“Looks like,” said Congo filling the little glasses again with a slow smile, “Meester ’Erf you tink too much.”
“Of course I do Congo, of course I do, but what the hell am I going to do about it?”
“Well when you need a little money remember Armand Duval. … Want a chaser?”
Herf shook his head. “I’ve got to chase myself. … So long Armand.”
In the colonnaded marble hall he ran into Nevada Jones. She was wearing orchids. “Hullo Nevada, what are you doing in this palace of sin?”
“I live here, what do you think? … I married a friend of yours the other day, Armand Duval. Want to come up and see him?”
“Just been. … He’s a good scout.”
“He sure is.”
“What did you do with little Tony Hunter?”
She came close to him and spoke in a low voice. “Just forget about me and him will you? … Gawd the boy’s breath’d knock you down. … Tony’s one of God’s mistakes, I’m through with him. … Found him chewing the edges of the rug rolling on the floor of the dressing room one day because he was afraid he was going to be unfaithful to me with an acrobat. … I told him he’d better go and be it and we busted up right there. … But honest I’m out for connubial bliss this time, right on the level, so for God’s sake dont let anybody spring anything about Tony or about Baldwin either on Armand … though he knows he wasnt hitching up to any plaster virgin. … Why dont you come up and eat with us?”
“I cant. Good luck Nevada.” The whisky warm in his stomach, tingling in his fingers, Jimmy Herf stepped out into seven o’clock Park Avenue, whirring with taxicabs, streaked with smells of gasoline and restaurants and twilight.
It was the first evening James Merivale had gone to the Metropolitan Club since he had been put up for it; he had been afraid, that like carrying a cane, it was a little old for him. He sat in a deep leather chair by a window smoking a thirtyfive cent cigar with the Wall Street Journal on his knee and a copy of the Cosmopolitan leaning against his right thigh and, with his eyes on the night flawed with lights like a crystal, he abandoned himself to reverie: Economic Depression. … Ten million dollars. … After the war slump. Some smash I’ll tell the world. Blackhead & Densch Fail for $10,000,000. … Densch left the country some days ago. … Blackhead incommunicado in his home at Great Neck. One of the oldest and most respected import and export firms in New York, $10,000,000. O it’s always fair weather, When good fellows get together. That’s the thing about banking. Even in a deficit there’s money to be handled, collateral. These commercial propositions always entail a margin of risk. We get ’em coming or else we get ’em going, eh Merivale? That’s what old Perkins said when Cunningham mixed him that Jack Rose. … With a stein on the tabul, And a good song ri‑i‑inging clear. Good connection that feller. Maisie knew what she was doing after all. … A man in a position like that’s always likely to be blackmailed. A fool not to prosecute. … Girl’s crazy he said, married to another man of the same name. … Ought to be in a sanitarium, a case like that. God I’d have dusted his hide for him. Circumstances exonerated him completely, even mother admitted that. O Sinbad was in bad in Tokyo and Rome … that’s what Jerry used to sing. Poor old Jerry never had the feeling of being in good right in on the ground floor of the Metropolitan Club. … Comes of poor stock. Take Jimmy now … hasnt even that excuse, an out and out failure, a misfit from way back. … Guess old man Herf was pretty wild, a yachtsman. Used to hear mother say Aunt Lily had to put up with a whole lot. Still he might have made something of himself with all his advantages … dreamer, wanderlust … Greenwich Village stuff. And dad did every bit as much for him as he did for me. … And this divorce now. Adultery … with a prostitute like as not. Probably had syphilis or something. Ten Million Dollar Failure.
Failure. Success.
Ten Million Dollar Success. … Ten Years of Successful Banking. … At the dinner of the American Bankers Association last night James Merivale, president of the Bank & Trust Company, spoke in answer to the toast “Ten Years of Progressive Banking.” … Reminds me gentlemen of the old darky who was very fond of chicken. … But if you will allow me a few serious words on this festive occasion (flashlight photograph) there is a warning note I should like to sound … feel it my duty as an American citizen, as president of a great institution of nationwide, international in the better sense, nay, universal contacts and loyalties (flashlight photograph). … At last making himself heard above the thunderous applause James Merivale, his stately steelgray head shaking with emotion, continued his speech. … Gentlemen you do me too much honor. … Let me only add that in all trials and tribulations, becalmed amid the dark waters of scorn or
