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?”