When war became certain and the largest corporations were looking about for new manufacturing facilities, Gelhorne had delivered his prosperous community of plants to General Steel, and become an officer of that corporation. The rule-of-thumb familiarity he had with many different industries, as represented by the plants he'd taken over, had been broader than that of any executives General Steel had developed within its own organization, and Gelhorne was soon spending all his time at the side of the corporation's war-rattled president.
There he'd come to the attention of Paul's father in Washington, and Paul's father had made Gelhorne his general executive manager when the whole economy had been made one flesh. When Paul's father died, Gelhorne had taken over.
It could never happen again. The machines would never stand for it.
Paul remembered a week end long ago, when he had been a tall, skinny, polite, and easily embarrassed youth, and Gelhorne had paid a call. Gelhorne had suddenly reached out and caught Paul by the arm as Paul passed his chair. "Paul, boy."
"Yessir?"
"Paul, your father tells me you're real smart."
Paul had nodded uncomfortably.
"That's good, Paul, but that isn't enough."
"No, sir."
"Don't be bluffed."
"No, sir, I won't."
"Everybody's shaking in his boots, so don't be bluffed."
"No, sir."
"Nobody's so damn well educated that you can't learn ninety per cent of what he knows in six weeks. The other ten per cent is decoration."
"Yes, sir."
"Show me a specialist, and I'll show you a man who's so scared he's dug a hole for himself to hide in."
"Yes, sir."
"Almost nobody's competent, Paul. It's enough to make you cry to see how bad most people are at their jobs. If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind."
"Yes, sir."
"Want to be rich, Paul?"
"Yes, sir - I guess so. Yes, sir."
"All right. I got rich, and I told you ninety per cent of what I know about it. The rest is decoration. All right?"
"Yes, sir."
Now, after many years, Paul and Doctor Francis Eldgrin Gelhorne were looking at each other over the long table in the Council House at the Meadows. They weren't close friends, and there was none of Kroner's aromatic paternalism about Gelhorne. This was business.
"There's nothing new about the Society in this report," said Gelhorne.
"Only the part about Finnerty," said Lou MacCleary. "It's been slow going."
"It certainly has," said Doctor Gelhorne. "Well, Doctor Proteus and Doctor Kroner, the point is that this Ghost Shirt nonsense might turn out to be something pretty big. And Lou, here, hasn't been able to get an agent into it to find out what they're up to or who's running it."
"This bunch is smart," said Lou. "They're being pretty selective about who gets in."
"But we think we know how to get a man into it," said Gelhorne. "We think they'd be very tempted by a discontented manager and engineer. We think they've already recruited at least one."
"Finnerty," said Kroner heavily. "He finally registered with the police, incidentally."
"Oh?" said MacCleary. "What did he say he was doing with his time?"
"Says he's getting out Braille editions of pornography."
"He's being pretty cute now," said Gelhorne, "but I think we'll fix his wagon all right. But that's a side issue. The point we're getting at, Paul, is that I think they'll take you into the Ghost Shirt Society under the right conditions."
"Conditions, sir?"
"If we fire you. As of now, as far as anyone outside this room knows, you're through. The rumor's already circulating at the saloon, isn't it, Lou?"
"Yes, sir. I let it slip in front of Shepherd at dinner."
"Good boy," said Gelhorne. "He'll be taking over Ilium, by the way."
"Sir, about Pittsburgh -" said Kroner worriedly. "I promised Paul that he was slated for that job when he was finished with the investigation."
"That's right. In the meanwhile, Garth will run the works there." Gelhorne stood briskly. "All right, Paul? Everything clear? You're to get off the island tonight and back to Ilium." He smiled. "It's really a break for you, Paul. It gives you a chance to clear up your record."
"Record, sir?" Things were happening so quickly now that Paul could only seize upon a word and repeat it as a question in order to keep in the conversation.
"That business of letting Finnerty go through the plant unescorted, and the pistol affair."
"The pistol affair," said Paul. "Can I tell my wife?"
"I'm afraid not," said Lou. "The plan is that nobody outside this room is to know."
"It'll be hard, I know," said Gelhorne sympathetically. "But just now I'm remembering a young boy who told me he didn't want to be an engineer when he grew up, he wanted to be a soldier. You know who that boy was, Paul?"
"Me?" said Paul bleakly.
"You. Well, now you're in the front lines, and we're proud of you."
"Your father would be proud of you, Paul," said Kroner.
"I guess he would. He really would be, wouldn't he," said Paul. Gratefully he was welcoming the blind, invigorating heat of anger. "Sir, Doctor Gelhorne, may I say one more thing before you leave?"
Kroner was holding the door open for the Old Man. "All right, by all means."
"I quit."
Gelhorne, Kroner, and MacCleary laughed. "Wonderful," said the Old Man. "That's the spirit. Keep that up, and you'll fool the hell out of them."
"I mean it! I'm sick of the whole childish, stupid, blind operation."
"Attaboy," said Kroner, smiling encouragingly.
"Give us two minutes to get to the saloon before you leave," said MacCleary. "Wouldn't do for us to be seen together now. And don't worry about packing. Your stuff is being packed right now, and it'll be down at the dock in time for the last boat."
He shut the door behind himself, Gelhorne, and Kroner.
Paul sank heavily back into his chair. "I quit, I quit, I quit," he said. "Do you hear me? I quit!"
"What a night," he heard Lou say on the porch.
"God smiles on the Meadows," said Doctor Gelhorne.
"Look!" said Kroner.
"The moon?" said Lou. "It is beautiful." "The moon, yes - but look at the Oak."
"Oh - and the man," said Doctor Gelhorne. "What do you know about that!" "A man, standing there alone with the Oak, with God and the Oak," said Kroner. "Is the photographer around?" said Lou. "Too late - he's going away now," said Kroner. "Who was he?" said Doctor Gelhorne. "We'll never know," said Lou.
"I don't want to know," said Kroner. "I want to remember this scene and think of him as a little bit of all of us." "You're talking poetry," said the Old Man. "That's good, that's good." Paul, alone inside, exhaled a puff of smoke with too much force, and coughed. The men on the porch whispered something. "Well, gentlemen," said Doctor Gelhorne, "shall we go?"
Chapter Twenty-Three
IF Doctor Paul Proteus, former manager of the Ilium Works, hadn't found reality disquieting at all points, he wouldn't have shown himself in the saloon before boarding the last boat for the Mainland. As he made his way along the gravel path toward the noise and light of the saloon, however, the field of his consciousness narrowed down to a pinprick, and filling the field was a twinkling shot-glass.
The crowd fell silent as he entered, and then exploded into even greater excesses of happy noise. Quickly as Paul glanced about the room, he didn't catch a single man looking at him, nor, in the blurred vision of excitement, did he recognize a single face among these old friends.