U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [554]
"My creditors don't leave me enough to buy a ticket to a raffle with." J. W. took a couple of steps across the smal room lined with unscratched sets of the leading authors in morocco, and then stood with his back to the Florentine fireplace with his hands behind him. "I feel chil y al the time. I don't think my circulation's very good. . . . Perhaps it was going to see Gertrude. . . . The doctors have final y 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. . . . Stil , 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 wel 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.
-491-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 wil have the ad-vantages 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 tip-toed down the al white hal . The children were in bed each in a smal hospital ike room cold from an open win-dow, on each pil ow was a head of pale strawcolored hair.
"Staple's the oldest . . . he's twelve," whispered J. W.
"Then Gertrude, then Johnny." Staple said goodnight po-litely. 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 fel asleep again. "Goodnight, Miss Simpson," and they were him for a moment until he fel 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."
"Wel , 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 bal ed up in a mass of petty detail. You say the old gentleman's pretty pigheaded . . . one
-492-of these from newsboy to president characters. . . . Wel , I don't think that this stuff real y sets in high enough re-lief the campaign you outlined to us a month ago. . . ."
"I'm not very wel satisfied with it, to tel the truth."
"Is there a typewriter in the house?"
"I guess Thompson or Morton can scrape one up some-where."
"Wel , I think that I might be able to bring your funda-mental 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 to-gether again over the weekend. After al there'l be noth-ing lost. . . . We've got to blow that old gent clean out of the water or else Halsey'l get him."
"They're around him every minute like a pack of wolves," said J. W., getting up yawning.
"Wel , I leave it in your hands." When he got to the door J. W. paused and turned. "Of course those Russian