“That’s what he wants you to think. But don’t you see what this inevitably leads to? The immediate effect of course is to cut down over-production. But if every big industry followed suit, all production would slow down. All production, and this is a high-production country. You can’t run this country on a five-day week. That is socialism in disguise. The labor union people know it, and they welcome it.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Look, Pen. Put this country on a five-day week, and you have to employ more men. But they won’t be skilled men. They’ll be incompetent, lazy bastards, getting the same money as the skilled men. That’s the way I feel about spreading the work over a greater number of men. You have to hire the incompetents. That’s something I’ve been learning with my new house. I don’t mind paying a good carpenter good wages, but I’ve had to pay lazy men the same money I paid good men. I’m talking now about unskilled labor. I wanted some fences removed, so I hired some ordinary laborers. Were they uniformly good workers? No. About half of them did an honest day’s work, and the other half did as little as they could, as slowly as they could.”
“What’s this got to do with the stock market?”
“Oh, Pen! What’s any stock going to be worth if an industry has to overpay its labor? All materials will be overpriced because labor is overpaid, and the country will have inflation, just as they have it in Germany and Austria. You can buy a fine Mauser for fifteen cents today, in our money.”
“Thank you. I’ve heard about their inflation.”
“Well, then you know what I mean by holding on to it. I sometimes wonder if I want to make any more money in the market.”
“What!”
“Oh, I will. I’m greedy, too. But I wish people like us would get out of the stock market and stay out for a while. We won’t. It’s foolish to think of it. But there are a great, great many stocks that are selling for much more than their earnings justify. That isn’t healthy. What it means is that people like us, with money to buy stocks, are just as bad as labor. Labor inflates by being overpaid. We inflate by sending up the prices of common stocks, far beyond their real worth.”
“I hear plenty of that down here. Bear talk.”
“I don’t see it as only bear talk. That’s the trouble with being here, around the corner from the Stock Exchange. Any comment a man makes is either bearish or bullish. That’s the only way you fellows think.”
“I’m not a broker. Kindly don’t confuse me with one.”
“It’s easy to. You talk like one. Frankly, I don’t like the stock market. I don’t like margin trading. I wish that I could find two or three investments. Buy the stock at the full price and hold on to it for twenty years, thirty years. But I don’t want to pay these prices for stocks that aren’t worth it: I say too many prices are already too high, and I just wish I were strong enough to resist the temptation to buy any more.”
“You have no more objection to easy money than I have.”
“I’m afraid not. I’m stingy at heart, and what I object to is being a sucker, paying fifty dollars for fifteen-dollar stocks. What’s going on today, by the way?”
“In the market?” said Penrose Lockwood. “Have a look. Here’s Allied Chemical, 124. Dodge Brothers, 22½. American Radiator, off two, at 108. Yellow Truck, 27½.”
“I see,” said George Lockwood. “Where are you meeting your cronies?”
“Ray’s office. He’s having lunch sent in. I ought to call him if you’re going over there with me. Do you want to go?”
“They’re not going to like what I have to say.”
“Then shut up, or don’t come.”
“I’ll shut up and listen, for a change,” said George Lockwood.
Penrose Lockwood had his secretary call Ray Turner’s secretary, to say that Mr. George Lockwood would be an added guest at lunch. “How is Geraldine? She came for dinner last week, you probably know.”
“Yes.”
“Wilma thought she looked a little tired.”
“She was tired. She’s been buying furniture for the new house. How is Wilma?”
“Fine. Do you want to come for dinner? How long are you planning to be in town?”
“About a week. I had to get the hell out of Swedish Haven.”
“Why?”
“Some God damn farmer’s kid got killed on my place.”
“When?”
“Yesterday. Yesterday afternoon. The house was finally finished. The last Italian carpenters had left, and I went home and had tea. Just getting ready to have my bath and the watchman phoned. The kid fell from a tree onto my wall. Impaled on a couple of spikes.”
“Impaled? On spikes?”
“I had spikes set in along the top of the wall. This kid fell on them.”
“How horrible! How old was the kid?”
“Thirteen or fourteen. One of a large family. Farmers named Zehner. None of it was my fault. The kid was trespassing, probably wanted to see what he could steal. But I got the hell out of Swedish Haven because I didn’t want to be questioned or have to appear at an inquest. I’ve spoken to Arthur McHenry and I’m legally okay. But I stay clear of any doings with the townspeople. Oh, our friends. But I’ve always avoided getting on familiar terms with the grocery clerks and people like that, and I didn’t want to have to talk to reporters, or answer questions at the inquest. That’s all been taken care of. By the way, Geraldine doesn’t know a thing about this, so not a word to her.”
“Of course not.”
“The house would get off to a bad start. You know Geraldine.”
“She’s going to hear.”
“But not right away. If I can put this thing in the past, she won’t be shocked. If she’d known about it last night she might very easily have said she’d never live in the house. The Curse of Lockwood Hall.”
“You’re not calling it that?”
“Of course not, but that’s the general idea. Romanticizing a nasty accident to a young thief,” said George Lockwood. “What are you thinking about? Do you object to my calling him a thief?”
“No. He probably was,” said Penrose Lockwood.
“Well, what’s eating you? You’re miles away.”
“No I’m not. I’m right here,” said Penrose Lockwood. “I have a problem of my own making. Nothing at all like this one of yours, but it’s a problem.”
“Can I do anything?”
“Well—yes. You’ve always been smarter than I am about women. Maybe you can think for me. I seem to have lost the power to think, at least about this. And I’m not so sure it doesn’t affect my thinking about other things.”
“Let’s have it, Pen,” said George Lockwood.
“Just don’t call me the kid brother.”
“It’s all right if I think it, though, isn’t it? I want to help, and there aren’t very many people I can say that about. You have a lady friend.”
“As long as I’ve been married to Wilma, that’s well over twenty years, I’ve never had anything to do with any other woman. There were times when I think I could have had a fling or two. I very nearly did during the war, when I was stationed at League Island. A girl, a woman, in Philadelphia, wife of a friend of mine that you don’t know. But we both saw how foolish it would be, and down deep she was in love with her husband and I was with Wilma. So we stopped seeing each other, and when I think of it, there was nothing that her husband or Wilma could object to. We just liked to talk, and I only kissed her once. That’s when we realized that our affection for each other had this other side to it. And we stopped then and there.”
“You never slept with her?”
“I told you. I kissed her exactly once. I’m not like you, George.”