Faces, hats, hands, newspapers jiggled in the fetid roaring subway car like corn in a popper. The downtown express passed clattering in yellow light, window telescoping window till they overlapped like scales.
“Look George,” said Sandbourne to George Baldwin who hung on a strap beside him, “you can see Fitzgerald’s contraction.”
“I’ll be seeing the inside of an undertaking parlor if I dont get out of this subway soon.”
“It does you plutocrats good now and then to see how the other half travels. … Maybe it’ll make you induce some of your little playmates down at Tammany Hall to stop squabbling and give us wageslaves a little transportation … cristamighty I could tell em a thing or two. … My idea’s for a series of endless moving platforms under Fifth Avenue.”
“Did you cook that up when you were in hospital Phil?”
“I cooked a whole lot of things up while I was in hospital.”
“Look here lets get out at Grand Central and walk. I cant stand this. … I’m not used to it.”
“Sure … I’ll phone Elsie I’ll be a little late to dinner. … Not often I get to see you nowadays George … Gee it’s like the old days.”
In a tangled clot of men and women, arms, legs, hats aslant on perspiring necks, they were pushed out on the platform. They walked up Lexington Avenue quiet in the claretmisted afterglow.
“But Phil how did you come to step out in front of a truck that way?”
“Honestly George I dunno. … The last I remember is craning my neck to look at a terribly pretty girl went by in a taxicab and there I was drinking icewater out of a teapot in the hospital.”
“Shame on you Phil at your age.”
“Cristamighty dont I know it? But I’m not the only one.”
“It is funny the way a thing like that comes over you. … Why what have you heard about me?”
“Gosh George dont get nervous, it’s all right. … I’ve seen her in The Zinnia Girl. … She walks away with it. That other girl who’s the star dont have a show.”
“Look here Phil if you hear any rumors about Miss Oglethorpe for Heaven’s sake shut them up. It’s so damn silly you cant go out to tea with a woman without everybody starting their dirty gabble all over town. … By God I will not have a scandal, I dont care what happens.”
“Say hold your horses George.”
“I’m in a very delicate position downtown just at the moment that’s all. … And then Cecily and I have at last reached a modus vivendi. … I wont have it disturbed.”
They walked along in silence.
Sandbourne walked with his hat in his hand. His hair was almost white but his eyebrows were still dark and bushy. Every few steps he changed the length of his stride as if it hurt him to walk. He cleared his throat. “George you were asking me if I’d cooked up any schemes when I was in hospital. … Do you remember years ago old man Specker used to talk about vitreous and superenameled tile? Well I’ve been workin on his formula out at Hollis. … A friend of mine there has a two thousand degree oven he bakes pottery in. I think it can be put on a commercial basis. … Man it would revolutionize the whole industry. Combined with concrete it would enormously increase the flexibility of the materials at the architects’ disposal. We could make tile any color, size or finish. … Imagine this city when all the buildins instead of bein dirty gray were ornamented with vivid colors. Imagine bands of scarlet round the entablatures of skyscrapers. Colored tile would revolutionize the whole life of the city. … Instead of fallin back on the orders or on gothic or romanesque decorations we could evolve new designs, new colors, new forms. If there was a little color in the town all this hardshell inhibited life’d break down. … There’d be more love an less divorce. …”
Baldwin burst out laughing. “You tell em Phil. … I’ll talk to you about that sometime. You must come up to dinner when Cecily’s there and tell us about it. … Why wont Parkhurst do anything?”
“I wouldnt let him in on it. He’d cotton on to the proposition and leave me out in the cold once he had the formula. I wouldn’t trust him with a rubber nickel.”
“Why doesnt he take you into partnership Phil?”
“He’s got me where he wants me anyway. … He knows I do all the work in his goddamned office. He knows too that I’m too cranky to make out with most people. He’s a slick article.”
“Still I should think you could put it up to him.”
“He’s got me where he wants me and he knows it, so I continue doin the work while he amasses the coin. … I guess it’s logical. If I had more money I’d just spend it. I’m just shiftless.”
“But look here man you’re not so much older than I am. … You’ve still got a career ahead of you.”
“Sure nine hours a day draftin. … Gosh I wish you’d go into this tile business with me.”
Baldwin stopped at a corner and slapped his hand on the briefcase he was carrying. “Now Phil you know I’d be very glad to give you a hand in any way I could. … But just at the moment my financial situation is terribly involved. I’ve gotten into some rather rash entanglements and Heaven knows how I’m going to get out of them. … That’s why I cant have a scandal or a divorce or anything. You dont understand how complicatedly things interact. … I couldnt take up anything new, not for a year at least. This war in Europe has made things very unsettled downtown. Anything’s liable to happen.”
“All right. Good night George.”
Sandbourne turned abruptly on his heel and walked down the avenue again.
