“I don’t know how my golf game will be after laying off so long; I expect it’ll come back to me after the first couple of days. The last time I played was out on Long Island, at the Engineers’; must of been four, five years ago. I remember I shot an eighty-seven and win over a hundred dollars. Tennis is my game, though, and I can’t hardly wait to get at it again. What I’m planning to do is get up early in the morning, have breakfast, play two or three sets of tennis, then go swimming and maybe lay around on the beach for an hour; have lunch and then get in eighteen holes of golf and another little swim; then have my dinner, probably up in my room, and go to bed around nine, ten o’clock. Three weeks and I’ll be in the pink!”
“Now you take me,” said Walters, “and—”
“Yes,” said Fretts, “but you probably use some judgment, or maybe you’re married and don’t—”
“No, I’m—”
“I don’t believe they’s a man living could of went the pace I been going and stood up under it. Ben Drew—he’s a pal of mine—he says I’m a marvel. He said, ‘Ernie, you’re a marvel!’ Why listen: Here’s what I did three weeks ago, just for an example. That was right after New Year’s eve. Of course I was on parties morning, night and noon all through the holidays and wound up with a bat that started New Year’s eve and lasted till Monday morning, the third. I slept a w’ile Monday forenoon and showed up at the office about three o’clock. Miss Clancy—the girl I got in the office—she give me a message to call up a pal of mine, Ben Drew.
“I called him up and he had a date with a girl he had picked up somewhere named Stevens, and would I and my girl come along. That’s a girl named Bonnie Werner that I been going with. She thinks I’m going to marry her, and I suppose everybody’s entitled to their opinion. Anyway, I couldn’t leave Ben in a hole so I said all right and he and I got together around five o’clock and loaded up on cocktails and later we jerned the girls and made the rounds and wound up at a Black and Tan, and I and Ben both got pie-eyed and finally sent the girls home mad and we stayed and got in a crap game and I win two three hundred dollars. The game broke up at noon.
“I went straight to the office and Miss Clancy give me a message to call up Miss Werner; that’s the girl I was with the night before, Monday. She was sore on account of me not seeing her home and said if I didn’t take her out this night—Tuesday—why, it was all off between her and I. Well, Tuesday nights we always have a big poker game and I told her I couldn’t get out of the game, but I would see her Wednesday night. I was praying she’d stay sore and carry out her threat and I wouldn’t have to bother with her no more. But no; she backed down and said Wednesday would be k. o.
“So I got in the poker game and it not only lasted all Tuesday night and all day Wednesday, but all night Wednesday night. I got outside of five, six bottles of Ben Drew’s Scotch and win a hundred and seventy dollars. I snatched three, four hours sleep Thursday forenoon and when I showed up at the office, the girl, the Werner girl, was waiting for me.
“To keep her from making a scene I had to promise to devote the rest of the week to her, and the next three nights, we made the rounds of all the different jernts, dancing and drinking rat-poison. Now that’s just one week, but it’s like all the other weeks. No wonder Miss Clancy said I looked terrible!”
“A man can’t go that pace and not feel it. I know in my case—”
“So I need just this kind of a trip—go down there where I don’t know nobody and no girls pestering me all the w’ile, and be outdoors all day and exercise and breathe God’s fresh air. Three, four weeks of that life and the boys in Brooklyn and New York won’t recognize me. And besides that, I never been to Florida and I’m anxious to look it over and see if it’s all they claim. They tell me a man can pick up some great bargains there now and if I find something I like, I’m liable to grab off a piece of it, not for speculation, but maybe build myself a little place to spend the winter months. I hate cold weather and snow and they’s no sense in a man in my position hanging around New York and freezing to death when I could just as well be enjering myself in a clean, wholesome way, in the sunshine.”
“You take me, now—”
“You’re probably a fella that uses some judgment and eat regular, or maybe you got a wife and family to make you behave. But I got nobody only my friends, though I guess I got more of them than any man in Brooklyn. That’s one of my troubles, having too many friends, but only for them, I wouldn’t be where I am, I mean in business. A man in my business has got to have friends, or they wouldn’t have no business.”
“In my business, too. I’m—”
“This must be Fayetteville we’re coming to,” said Fretts. “I’ve got to send a wire to a pal of mine, Ben Drew. He’s in Brooklyn now, but he’s
