I am doing all the evil I can, he vindictively reflected, and it was
with the comfort of his animosity about him that, ultimately, he was
shown into an office--bright and, on this May forenoon, very airy--that
gave on Broad Street.
Dunwoodie, twisting in a chair, glared at him.
"Ecce iterum Crispinus!" Jones tritely began. "What price retainers
to-day?"
"I hoped to God I had seen the last of you," Dunwoodie, with elaborate,
old-fashioned courtesy, replied.
Jones, disdaining to be asked, drew a chair.
Viciously Dunwoodie eyed him. "What the devil do you want?"
Jones smiled at him. "That decision."
"What decision, sir?"
"The one I cited when I brought you the paper that secured Lennox'
discharge."
"Damme, sir, nothing of the kind. I would have had him discharged any
way."
Jones' smile broadened. "You seem capable of anything. It is a great
quality. Believe me, if I thought you lacked it, you would not now be
enjoying my society."
"You flatter yourself strangely, sir. If you have nothing to say, don't
keep on saying it."
"On the contrary, I am here to listen to you," Jones agreeably put in.
"I want your views on that case, 'The Matter of Ziegler.'"
"Hum! Ha! Got yourself in a mess. Yaas. I remember. Been served yet?
Give me the facts."
One after another, Jones produced them.
During their recital, Dunwoodie twirled his thumbs. At their conclusion,
he expressed himself with entire freedom. After which, he saw Jones to
the door, an act which he performed only when he felt particularly
uncivil. At the moment the old bulldog's lip was lifted. But not at
Jones.
Broad Street was very bright that day. Its brilliance did not extend to
the market. Values were departing. The slump was on. Speculators,
investors, the long and the shorts, bank-messengers, broker's-clerks,
jostled Jones, who went around the corner, where a cavern gaped and
swallowed him.
Crashingly the express carried him uptown. He did not know but that he
might have lingered. There is always room at the top, though perhaps it
is unwise to buy there. At the bottom, there is room too, much more. It
is very gloomy, but it is the one safe place. Jones did not think that
the market had got there yet. None the less it was inviting. On the
other hand, he did think he might eat something. There was a restaurant
that he wot of where, the week before, he had had a horrible bite. The
restaurant was nauseating, but convenient. To that dual attraction he
succumbed.
At table there, he meditated on the inscrutable possibilities of life
which, he decided, is full of changes, particularly in the subway;
whereupon a tale in Perrault's best manner occurred to him.
A waiter, loutish and yet infinitely dreary, intervened. Jones paid and
went out on the upper reaches of Broadway. The fairy-tale that he had
evoked accompanied him. It was charmful as only a fairy-tale can be. But
the end, while happy, was hazy. He did not at all know whether it would
do.
Abruptly he awoke.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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