Davis Cadillac, and drive the car, with the motorcycle trailing along behind, back to the Gibbsville-Cadillac Motor Car Company for servicing or repairs. That was another idea that was going to make a saving, but the saving, Julian was sure, had failed to make a showing on the books. And why two motorcycles? One was enough. More than enough. Then there were the trees, those beautiful, slender trees. Julian had conditioned himself against ever seeing them when he passed them, but now he made himself think of them. There they were out there in the little strip of grass along the curb. Seven-hundred and sixty-six dollars and forty-five cents worth of them, including freight and planting. Julian knew to the penny what they cost, but he still was not sure of the name of them. They had been purchased while he was in a fine, naturalistic mood as an aftermath of a City Beautiful luncheon. There had been trees a long time ago where the Gibbsville-Cadillac Motor Car Company now stood, and there had been trees along the curb, but they had been chopped down. Then one day Julian went to a City Beautiful luncheon and everybody got up and said a few words about trees and what they did for a residential section Julian s garage was in a residential section and by the oddest coincidence there chanced to be a man from a nursery at the luncheon, and Julian signed. And that about took care of the extra ten thousand dollars. The other ten thousand had gone for expenses, real ones, like payments on notes, payroll, and so on. Lute was right on another score: Ed Charney was a good customer. I m a good customer of Ed s, Julian reminded himself, but he s a better one of mine. Something ought to be done about Ed, but he supposed the best thing to do for the present was to lay off trying to fix it up. Yes, he certainly had loused things up last night: Ed Charney sore at him, Caroline well, he wouldn’t think of that now; he was at work, and he would try to think of things only in so far as they affected his business. If Ed Charney got really sore but he wouldn’t do that; he wouldn’t throw a pineapple at the garage. This was Gibbsville, not Chicago. And after all, the English name meant something around here. No thanks to me, however, Julian said under his breath. Darn his buttons anyhow, said Mary Klein. What is it, Mary? said Julian. Luther Fliegler, she said. He makes out these slips when he gets gas, but you never can tell whether he means ten gallons or seventy gallons, the way he makes figures.
Well, I don t think he d be making out a slip for seventy gallons. A car doesn’t hold that much gas, said Julian. Besides, that s not your headache. Let Bruce worry about it.
Mary turned to look at him. Sure, but you forget. You told Bruce he could go to Lebanon over the week-end. She spoke as a woman who was carrying on in spite of all injustice. Bruce Reichelderfer was the bookkeeper, and Julian had given him the week-end. That s right, I did. Well, let me see it.
She handed him the slip. She was right as usual; you could not tell from the figures whether Lute had meant 10 or 70. We ought to use the French seven, he said. Then we d always know. However, I guess we can take a chance that he meant ten gallons. He wouldn’t be signing for seventy gallons all at once.
Well, I just wanted to be right on it. Sixty gallons of gas, that costs money, and we can t just
I know, Mary. You’re right. Somehow her tone filled him with terror, the kind that he felt when he knew he was doing something bad. It was an old experience; he still thought of it in the terms of boyhood: when I m doing something bad. And it wasn’t her tone alone; it was her manner, and it was not a new manner. For weeks, and probably months, she had behaved like someone, a school teacher, who was meaning to speak to him about his lessons or conduct. She was Right, and he was Wrong. She could make him feel like a thief, a lecher(although God knows he never had made a pass at her), a drunkard, a no-good bum. She represented precisely what she came from: solid, respectable, Pennsylvania Dutch, Lutheran