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.