time of sickness?” Dick twisted his face into a look of lively interest. He’s been talking to Ed Griscolm, he said to himself. “Those are the people the Bingham products have got to serve. He’s touched only the fringes of this great potential market.” “His business would be to make them feel they’re smarter than the bigbugs who go to Battle Creek,” said Dick. J.W. frowned thoughtfully.

Ed Griscolm had come in. He was a sallow long man with an enthusiastic flash in his eye that flickered on and off like an electriclight sign. He had a way of carrying his arms like a cheerleader about to lead a college yell. Dick said “Hello” without warmth. “Top of the morning, Dick… a bit over hung I see… Too bad, old man, too bad.”

“I was just saying, Ed,” J.W. went on in his slow even voice, “that our talkingpoints should be first that they haven’t scratched the top of their potential market of seventyfive million people and second that a properlyconducted campaign can eradicate the prejudice many people feel against proprietary medicines and substitute a feeling of pride in their use.”

“It’s smart to be thrifty… that sort of thing,” shouted Ed.

“Selfmedication,” said Dick. “Tell them the average sodajerker knows more about medicine today than the family physician did twentyfive years ago.”

“They think there’s something hick about patent medicines,” yelled Ed Griscolm. “We got to put patent medicines on Park Avenue.” “Proprietary medicines,” said J.W. reprovingly.

Dick managed to wipe the smile off his face. “We’ve got to break the whole idea,” he said, “into its component parts.”

“Exactly.” J.W. picked up a carvedivory papercutter and looked at it in different angles in front of his face. The office was so silent they could hear the traffic roaring outside and the wind whistling between the steel windowframe and the steel window. Dick and Ed Griscolm held their breath. J.W. began to talk. “The American public has become sophisticated… when I was a boy in Pittsburgh all we thought of was display advertising, the appeal to the eye. Now with the growth of sophistication we must think of the other types of appeal, and the eradication of prejudice… Bingo… the name is out of date, it’s all wrong. A man would be ashamed to lunch at the Metropolitan Club with a bottle of Bingo at his table… that must be the talkingpoint… Yesterday Mr. Bingham seemed inclined to go ahead. He was balking a little at the cost of the campaign…”

“Never mind,” screeched Ed Griscolm, “we’ll nail the old buzzard’s feet down yet.”

“I guess he has to be brought around gently just as you were saying last night, J.W.,” said Dick in a low bland voice. “They tell me Halsey of Halsey O’Connor’s gone to bed with a nervous breakdown tryin’ to get old Bingham to make up his mind.” Ed Griscolm broke into a tittering laugh.

J.W. got to his feet with a faint smile. When J.W. smiled Dick smiled too. “I think he can be brought to appreciate the advantages connected with the name… dignity… established connections…” Still talking J.W. led the way down the hall into the large room with a long oval mahogany table in the middle of it where the whole office was gathered. J.W. went first with his considerable belly waggling a little from side to side as he walked, and Dick and Ed Griscolm, each with an armful of typewritten projects in paleblue covers, followed a step behind him. Just as they were settling down after a certain amount of coughing and honking and J.W. was beginning about how there were seventyfive million people, Ed Griscolm ran out and came back with a neatlydrawn chart in blue and red and yellow lettering showing the layout of the proposed campaign. An admiring murmur ran round the table.

Dick caught a triumphant glance in his direction from Ed Griscolm. He looked at J.W. out of the corner of his eye. J.W. was looking at the chart with an expressionless face. Dick walked over to Ed Griscolm and patted him on the shoulder. “A swell job, Ed old man,” he whispered. Ed Griscolm’s tense lips loosened into a smile. “Well, gentlemen, what I’d like now is a snappy discussion,” said J.W. with a mean twinkle in his paleblue eye that matched for a second the twinkle of the small diamonds in his cufflinks.

While the others talked Dick sat staring at J.W.’s hands spread out on the sheaf of typewritten papers on the table in front of him. Oldfashioned starched cuffs protruded from the sleeves of the perfectlyfitting doublebreasted grey jacket and out of them hung two pudgy strangely hicklooking hands with liverspots on them. All through the discussion Dick stared at the hands, all the time writing down phrases on his scratchpad and scratching them out. He couldn’t think of anything. His brains felt boiled. He went on scratching away with his pencil at phrases that made no sense at all. On the fritz at the Ritz… Bingham’s products cure the fits.

It was after one before the conference broke up. Everybody was congratulating Ed Griscolm on his layout. Dick heard his own voice saying it was wonderful but it needed a slightly different slant. “All right,” said J.W. “How about finding that slightly different slant over the weekend? That’s the idea I want to leave with every man here. I’m lunching with Mr. Bingham Monday noon. I must have a perfected project to present.”

Dick Savage went back to his office and signed a pile of letters his secretary had left for him. Then he suddenly remembered he’d told Reggie Talbot he’d meet him for lunch at “63” to meet the girlfriend and ran out, adjusting his blue muffler as he went down in the elevator. He caught sight of them at a table with their heads leaning together in the crinkled cigarettesmoke in the back of the crowded Saturday-afternoon speakeasy. “Oh, Dick, hello,” said Reggie, jumping to his feet with his mild smile, grabbing Dick’s hand and drawing him towards the table. “I didn’t wait for you at the office because I had to meet this one… Jo, this is Mr. Savage. The only man in New York who doesn’t give a damn… What’ll you have to drink?” The girl certainly was a knockout. When Dick let himself drop on the redleather settee beside her, facing Reggie’s slender ashblond head and his big inquiring lightbrown eyes, he felt boozy and tired.

“Oh, Mr. Savage, what’s happened about the Bingham account? I’m so excited about it. Reggie can’t talk about anything else. I know it’s indiscreet to ask.” She looked earnestly in his face out of long-lashed black eyes. They certainly made a pretty couple.

“Telling tales out of school, eh?” said Dick, picking up a breadstick and snapping it into his mouth.

“But you know, Dick, Jo and me… we talk about everything… it never goes any further… And honestly all the younger guys in the office think it’s a damn shame J.W. didn’t use your first layout… Griscolm is going to lose the account for us if he isn’t careful… it just don’t click… I think the old man’s getting softening of the brain.”

“You know I’ve thought several times recently that J.W. wasn’t in very good health… Too bad. He’s the most brilliant figure in the publicrelations field.” Dick heard an oily note come into his voice and felt ashamed in front of the youngsters and shut up suddenly. “Say, Tony,” he called peevishly to the waiter. “How about some cocktails? Give me a bacardi with a little absinthe in it, you know, my special… Gosh, I feel a hundred years old.”

“Been burning the candle at both ends?” asked Reggie.

Dick twisted his face into a smirk. “Oh, that candle,” he said. “It gives me a lot of trouble.” They all blushed. Dick chuckled. “By God, I don’t think there are three other people in the city that have a blush left in them.” They ordered more cocktails. While they were drinking Dick felt the girl’s eyes serious and dark fixed on his face. She lifted her glass to him. “Reggie says you’ve been awfully sweet to him at the office… He says he’d have been fired if it wasn’t for you.” “Who could help being sweet to Reggie? Look at him.” Reggie got red as a beet. “The lad’s got looks,” said the girl. “But has he any brains?”

Dick began to feel better with the onionsoup and the third cocktail. He began to tell them how he envied them being kids and getting married. He promised he’d be bestman. When they asked him why he didn’t get married himself he confusedly had some more drinks and said his life was a shambles. He made fifteen thousand a year but he never had any money. He knew a dozen beautiful women but he never had a girl when he needed her. All the time he was talking he was planning in the back of his head a release on the need for freedom of selfmedication. He couldn’t stop thinking about that damned Bingham account.

It was beginning to get dark when they came out of “63.” A feeling of envy stung him as he put the young people into a taxi. He felt affectionate and amorous and nicely buoyed up by the radiating warmth of food and alcohol in his belly. He stood for a minute on the corner of Madison Avenue watching the lively beforechristmas crowd pour along the sidewalk against the bright showwindows, all kinds of faces flushed and healthylooking for once in the sharp cold evening in the slanting lights. Then he took a taxi down to Twelfth Street.

The colored maid who let him in was wearing a pretty lace apron. “Hello, Cynthia.” “How do you do, Mr. Dick.” Dick could feel the impatient blood pounding in his temples as he walked up and down the old uneven parquet floor waiting. Eveline was smiling when she came out from the back room. She’d put too much powder on her face in too much of a hurry and it brought out the drawn lines between her nostrils and her mouth and gave her nose a floury look. Her voice still had a lovely swing to it. “Dick, I thought you’d given me up.”

“I’ve been working like a dog… I’ve gotten so my brain won’t work. I thought it would do me good to see you.” She handed him a Chinese porcelain box with cigarettes in it. They sat down side by side on a rickety oldfashioned horsehair sofa. “How’s Jeremy?” asked Dick in a cheerful tone.

Her voice went flat. “He’s gone out west with Paul for Christmas.”

“You must miss him… I’m disappointed myself. I love the brat.”

“Paul and I have finally decided to get a divorce… in a friendly way.”

“Eveline, I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“I dunno… It does seem silly… But I always liked Paul.”

“It all got just too tiresome… This way it’ll be much better for him.”

There was something coolly bitter about her as she sat beside him in her a little too frizzy afternoondress. He felt as if he was meeting her for the first time. He picked up her long blueveined hand and put it on the little table in front of them and patted it. “I like you better… anyway.” It sounded phony in his ears, like something he’d say to a client. He jumped to his feet. “Say, Eveline, suppose I call up Settignano and get some gin around? I’ve got to have a drink… I can’t get the office out of my head.”

“If you go back to the icebox you’ll find some perfectly lovely cock tails all mixed. I just made them. There are some people coming in later.” “How much later?” “About seven o’clock… why?” Her eyes followed him teasingly as he went back through the glass doors.

In the pantry the colored girl was putting on her hat. “Cynthia, Mrs. Johnson alleges there are cocktails out here.” “Yes, Mr. Dick, I’ll get you some glasses.” “Is this your afternoon out?” “Yessir, I’m goin’ to church.” “On Saturday afternoon?” “Yessir, our church we have services every Saturday afternoon… lots of folks don’t get Sunday off nowadays.” “It’s gotten so I don’t get any day off at all.” “It shoa is too bad, Mr. Dick.”

He went back into the front room shakily, carrying the tray with the shaker jiggling on it. The two glasses clinked. “Oh, Dick, I’m going to have to reform you. Your hands are shaking like an old greybeard’s.” “Well, I am an old greybeard. I’m worrying myself to death about whether that bastardly patentmedicine king will sign on the dotted line Monday.”

“Don’t talk about it… It sounds just too awful. I’ve been working hard myself… I’m trying to put on a play.”

“Eveline, that’s swell! Who’s it by?”

“Charles Edward Holden… It’s a magnificent piece of work. I’m terribly excited about it. I think I know how to do it… I don’t suppose you want to put a couple of thousand dollars in, do you, Dick?”

“Eveline, I’m flat broke… They’ve got my salary garnisheed and Mother has to be supported in the style to which she is accustomed and then there’s Brother Henry’s ranch in Arizona… he’s all balled up with a mortgage… I thought Charles Edward Holden was just a columnist.”

“This is a side of him that’s never come out… I think he’s the real poet of modern New York… you wait and see.”

Dick poured himself another cocktail. “Let’s talk about just us for a minute… I feel so frazzled… Oh, Eveline, you know what I mean… We’ve been pretty good friends.” She let him hold her hand but she did not return the squeeze he gave it. “You know we always said we were just physically attractive to each other… why isn’t that the swellest thing in the world?” He moved up close to her on the couch, gave her a little kiss on the cheek, tried to twist her face around. “Don’t you like this miserable sinner a little bit?”

“Dick, I can’t.” She got to her feet. Her lips were twitching and she looked as if she was going to burst into tears. “There’s somebody I like very much… very, very much. I’ve decided to make some sense out of my life.”

“Who? That damn columnist?”

“Never mind who.”

Dick buried his face in his hands. When he took his hands away he was laughing. “Well, if that isn’t just my luck… Just Johnny on the spot and me full of speakeasy Saturday-afternoon amorosity.”

“Well, Dick, I’m sure you won’t lack for partners.”

“I do today… I feel lonely and hellish. My life is a shambles.”

“What a literary phrase.”

“I thought it was pretty good myself but honestly I feel every whichway… Something funny happened to me last night. I’ll tell you about it someday when you like me better.”

“Dick, why don’t you go to Eleanor’s? She’s giving a party for all the boyars.”

“Is she really going to marry that horrid little prince?” Eveline nodded with that same cold bitter look in her eyes. “I suppose a title is the last word in the decorating business… Why won’t Eleanor put up some money?” “I don’t want to ask her. She’s filthy with money, though, she’s had a very successful fall. I guess we’re all getting grasping in our old age… What does poor Moorehouse think about the prince?”

“I wish I knew what he thought about anything. I’ve been working for him for years now and I don’t know whether he’s a genius or a stuffed shirt… I wonder if he’s going to beat Eleanor’s. I want to get hold of him this evening for a moment… That’s a very good idea… Eveline, you always do me good one way or another.”

“You’d better not go without phoning… She’s perfectly capable of not letting you in if you come uninvited and particularly with a houseful of émigrée Russians in tiaras.”

Dick went to the phone and called up. He had to wait a long time for Eleanor to come. Her voice sounded shrill and rasping. At first she said why didn’t he come to dinner next week instead. Dick’s voice got very coaxing. “Please let me see the famous prince, Eleanor… And I’ve got something very important to ask you about… After all you’ve always been my guardian angel, Eleanor. If I can’t come to you when I’m in trouble, who can I come to?” At last she loosened up and said he could come but he mustn’t stay long. “You can talk to poor J. Ward… he looks a little forlorn.” Her voice ended in a screechy laugh that made the receiver jangle and hurt his ear.

When he went back to the sofa Eveline was lying back against the pillows soundlessly laughing. “Dick,” she said, “you’re a master of blarney.” Dick made a face at her, kissed her on the forehead and left the house.

Eleanor’s place was glittering with chandeliers and cutglass. When she met him at the drawingroom door her small narrow face looked smooth and breakable as a piece of porcelain under her carefully-curled hair and above a big rhinestone brooch that held a lace collar together. From behind her came the boom and the high piping of Russian men’s and women’s voices and a smell of tea and charcoal. “Well, Richard, here you are,” she said in a rapid hissing whisper. “Don’t forget to kiss the grandduchess’s hand… she’s had such a dreadful life. You’d like to do any little thing that would please her, wouldn’t you?… And, Richard, I’m worried about Ward… he looks so terribly tired… I hope he isn’t beginning to break up. He’s the type you know that goes off like that… You know these big shortnecked blonds.”

There was a tall silver samovar on the Buhl table in front of the marble fireplace and beside it sat a large oldish woman in a tinsel shawl with her hair in a pompadour and the powder flaking off a tired blotchy face. She was very gracious and had quite a twinkle in her eye and she was piling caviar out of a heaped cutglass bowl onto a slice of blackbread and laughing with her mouth full. Around her were grouped Russians in all stages of age and decay, some in tunics and some in cheap business suits and some frowstylooking young women and a pair of young men with slick hair and choirboy faces. They were all drinking tea or little glasses of vodka. Everybody was ladling out caviar. Dick was introduced to the prince who was an olivefaced young man with black brows and a little pointed black mustache who wore a black tunic and black soft leather boots and had a prodigiously small waist. They were all merry as crickets chirping and roaring in Russian, French and English. Eleanor sure is putting out, Dick caught himself thinking as he dug into the mass of big greygrained caviar.

J.W. looking pale and fagged was standing in the corner of the room with his back to an icon that had three candles burning in front of it. Dick distinctly remembered having seen the icon in Eleanor’s window some weeks before, against a piece of purple brocade. J.W. was talking to an ecclesiastic in a black cassock with purple trimmings who when Dick went up to them turned out to have a rich Irish brogue. “Meet the Archimandrite O’Donnell, Dick,” said J.W. “Did I get it right?” The Archimandrite grinned and nodded. “He’s been telling me about the monasteries in Greece.” “You mean where they haul you up in a basket?” said Dick. The Archimandrite jiggled his grinning, looselipped face up and down. “I’m goin’ to have the honorr and pleasurr of introducin’ dear Eleanor into the mysteries of the true church. I was tellin’ Mr. Moorehouse the story of my conversion.” Dick found an impudent rolling eye looking him over. “Perhaps you’d be carin’ to come someday, Mr. Savage, to hear our choir. Unbelief dissolves in music like a lump of sugar in a glass of hot tay.” “Yes, I like the Russian choir,” said J.W.

“Don’t you think that our dear Eleanor looks happier and younger for it?” The Archimandrite was beaming into the crowded room. J.W. nodded doubtfully. “Och, a lovely graceful little thing she is, clever too… Perhaps, Mr. Moorehouse and Mr. Savage, you’d come to the service and to lunch with me afterwards… I have some ideas about a little book on my experiences at Mount Athos… We could make a little parrty of it.” Dick was amazed to find the Archimandrite’s fingers pinching him in the seat and hastily moved away a step, but not before he’d caught from the Archimandrite’s left eye a slow vigorous wink.

The big room was full of clinking and toasting, and there was the occasional crash of a broken glass. A group of younger Russians were singing in deep roaring voices that made the crystal chandelier tinkle over their heads. The caviar was all gone but two uniformed maids were bringing in a table set with horsdœuvres in the middle of which was a large boiled salmon.

J.W. nudged Dick. “I think we might go someplace where we can talk.” “I was just waiting for you, J.W. I think I’ve got a new slant. I think it’ll click this time.”

They’d just managed to make their way through the crush to the door when a Russian girl in black with fine black eyes and arched brows came running after them. “Oh, you mustn’t go. Leocadia Pavlovna likes you so much. She likes it here, it is informal… the bohème. That is what we like about Leonora Ivanovna. She is bohème and we are bohème. We luff her.” “I’m afraid we have a business appointment,” said J.W. solemnly. The Russian girl snapped her fingers with, “Oh, business it is disgusting… America would be so nice without the business.”

When they got out on the street J.W. sighed. “Poor Eleanor, I’m afraid she’s in for something… Those Russians will eat her out of house and home. Do you suppose she really will marry this Prince Mingraziali? I’ve made inquiries about him… He’s all that he says he is. But heavens!” “With crowns and everything,” said Dick, “the date’s all set.” “After all, Eleanor knows her own business. She’s been very successful, you know.”

J.W.’s car was at the door. The chauffeur got out with a laprobe over his arm and was just about to close the door on J.W. when Dick said, “J.W., have you a few minutes to talk about this Bingham account?” “Of course, I was forgetting,” said J.W. in a tired voice. “Come on out to supper at Great Neck… I’m alone out there except for the children.” Smiling, Dick jumped in and the chauffeur closed the door of the big black towncar behind him.

It was pretty lugubrious eating in the diningroom with its painted Italian panels at the Moorehouses’ with the butler and the second-man moving around silently in the dim light and only Dick and J.W. and Miss Simpson, the children’s so very refined longfaced governess, at the long candlelit table. Afterwards when they went into J.W.’s little white den to smoke and talk about the Bingham account, Dick thanked his stars when the old butler appeared with a bottle of scotch and ice and glasses. “Where did you find that, Thompson?” asked J.W. “Been in the cellar since before the war, sir… those cases Mrs. Moorehouse bought in Scotland… I knew Mr. Savage liked a bit of a spot.”

Dick laughed. “That’s the advantage of having a bad name,” he said.

J.W. drawled solemnly, “It’s the best to be had, I know that… Do you know I never could get much out of drinking, so I gave it up, even before prohibition.”

J.W. had lit himself a cigar. Suddenly he threw it in the fire. “I don’t think I’ll smoke tonight. The doctor says three cigars a day won’t hurt me… but I’ve been feeling seedy all week… I ought to get out of the stockmarket… I hope you keep out of it, Dick.”

“My creditors don’t leave me enough to buy a ticket to a raffle with.”

J.W. took a couple of steps across the small room lined with un-scratched sets of the leading authors in morocco, and then stood with his back to the Florentine fireplace with his hands behind him. “I feel chilly all the time. I don’t think my circulation’s very good… Perhaps it was going to see Gertrude… The doctors have finally admitted her case is hopeless. It was a great shock to me.”

Dick got to his feet and put down his glass. “I’m sorry, J.W… Still, there have been surprising cures in brain troubles.”

J.W. was standing with his lips in a thin tight line, his big jowl trembling a little. “Not in schizophrenia… I’ve managed to do pretty well in everything except that… I’m a lonely man,” he said. “And to think once upon a time I was planning to be a songwriter.” He smiled. Dick smiled too and held out his hand. “Shake hands, J.W.,” he said, “with the ruins of a minor poet.”

“Anyway,” said J.W., “the children will have the advantages I never had… Would it bore you, before we get down to business, to go up and say goodnight to them? I’d like to have you see them.”

“Of course not, I love kids,” said Dick. “In fact I’ve never yet quite managed to grow up myself.”

At the head of the stairs Miss Simpson met them with her finger to her lips. “Little Gertrude’s asleep.” They tiptoed down the allwhite hall. The children were in bed each in a small hospitallike room cold from an open window, on each pillow was a head of pale straw-colored hair. “Staple’s the oldest… he’s twelve,” whispered J.W. “Then Gertrude, then Johnny.” Staple said goodnight politely. Gertrude didn’t wake up when they turned the light on. Johnny sat up in a nightmare with his bright blue eyes open wide, crying, “No, no,” in a tiny frightened voice. J.W. sat on the edge of the bed petting him for a moment until he fell asleep again. “Goodnight, Miss Simpson,” and they were tiptoeing down the stairs. “What do you think of them?” J.W. turned beaming to Dick.

“They sure are a pretty sight… I envy you,” said Dick.

“I’m glad I brought you out… I’d have been lonely without you… I must entertain more,” said J.W.

They settled back into their chairs by the fire and started to go over the layout to be presented to Bingham Products. When the clock struck ten J.W. began to yawn. Dick got to his feet. “J.W., do you want my honest opinion?”

“Go ahead, boy, you know you can say anything you like to me.”

“Well, here it is.” Dick tossed off the last warm weak remnant of his scotch. “I think we can’t see the woods for the trees… we’re balled up in a mass of petty detail. You say the old gentleman’s pretty pigheaded… one of these from newsboy to president characters… Well, I don’t think that this stuff really sets in high enough relief the campaign you outlined to us a month ago…”

“I’m not very well satisfied with it, to tell the truth.”

“Is there a typewriter in the house?”

“I guess Thompson or Morton can scrape one up somewhere.”

“Well, I think that I might be able to bring your fundamental idea out a little more. To my mind it’s one of the biggest ideas ever presented in the business world.”

“Of course it’s the work of the whole office.”

“Let me see if I can take this to pieces and put it together again over the weekend. After all there’ll be nothing lost… We’ve got to blow that old gent clean out of the water or else Halsey’ll get him.”

“They’re around him every minute like a pack of wolves,” said J.W., getting up yawning. “Well, I leave it in your hands.” When he got to the door J.W. paused and turned. “Of course those Russian aristocrats are socially the top. It’s a big thing for Eleanor that way… But I wish she wouldn’t do it… You know, Dick, Eleanor and I have had a very beautiful relationship… That little woman’s advice and sympathy have meant a great deal to me… I wish she wasn’t going to do it… Well, I’m go ingto bed.”

Dick went up to the big bedroom hung with English hunting-scenes. Thompson brought him up a new noiseless typewriter and the bottle of whiskey. Dick sat there working all night in his pyjamas and bathrobe smoking and drinking the whiskey. He was still at it when the windows began to get blue with day and he began to make out between the heavy curtains black lacy masses of sleetladen trees grouped round a sodden lawn. His mouth was sour from too many cigarettes. He went into the bathroom frescoed with dolphins and began to whistle as he let the hot water pour into the tub. He felt bleary and dizzy but he had a new layout.

Next day at noon when J.W. came back from church with the children Dick was dressed and shaved and walking up and down the flagged terrace in the raw air. Dick’s eyes felt hollow and his head throbbed but J.W. was delighted with the work. “Of course selfservice, independence, individualism is the word I gave the boys in the beginning. This is going to be more than a publicity campaign, it’s going to be a campaign for Americanism… After lunch I’ll send the car over for Miss Williams and get her to take some dictation. There’s more meat in this yet, Dick.” “Of course,” said Dick, reddening. “All I’ve done is restore your original conception, J.W.”

At lunch the children sat up at the table and Dick had a good time with them, making them talk to him and telling them stories about the bunnies he’d raised when he was a little boy in Jersey. J.W. was beaming. After lunch Dick played ping-pong in the billiardroom in the basement with Miss Simpson and Staple and little Gertrude while Johnny picked up the balls for them. J.W. retired to his den to take a nap.

Later they arranged the prospectus for Miss Williams to type. The three of them were working there happily in front of the fire when Thompson appeared in the door and asked reverently if Mr. Moorehouse cared to take a phonecall from Mr. Griscolm. “All right, give it to me on this phone here,” said J.W.

Dick froze in his chair. He could hear the voice at the other end of the line twanging excitedly. “Ed, don’t you worry,” J.W. was drawling. “You take a good rest, my boy, and be fresh as a daisy in the morning so that you can pick holes in the final draft that Miss Williams and I were working over all last night. A few changes occurred to me in the night… You know sleep brings council… How about a little handball this afternoon? A sweat’s a great thing for a man, you know. If it wasn’t so wet I’d be putting in eighteen holes of golf myself. All right, see you in the morning, Ed.” J.W. put down the receiver. “Do you know, Dick,” he said, “I think Ed Griscolm ought to take a couple of weeks off in Nassau or some place like that. He’s losing his grip a little… I think I’ll suggest it to him. He’s been a very valuable fellow in the office, you know.”

“One of the brightest men in the publicrelations field,” said Dick flatly. They went back to work.

Next morning Dick drove in with J.W. but stopped off on Fifty-seventh to run round to his mother’s apartment on Fiftysixth to change his shirt. When he got to the office the switchboard operator in the lobby gave him a broad grin. Everything was humming with the Bingham account. In the vestibule he ran into the inevitable Miss Williams. Her sour lined oldmaidish face was twisted into a sugary smile. “Mr. Savage, Mr. Moorehouse says would you mind meeting him and Mr. Bingham at the Plaza at twelve thirty when he takes Mr. Bingham to lunch?”

He spent the morning on routine work. Round eleven Eveline Johnson called him up and said she wanted to see him. He said how about towards the end of the week. “But I’m right in the building,” she said in a hurt voice. “Oh, come on up, but I’m pretty busy… You know Mondays.”

Eveline had a look of strain in the bright hard light that poured in the window from the overcast sky. She had on a grey coat with a furcollar that looked a little shabby and a prickly grey straw hat that fitted her head tight and had a kind of a last year’s look. The lines from the flanges of her nose to the ends of her mouth looked deeper and harder than ever. Dick got up and took both her hands. “Eveline, you look tired.”

“I think I’m coming down with the grippe.” She talked fast. “I just came in to see a friendly face. I have an appointment to see J.W. at eleven fifteen… Do you think he’ll come across? If I can raise ten thousand the Shuberts will raise the rest. But it’s got to be right away because somebody has some kind of an option on it that expires tomorrow… Oh, I’m so sick of not doing anything… Holden has wonderful ideas about the production and he’s letting me do the sets and costumes… and if some Broadway producer does it he’ll ruin it… Dick, I know it’s a great play.”

Dick frowned. “This isn’t such a very good time… we’re all pretty preoccupied this morning.”

“Well, I won’t disturb you any more.” They were standing in the window. “How can you stand those riveters going all the time?”

“Why, Eveline, those riveters are music to our ears, they make us sing like canaries in a thunderstorm. They mean business… If J.W. takes my advice that’s where we’re going to have our new office.”

“Well, goodby.” She put her hand in its worn grey glove in his. “I know you’ll put in a word for me… You’re the white haired boy around here.”

She went out leaving a little frail familiar scent of cologne and furs in the office. Dick walked up and down in front of his desk frowning. He suddenly felt nervous and jumpy. He decided he’d run out to get a breath of air and maybe a small drink before he went to lunch. “If anybody calls,” he said to his secretary, “tell them to call me after three. I have an errand and then an appointment with Mr. Moorehouse.”

In the elevator there was J.W. just going down in a new overcoat with a big furcollar and a new grey fedora. “Dick,” he said, “if you’re late at the Plaza I’ll wring your neck… You’re slated for the blind bowboy.”

“To shoot Bingham in the heart?” Dick’s ears hummed as the elevator dropped.

J.W. nodded, smiling. “By the way, in strict confidence what do you think of Mrs. Johnson’s project to put on a play?… Of course she’s a very lovel ywoman… Sheused to be a great friend of Eleanor’s… Dick, my boy, why don’t you marry?”

“Who? Eveline? She’s married already.”

“I was thinking aloud, don’t pay any attention to it.” They came out of the elevator and walked across the Grand Central together in the swirl of the noontime crowd. The sun had come out and sent long slanting motefilled rays across under the great blue ceiling overhead. “But what do you think of this play venture? You see I’m pretty well tied up in the market… I suppose I could borrow the money at the bank.”

“The theater’s always risky,” said Dick. “Eveline’s a great girl and all that and full of talent but I don’t know how much of a head she has for business. Putting on a play’s a risky business.”

“I like to help old friends out… but it occurred to me that if the Shuberts thought there was money in it they’d be putting it in themselves… Of course Mrs. Johnson’s very artistic.”

“Of course,” said Dick.

At twelve thirty he was waiting for J.W. in the lobby of the Plaza chewing sensen to take the smell of the three whiskeys he’d swallowed at Tony’s on the way up off his breath. At twelve fortyfive he saw coming from the checkroom J.W.’s large pearshaped figure with the paleblue eyes and the sleek strawgrey hair, and beside him a tall gaunt man with untidy white hair curling into ducktails over his ears. The minute they stepped into the lobby Dick began to hear a rasping opinionated boom from the tall man.

“… never one of those who could hold my peace while injustice ruled in the marketplace. It has been a long struggle and one which from the vantage of those threescore and ten years that the prophets of old promised to man upon this earth I can admit to have been largely crowned with material and spiritual success. Perhaps it was my early training for the pulpit but I have always felt, and that feeling, Mr. Moorehouse, is not rare among the prominent businessmen in this country, that material success is not the only thing… there is the attainment of the spirit of service. That is why I say to you frankly that I have been grieved and wounded by this dark conspiracy. Who steals my purse steals trash but who would… what is it?… my memory’s not what it was… my good name… Ah, yes, how do you do, Mr. Savage?”

Dick was surprised by the wrench the handshake gave his arm. He found himself standing in front of a gaunt loose-jointed old man with a shock of white hair and a big prognathous skull from which the sunburned skin hung in folds like the jowls of a birddog. J.W. seemed small and meek beside him. “I’m very glad to meet you, sir,” E. R. Bingham said. “I have often said to my girls that had I grown up in your generation I would have found happy and useful work in the field of publicrelations. But alas in my day the path was harder for a young man entering life with nothing but the excellent tradition of moral fervor and natural religion I absorbed if I may say so with my mother’s milk. We had to put our shoulders to the wheel in those days and it was the wheel of an old muddy wagon drawn by mules, not the wheel of a luxurious motorcar.”

E. R. Bingham boomed his way into the diningroom. A covey of palefaced waiters gathered round, pulling out chairs, setting the table, bringing menucards. “Boy, it is no use handing me the bill of fare,” E. R. Bingham addressed the headwaiter. “I live by nature’s law. I eat only a few nuts and vegetables and drink raw milk… Bring me some cooked spinach, a plate of grated carrots and a glass of unpasteurized milk… As a result, gentlemen, when I went a few days ago to a great physician at the request of one of the great lifeinsurance companies in this city he was dumbfounded when he examined me. He could hardly believe that I was not telling a whopper when I told him I was seventyone. ‘Mr. Bingham,’ he said, ‘you have the magnificent physique of a healthy athlete of fortyfive’… Feel that, young man.” E. R. Bingham flexed his arm under Dick’s nose. Dick gave the muscle a prod with two fingers. “A sledgehammer,” Dick said, nodding his head. E. R. Bingham was already talking again: “You see I practice what I preach, Mr. Moorehouse… and I expect others to do the same… I may add that in the entire list of remedies and proprietary medicines controlled by Bingham Products and the Rugged Health Corporation, there is not a single one that contains a mineral, a drug or any other harmful ingredient. I have sacrificed time and time again hundreds of thousands of dollars to strike from my list a concoction deemed injurious or habitforming by Dr. Gorman and the rest of the splendid men and women who make up our research department. Our medicines and our systems of diet and cure are nature’s remedies, herbs and simples culled in the wilderness in the four corners of the globe according to the tradition of wise men and the findings of sound medical science.”

“Would you have coffee now, Mr. Bingham, or later?”

“Coffee, sir, is a deadly poison, as are alcohol, tea and tobacco. If the shorthaired women and the longhaired men and the wildeyed cranks from the medical schools, who are trying to restrict the liberties of the American people to seek health and wellbeing, would restrict their activities to the elimination of these dangerous poisons that are sapping the virility of our young men and the fertility of our lovely American womanhood I would have no quarrel with them. In fact I would do everything I could to aid and abet them. Someday I shall put my entire fortune at the disposal of such a campaign. I know that the plain people of this country feel as I do because I’m one of them, born and raised on the farm of plain godfearing farming folk. The American people need to be protected from cranks.”

“That, Mr. Bingham,” said J.W., “will be the keynote of the campaign we have been outlining.” The fingerbowls had arrived. “Well, Mr. Bingham,” said J.W., getting to his feet, “this has been indeed a pleasure. I unfortunately shall have to leave you to go downtown to a rather important directors’ meeting but Mr. Savage here has everything right at his fingertips and can, I know, answer any further questions. I believe we are meeting with your sales department at five.”

As soon as they were alone E. R. Bingham leaned over the table to Dick and said, “Young man, I very much need a little relaxation this afternoon. Perhaps you could come to some entertainment as my guest… All work and no play… you know the adage. Chicago has always been my headquarters and whenever I’ve been in New York I’ve been too busy to get around… Perhaps you could suggest some sort of show or musical extravaganza. I belong to the plain people, let’s go where the plain people go.” Dick nodded understandingly. “Let’s see, Monday afternoon… I’ll have to call up the office… There ought to be vaudeville… I can’t think of anything but a burlesque show.” “That’s the sort of thing, music and young women… I have high regard for the human body. My daughters, thank God, are magnificent physical specimens… The sight of beautiful female bodies is relaxing and soothing. Come along, you are my guest. It will help me to make up my mind about this matter… Between you and me Mr. Moorehouse is a very extraordinary man. I think he can lend the necessary dignity… But we must not forget that we are talking to the plain people.”

“But the plain people aren’t so plain as they were, Mr. Bingham. They like things a little ritzy now,” said Dick, following E. R. Bingham’s rapid stride to the checkroom. “I never wear hat or coat, only that muffler, young lady,” E. R. Bingham was booming.

“Have you any children of your own, Mr. Savage?” asked E. R. Bingham when they were settled in the taxicab. “No, I’m not married at the moment,” said Dick shakily, and lit himself a cigarette. “Will you forgive a man old enough to be your father for pointing something out to you?” E. R. Bingham took Dick’s cigarette between two long knobbed fingers and dropped it out the window of the cab. “My friend, you are poisoning yourself with narcotics and destroying your virility. When I was around forty years old I was in the midst of a severe economic struggle. All my great organization was still in its infancy. I was a physical wreck. I was a slave to alcohol and tobacco. I had parted with my first wife and had I had a wife I wouldn’t have been able to… behave with her as a man should. Well, one day I said to myself: ‘Doc Bingham’—my friends called me Doc in those days—‘like Christian of old you are bound for the City of Destruction and when you’re gone, you’ll have neither chick nor child to drop a tear for you.’ I began to interest myself in the proper culture of the body… my spirit I may say was already developed by familiarity with the classics in my youth and a memory that many have called prodigious… The result has been success in every line of endeavor… Someday you shall meet my family and see what sweetness and beauty there can be in a healthy American home.”

E. R. Bingham was still talking when they went down the aisle to seats beside the gangplank at a burlesque show. Before he could say Jack Robinson, Dick found himself looking up a series of bare jiggling female legs spotted from an occasional vaccination. The band crashed and blared, the girls wiggled and sang and stripped in a smell of dust and armpits and powder and greasepaint in the glare of the moving spot that kept lighting up E. R. Bingham’s white head. E. R. Bingham was particularly delighted when one of the girls stooped and cooed, “Why, look at Grandpa,” and sang into his face and wiggled her geestring at him. E. R. Bingham nudged Dick and whispered, “Get her telephone number.” After she’d moved on he kept exclaiming, “I feel like a boy again.”

In the intermission Dick managed to call Miss Williams at the office and to tell her to suggest to people not to smoke at the conference. “Tell J.W. the old buzzard thinks cigarettes are coffinnails,” he said. “Oh, Mr. Savage,” said Miss Williams reprovingly. At five Dick tried to get him out but he insisted on staying till the end of the show. “They’ll wait for me, don’t worry,” he said.

When they were back in a taxi on the way to the office E. R. Bingham chuckled. “By gad, I always enjoy a good legshow, the human form divine… Perhaps we might, my friend, keep the story of our afternoon under our hats.” He gave Dick’s knee a tremendous slap. “It’s great to play hookey.”

At the conference Bingham Products signed on the dotted line. Mr. Bingham agreed to anything and paid no attention to what went on. Halfway through he said he was tired and was going home to bed and left yawning, leaving Mr. Goldmark and a representative of the J. Winthrop Hudson Company that did the advertising for Bingham Products to go over the details of the project. Dick couldn’t help admiring the quiet domineering way J.W. had with them. After the conference Dick got drunk and tried to make a girl he knew in a taxicab but nothing came of it and he went home to the empty apartment feeling frightful.

The next morning Dick overslept. The telephone woke him. It was Miss Williams calling from the office. Would Mr. Savage get himself a bag packed and have it sent down to the station so as to be ready to accompany Mr. Moorehouse to Washington on the Congressional. “And, Mr. Savage,” she added, “excuse me for saying so, but we all feel at the office that you were responsible for nailing the Bingham account. Mr. Moorehouse was saying you must have hypnotized them.” “That’s very nice of you, Miss Williams,” said Dick in his sweetest voice.

Dick and J.W. took a drawingroom on the train. Miss Williams came too and they worked all the way down. Dick was crazy for a drink all afternoon, but he didn’t dare take one, although he had a bottle of scotch in his bag, because Miss Williams would be sure to spot him getting out the bottle and say something about it in that vague acid apologetic way she had, and he knew J.W. felt he drank too much. He felt so nervous he smoked cigarettes until his tongue began to dry up in his mouth and then took to chewing chiclets.

Dick kept J.W. busy with new slants until J.W. lay down to take a nap saying he felt a little seedy; then Dick took Miss Williams to the diner to have a cup of tea and told her funny stories that kept her in a gale. By the time they reached the smoky Baltimore tunnels he felt about ready for a padded cell. He’d have been telling people he was Napoleon before he got to Washington if he hadn’t been able to get a good gulp of scotch while Miss Williams was in the ladies’ room and J.W. was deep in a bundle of letters E. R. Bingham had given him between Bingham Products and their Washington lobbyist Colonel Judson on the threat of pure food legislation.

When Dick finally escaped to his room in the corner suite J.W. always took at the Shoreham, he poured out a good drink to take quietly by himself, with soda and ice, while he prepared a comic telegram to send the girl he had a date for dinner with that night at the Colony Club. He’d barely sipped the drink when the phone rang. It was E. R. Bingham’s secretary calling up from the Willard to see if Dick would dine with Mr. and Mrs. Bingham and the Misses Bingham. “By all means go,” said J.W. when Dick inquired if he’d need him. “First thing you know I’ll be completing the transaction by marrying you off to one of the lovely Bingham girls.”

The Bingham girls were three strapping young women named Hygeia, Althea and Myra, and Mrs. Bingham was a fat faded flatfaced blonde who wore round steel spectacles. The only one of the family who didn’t wear glasses and have buckteeth was Myra who seemed to take more after her father. She certainly talked a blue streak. She was the youngest, too, and E. R. Bingham, who was striding around in oldfashioned carpetslippers with his shirt open at the neck and a piece of red flannel undershirt showing across his chest, introduced her as the artistic member of the family. She giggled a great deal about how she was going to New York to study painting. She told Dick he looked as if he had the artistic temperament.

They ate in some confusion because Mr. Bingham kept sending back the dishes, and flew into a towering passion because the cabbage was overcooked and the raw carrots weren’t ripe and cursed and swore at the waiters and finally sent for the manager. About all they’d had was potatosoup and boiled onions sprinkled with hazelnuts and peanutbutter spread on wholewheat bread, all washed down with Coca-Cola, when two young men appeared with a microphone from N.B.C. for E. R. Bingham to broadcast his eighto’clock health talk. He was suddenly smiling and hearty again and Mrs. Bingham reappeared from the bedroom to which she’d retreated crying, with her hands over her ears not to hear the old man’s foul language. She came back with her eyes red and a little bottle of smellingsalts in her hand, just in time to be chased out of the room again. E. R. Bingham roared that women distracted his attention from the mike, but he made Dick stay and listen to his broadcast on health and diet and exercise hints and to the announcement of the annual crosscountry hike from Washington to Louisville sponsored by Rugged Health, the Bingham Products houseorgan, which he was going to lead in person for the first three days, just to set the pace for the youngsters, he said.

After the broadcast Mrs. Bingham and the girls came in all rouged and powdered up wearing diamond earrings and pearl necklaces and chinchilla coats. They invited Dick and the radio young men to go to Keith’s with them but Dick explained that he had work to do. Before Mrs. Bingham left she made Dick promise to come to visit them at their home in Eureka. “You come and spend a month, young feller,” boomed E. R. Bingham, interrupting her. “We’ll make a man of you out there. The first week orangejuice and high irrigations, massage, rest… After that we build you up with crackedwheat and plenty of milk and cream, a little boxing or trackwork, plenty of hiking out in the sun without a lot of stifling clothes on, and you’ll come back a man, nature’s richest handiwork, the paragon of animals… you know the lines of the immortal bard… and you’ll have forgotten all about that unhealthy New York life that’s poisoning your system. You come out, young man… Well, good night. By the time I’ve done my deep breathing it’ll be my bedtime. When I’m in Washington I get up at six every morning and break the ice in the Basin… How about coming down for a little dip tomorrow? Pathe Newsreel is going to be there… It would be worth your while in your business.” Dick excused himself hastily, saying, “Another time, Mr. Bingham.”

At the Shoreham he found J.W. finishing dinner with Senator Planet and Colonel Judson, a smooth pink toadfaced man with a caressingly amiable manner. The senator got to his feet and squeezed Dick’s hand warmly. “Why, boy, we expected to see you come back wearin’ a tigerskin… Did the old boy show you his chestexpansion?” J.W. was frowning. “Not this time, senator,” said Dick quietly.

“But, senator,” J.W. said with some impatience, evidently picking up a speech where it had been broken off, “it’s the principle of the thing. Once government interference in business is established as a precedent it means the end of liberty and private initiative in this country.” “It means the beginning of red Russian bolshevistic tyranny,” added Colonel Judson with angry emphasis. Senator Planet laughed. “Aren’t those rather harsh words, Joel?” “What this bill purports to do is to take the right of selfmedication from the American people. A set of lazy government employees and remittancemen will be able to tell you what laxative you may take and what not. Like all such things, it’ll be in the hands of cranks and busybodies. Surely the American people have the right to choose what products they want to buy. It’s an insult to the intelligence of our citizens.”

The senator tipped up an afterdinner coffeecup to get the last dregs of it. Dick noticed that they were drinking brandy out of big balloon-glasses. “Well,” said the senator slowly, “what you say may be true but the bill has a good deal of popular support and you gentlemen mustn’t forget that I am not entirely a free agent in this matter. I have to consult the wishes of my constituents…” “As I look at it,” interrupted Colonel Judson, “all these socalled pure food and drug bills are class legislation in favor of the medical profession. Naturally the doctors want us to consult them before we buy a toothbrush or a package of licorice powder.” J.W. picked up where he left off: “The tendency of the growth of scientificallyprepared proprietary medicine has been to make the layman free and selfsufficient, able to treat many minor ills without consulting a physician.” The senator finished his brandy without answering.

“Bowie,” said Colonel Judson, reaching for the bottle and pouring out some more. “You know as well as I do that the plain people of your state don’t want their freedom of choice curtailed by any Washington snoopers and busybodies… And we’ve got the money and the organization to be of great assistance in your campaign. Mr. Moorehouse is about to launch one of the biggest educational drives the country has ever seen to let the people know the truth about proprietary medicines, both in the metropolitan and the rural districts. He will roll up a great tidal wave of opinion that Congress will have to pay attention to. I’ve seen him do it before.”

“Excellent brandy,” said the senator. “Fine Armagnac has been my favorite for years.” He cleared his throat and took a cigar from a box in the middle of the table and lit it in a leisurely fashion. “I’ve been much criticized of late, by irresponsible people of course, for what they term my reactionary association with big business. You know the demagogic appeal.”

“It is particularly at a time like this that an intelligentlyrun organization can be of most use to a man in public life,” said Colonel Judson earnestly. Senator Planet’s black eyes twinkled and he passed a hand over the patch of spiky black hair that had fallen over his low forehead, leaving a segment of the top of his head bald. “I guess it comes down to how much assistance will be forthcoming,” he said, getting to his feet. “The parallelogram of forces.”

The other men got to their feet too. The senator flicked the ash from his cigar. “The force of public opinion, senator,” said J.W. portentously. “That is what we have to offer.” “Well, Mr. Moorehouse, you must excuse me, I have some speeches to prepare… This has been most delightful… Dick, you must come to dinner while you’re in Washington. We’ve been missing you at our little dinners… Goodnight, Joel, see you tomorrow.” J.W.’s valet was holding the senator’s furlined overcoat for him. “Mr. Bingham,” said J.W., “is a very publicspirited man, senator, he’s willing to spend a very considerable sum of money.” “He’ll have to,” said the senator.

After the door had closed on Senator Planet the rest of them sat silent a moment. Dick poured himself a glass of the Armagnac. “Well, Mr. Bingham don’t need to worry,” said Colonel Judson. “But it’s going to cost him money. Bowie an’ his friends are just trying to raise the ante. You know I can read ’em like a book… After all, I been around this town for fifteen years.”

“It’s humiliating and absurd that legitimate business should have to stoop to such methods,” said J.W.

“Sure, J.W., you took the words right out of my mouth… If you want my opinion, what we need is a strong man in this country to send all these politicians packing… Don’t think I don’t know ’em… But this little dinnerparty has been very valuable. You are a new element in the situation… A valuable air of dignity, you know… Well, goodnight.”

J.W. was already standing with his hand outstretched, his face white as paper. “Well, I’ll be running along,” said Colonel Judson. “You can assure your client that that bill will never pass… Take a good night’s rest, Mr. Moorehouse… Goodnight, Captain Savage…” Colonel Judson patted both J.W. and Dick affectionately on the shoulder with his two hands in the same gesture. Chewing his cigar he eased out of the door leaving a broad smile behind him and a puff of rank blue smoke.

Dick turned to J.W. who had sunk down in a red plush chair. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right, J.W.?” “It’s just a little indigestion,” J.W. said in a weak voice, his face twisted with pain, gripping the arms of the chair with both hands. “Well, I guess we’d better all turn in,” said Dick. “But, J.W., how about getting a doctor in to take a look at you in the morning?” “We’ll see, goodnight,” said J.W., talking with difficulty with his eyes closed.

Dick had just got to sleep when a knocking on his door woke him with a start. He went to the door in his bare feet. It was Morton, J.W.’s elderly cockney valet. “Beg pardon, sir, for waking you, sir,” he said. “I’m worried about Mr. Moorehouse, sir. Dr. Gleason’s with him… I’m afraid it’s a heart attack. He’s in pain something awful, sir.” Dick put on his purple silk bathrobe and his slippers and ran into the drawingroom of the suite where he met the doctor. “This is Mr. Savage, sir,” said the valet. The doctor was a greyhaired man with a grey mustache and a portentous manner. He looked Dick fiercely in the eye as he spoke: “Mr. Moorehouse must be absolutely quiet for some days. It’s a very light angina pectoris… not serious this time but a thorough rest for a few months is indicated. He ought to have a thorough physical examination… talk him into it in the morning. I believe you are Mr. Moorehouse’s business partner, aren’t you, Mr. Savage?” Dick blushed. “I’m one of Mr. Moorehouse’s collaborators.” “Take as much off his shoulders as you can.” Dick nodded. He went back to his room and lay on his bed the rest of the night without being able to sleep.

In the morning when Dick went in to see him J.W. was sitting up in bed propped up with pillows. His face was a rumpled white and he had violet shadows under his eyes. “Dick, I certainly gave myself a scare.” J.W.’s voice was weak and shaking, it made Dick feel almost tearful to hear it. “Well, what about the rest of us?” “Well, Dick, I’m afraid I’m going to have to dump E. R. Bingham and a number of other matters on your shoulders… And I’ve been thinking that perhaps I ought to change the whole capital structure of the firm. What would you think of Moorehouse, Griscolm and Savage?” “I think it would be a mistake to change the name, J.W. After all J. Ward Moorehouse is a national institution.”

J.W.’s voice quavered up a little stronger. He kept having to clear his throat. “I guess you’re right, Dick,” he said. “I’d like to hold on long enough to give my boys a start in life.”

“What do you want to bet you wear a silk hat at my funeral, J.W.? In the first place it may have been an attack of acute indigestion just as you thought. We can’t go on merely one doctor’s opinion. What would you think of a little trip to the Mayo clinic? All you need’s a little overhauling, valves ground, carburetor adjusted, that sort of thing… By the way, J.W., we wouldn’t want Mr. Bingham to discover that a mere fifteenthousandayear man was handling his sacred proprietary medicines, would we?”

J.W. laughed weakly. “Well, we’ll see about that… I think you’d better go on down to New York this morning and take charge of the office. Miss Williams and I will hold the fort here… She’s sour as a pickle but a treasure, I tell you.”

“Hadn’t I better stick around until we’ve had a specialist look you over?”

“Dr. Gleason filled me up with dope of some kind so that I’m pretty comfortable. I’ve wired my sister Hazel, she teaches school over in Wilmington, she’s the only one of the family I’ve seen much of since the old people died… She’ll be over this afternoon. It’s her Christmas vacation.”

“Did Morton get you the opening quotations?”

“Skyrocketing… Never saw anything like it… But do you know, Dick, I’m going to sell out and lay on my oars for a while… It’s funny how an experience like this takes the heart out of you.”

“You and Paul Warburg,” said Dick.

“Maybe it’s old age,” said J.W. and closed his eyes for a minute. His face seemed to be collapsing into a mass of grey and violet wrinkles as Dick looked.

“Well, take it easy, J.W.,” said Dick and tiptoed out of the room.

He caught the eleveno’clock train and got to the office in time to straighten things out. He told everybody that J.W. had a light touch of grippe and would be in bed for a few days. There was so much work piled up that he gave Miss Hilles his secretary a dollar for her supper and asked her to come back at eight. For himself he had some sandwiches and a carton of coffee sent up from a delicatessen. It was midnight before he got through. In the empty halls of the dim building he met two rusty old women coming with pails and scrubbingbrushes to clean the office. The night elevatorman was old and pastyfaced. Snow had fallen and turned to slush and gave Lexington Avenue a black gutted look like a street in an abandoned village. A raw wind whipped his face and ears as he turned uptown. He thought of the apartment on Fiftysixth Street full of his mother’s furniture, the gilt chairs in the front room, all the dreary objects he’d known as a small boy, the Stag at Bay and the engravings of the Forum Romanorum in his room, the birdseyemaple beds; he could see it all sharply as if he was there as he turned into the wind. Bad enough when his mother was there, but when she was in St. Augustine, frightful. “God damn it, it’s time I was making enough money to reorganize my life,” he said to himself.

He jumped into the first taxi he came to and went to “63.” It was warm and cozy in “63.” As she helped him off with his coat and muffler the platinumhaired checkgirl carried on an elaborate kidding that had been going on all winter about how he was going to take her to Miami and make her fortune at the races at Hialeah. Then he stood a second peering through the doorway into the low room full of wellgroomed heads tables glasses cigarettesmoke spiraling in front of the pink lights. He caught sight of Pat Doolittle’s black bang. There she was sitting in the alcove with Reggie and Jo. The Italian waiter ran up rubbing his hands. “Good evening, Mr. Savage, we’ve been missing you.” “I’ve been in Washington.” “Cold down there?” “Oh, kind of medium,” said Dick and slipped into the redleather settee opposite Pat. “Well, look who we have with us,” she said. “I thought you were busy poisoning the American public under the dome of the Capitol.”

“Wouldn’t be so bad if we poisoned some of those western legislators,” said Dick.

Reggie held out his hand. “Well, put it there, Alec Borgia… I reckon you’re on the bourbon if you’ve been mingling with the conscript fathers.”

“Sure, I’ll drink bourbon… kids, I’m tired… I’m going to eat something. I didn’t have any supper. I just left the office.”

Reggie looked pretty tight; so did Pat. Jo was evidently sober and sore. I must fix this up, thought Dick and put his arm round Pat’s waist. “Say, did you get my ’gram?” “Laughed myself sick over it,” said Pat. “Gosh, Dick, it’s nice to have you back among the drinking classes.”

“Say, Dick,” said Reggie, “is there anything in the rumor that old doughface toppled over?”

“Mr. Moorehouse had a little attack of acute indigestion… he was better when I left,” said Dick in a voice that sounded a little too solemn in his ears.

“Not drinking gets ’em in the end,” said Reggie. The girls laughed. Dick put down three bourbons in rapid succession but he wasn’t getting any lift from them. He just felt hungry and frazzled. He had his head twisted around trying to flag the waiter to find out what the devil had happened to his filetmignon when he heard Reggie drawling, “After all J. Ward Moorehouse isn’t a man… it’s a name… You can’t feel sorry when a name gets sick.”

Dick felt a rush of anger flush his head: “He’s one of the sixty most important men in this country,” he said. “After all, Reggie, you’re taking his money…”

“Good God,” cried Reggie. “The man on the high horse.”

Pat turned to Dick, laughing. “They seem to be getting mighty holy down there in Washington.”

“No, you know I like to kid as well as anybody… But when a man like J.W. who’s perhaps done more than any one living man, whether you like what he does or not, to form the public mind in this country, is taken ill, I think sophomore wisecracks are in damn bad taste.”

Reggie was drunk. He was talking in phony southern dialect. “Wha, brudder, Ah didn’t know as you was Mista Moahouse in pussen. Ah thunked you was juss a lowdown wageslave like the rest of us pickaninnies.”

Dick wanted to shut up but he couldn’t. “Whether you like it or not the molding of the public mind is one of the most important things that goes on in this country. If it wasn’t for that American business would be in a pretty pickle… Now we may like the way American business does things or we may not like it, but it’s a historical fact like the Himalaya Mountains and no amount of kidding’s going to change it. It’s only through publicrelations work that business is protected from wildeyed cranks and demagogues who are always ready to throw a monkeywrench into the industrial machine.”

“Hear, hear,” cried Pat.

“Well, you’ll be the first to holler when they cut the income from your old man’s firstmortgage bonds,” said Dick snappishly.

“Senator,” intoned Reggie, strengthened by another old-fashioned, “allow me to congrat’late you… ma soul ’n body, senator, ’low me to congrat’late you… upon your val’able services to this great commonwealth that stretches from the great Atlantical ocean to the great and glorious Pacifical.”

“Shut up, Reggie,” said Jo. “Let him eat his steak in peace.”

“Well, you certainly made the eagle scream, Dick,” said Pat, “but seriously, I guess you’re right.”

“We’ve got to be realists,” said Dick.

“I believe,” said Pat Doolittle, throwing back her head and laughing, “that he’s come across with that raise.”

Dick couldn’t help grinning and nodding. He felt better since he’d eaten. He ordered another round of drinks and began to talk about going up to Harlem to dance at Small’s Paradise. He said he couldn’t go to bed, he was too tired, he had to have some relaxation. Pat Doolittle said she loved it in Harlem but that she hadn’t brought any money. “My party,” said Dick. “I’ve got plenty of cash on me.”

They went up with a flask of whiskey in each of the girls’ handbags and in Dick’s and Reggie’s back pockets. Reggie and Pat sang The Fireship in the taxi. Dick drank a good deal in the taxi to catch up with the others. Going down the steps to Small’s was like going underwater into a warm thickly-grown pool. The air was dense with musky smells of mulatto powder and perfume and lipstick and dresses and throbbed like flesh with the smoothlybalanced chugging of the band. Dick and Pat danced right away, holding each other very close. Their dancing seemed smooth as cream. Dick found her lips under his and kissed them. She kissed back. When the music stopped they were reeling a little. They walked back to their table with drunken dignity. When the band started again Dick danced with Jo. He kissed her too. She pushed him off a little. “Dick, you oughtn’t to.” “Reggie won’t mind. It’s all in the family…” They were dancing next to Reggie and Pat hemmed in by a swaying blur of couples. Dick dropped Jo’s hand and put his hand on Reggie’s shoulder. “Reggie, you don’t mind if I kiss your future wife for you just once.” “Go as far as you like, senator,” said Reggie. His voice was thick. Pat was having trouble keeping him on his feet. Jo gave Dick a waspish look and kept her face turned away for the rest of the dance. As soon as they got back to the table she told Reggie that it was after two and she’d have to go home, she for one had to work in the morning.

When they were alone and Dick was just starting to make love to Pat she turned to him and said, “Oh, Dick, do take me some place low… nobody’ll ever take me any place really low.” “I should think this would be quite low enough for a juniorleaguer,” he said. “But this is more respectable than Broadway, and I’m not a juniorleaguer… I’m the new woman.” Dick burst out laughing. They both laughed and had a drink on it and felt fond of each other again and Dick suddenly asked her why couldn’t they be together always. “I think you’re mean. This isn’t any place to propose to a girl. Imagine remembering all your life that you’d got engaged in Harlem… I want to see life.” “All right, young lady, we’ll go… but don’t blame me if it’s too rough for you.” “I’m not a sissy,” said Pat angrily. “I know it wasn’t the stork.”

Dick paid and they finished up one of the pints. Outside it was snowing. Streets and stoops and pavements were white, innocent, quiet, glittering under the streetlights with freshfallen snow. Dick asked the whiteeyed black doorman about a dump he’d heard of and the doorman gave the taximan the address. Dick began to feel good. “Gosh, Pat, isn’t this lovely,” he kept crying. “Those kids can’t take it. Takes us grownups to take it… Say, Reggie’s getting too fresh, do you know it?” Pat held his hand tight. Her cheeks were flushed and her face had a taut look. “Isn’t it exciting?” she said. The taxi stopped in front of an unpainted basement door with one electriclightbulb haloed with snowflakes above it.

They had a hard time getting in. There were no white people there at all. It was a furnaceroom set around with plain kitchen tables and chairs. The steampipes overhead were hung with colored paper streamers. A big brown woman in a pink dress, big eyes rolling loose in their dark sockets and twitching lips, led them to a table. She seemed to take a shine to Pat. “Come right on in, darlin’,” she said. “Where’s you been all my life?”

Their whiskey was gone so they drank gin. Things got to whirling round in Dick’s head. He couldn’t get off the subject of how sore he was at that little squirt Reggie. Here Dick had been nursing him along in the office for a year and now he goes smartaleck on him. The little twirp.

The only music was a piano where a slimwaisted black man was tickling the ivories. Dick and Pat danced and danced and he whirled her around until the sealskin browns and the highyallers cheered and clapped. Then Dick slipped and dropped her. She went spinning into a table where some girls were sitting. Dark heads went back, pink rubber lips stretched, mouths opened. Gold teeth and ivories let out a roar.

Pat was dancing with a pale pretty mulatto girl in a yellow dress. Dick was dancing with a softhanded brown boy in a tightfitting suit the color of his skin. The boy was whispering in Dick’s ear that his name was Gloria Swanson. Dick suddenly broke away from him and went over to Pat and pulled her away from the girl. Then he ordered drinks all around that changed sullen looks into smiles again. He had trouble getting Pat into her coat. The fat woman was very helpful. “Sure, honey,” she said, “you don’t want to go on drinkin’ tonight, spoil your lovely looks.” Dick hugged her and gave her a ten-dollar bill.

In the taxi Pat had hysterics and punched and bit at him when he held her tight to try to keep her from opening the door and jumping out into the snow. “You spoil everything… You can’t think of anybody except yourself,” she yelled. “You’ll never go through with anything.” “But, Pat, honestly,” he was whining. “I thought it was time to draw the line.” By the time the taxi drew up in front of the big square apartmenthouse on Park Avenue where she lived she was sobbing quietly on his shoulder. He took her into the elevator and kissed her for a long time in the upstairs hall before he’d let her put the key in the lock of her door. They stood there tottering clinging to each other rubbing up against each other through their clothes until Dick heard the swish of the rising elevator and opened her door for her and pushed her in.

When he got outside the door he found the taxi waiting for him. He’d forgotten to pay the driver. He couldn’t stand to go home. He didn’t feel drunk, he felt immensely venturesome and cool and innocently excited. Patricia Doolittle he hated more than anybody in the world. “The bitch,” he kept saying aloud. He wondered how it would be to go back to the dump and see what happened and there he was being kissed by the fat woman who wiggled her breasts as she hugged him and called him her own lovin’ chile, with a bottle of gin in his hand pouring drinks for everybody and dancing cheek to cheek with Gloria Swanson who was humming in his ear: Do I get it now… or must I he… esitate.

It was morning. Dick was shouting the party couldn’t break up, they must all come to breakfast with him. Everybody was gone and he was getting into a taxicab with Gloria and a strapping black buck he said was his girlfriend Florence. He had a terrible time getting his key in the lock. He tripped and fell towards the paleblue light seeping through his mother’s lace curtains in the windows. Something very soft tapped him across the back of the head.

He woke up undressed in his own bed. It was broad daylight. The phone was ringing. He let it ring. He sat up. He felt lightheaded but not sick. He put his hand to his ear and it came away all bloody. It must have been a stocking full of sand that hit him. He got to his feet. He felt tottery but he could walk. His head began to ache like thunder. He reached for the place on the table he usually left his watch. No watch. His clothes were neatly hung on a chair. He found the wallet in its usual place, but the roll of bills was gone. He sat down on the edge of the bed. Of all the damn fools. Never never never take a risk like that again. Now they knew his name his address his phonenumber. Blackmail, oh, Christ. How would it be when Mother came home from Florida to find her son earning twentyfive thousand a year, junior partner of J. Ward Moorehouse being blackmailed by two nigger whores, male prostitutes receiving males? Christ. And Pat Doolittle and the Bingham girls. It would ruin his life. For a second he thought of going into the kitchenette and turning on the gas.

He pulled himself together and took a bath. Then he dressed carefully and put on his hat and coat and went out. It was only nine o’clock. He saw the time in a jeweler’s window on Lexington. There was a mirror in the same window. He looked at his face. Didn’t look so bad, would look worse later, but he needed a shave and had to do something about the clotted blood on his ear.

He didn’t have any money but he had his checkbook. He walked to a Turkish bath near the Grand Central. The attendants kidded him about what a fight he’d been in. He began to get over his scare a little and to talk big about what he’d done to the other guy. They took his check all right and he even was able to buy a drink to have before his breakfast. When he got to the office his head was still splitting but he felt in fair shape. He had to keep his hands in his pockets so that Miss Hilles shouldn’t see how they shook. Thank God he didn’t have to sign any letters till afternoon.

Ed Griscolm came in and sat on his desk and talked about J.W.’s condition and the Bingham account and Dick was sweet as sugar to him. Ed Griscolm talked big about an offer he’d had from Halsey, but Dick said of course he couldn’t advise him but that as for him the one place in the country he wanted to be was right here, especially now as there were bigger things in sight than there had ever been before, he and J.W. had had a long talk going down on the train. “I guess you’re right,” said Ed. “I guess it was sour grapes a little.” Dick got to his feet. “Honestly, Ed, old man, you mustn’t think for a minute J.W. doesn’t appreciate your work. He even let drop something about a raise.” “Well, it was nice of you to put in a word for me, old man,” said Ed and they shook hands warmly.

As Ed was leaving the office he turned and said, “Say, Dick, I wish you’d give that youngster Talbot a talking to… I know he’s a friend of yours so I don’t like to do it, but Jesus Christ, he’s gone and called up again saying he’s in bed with the grippe. That’s the third time this month.”

Dick wrinkled up his brows. “I don’t know what to do about him, Ed. He’s a nice kid all right but if he won’t knuckle down to serious work… I guess we’ll have to let him go. We certainly can’t let drinking acquaintance stand in the way of the efficiency of the office. These kids all drink too much anyway.”

After Ed had gone Dick found on his desk a big lavender envelope marked Personal. A whiff of strong perfume came out when he opened it. It was an invitation from Myra Bingham to come to the housewarming of her studio on Central Park South. He was still reading it when Miss Hilles’ voice came out of the interoffice phone. “There’s Mr. Henry B. Furness of the Furness Corporation says he must speak to Mr. Moorehouse at once.” “Put him on my phone, Miss Hilles. I’ll talk to him… and, by the way, put a social engagement on my engagement pad… January fifteen that five o’clock… reception Miss Myra Bingham, 36 Central Park South.”