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FIVE HUNDRED MILLIONS IN BANK DEAL 3 страница




 

Dick froze in his chair. He could hear the voice at the
other end of the line twanging excitedly. "Ed, don't you
worry," J. W. was drawling. "You take a good rest, my
boy, and be fresh as a daisy in the morning so that you
can pick holes in the final draft that Miss Williams and I
were working over all last night. A few changes occurred
to me in the night. . . . You know sleep brings council.
. . . How about a little handball this afternoon? A sweat's

 

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a great thing for a man, you know. If it wasn't so wet I'd
be putting in eighteen holes of golf myself. All right, see
you in the morning, Ed." J. W. put down the receiver.
"Do you know, Dick," he said, "I think Ed Griscolm ought
to take a couple of weeks off in Nassau or some place like
that. He's losing his grip a little. . . . I think I'll sug-
gest it to him. He's been a very valuable fellow in the
office, you know."

 

"One of the brightest men in the publicrelations field,"
said Dick flatly. They went back to work.

 

Next morning Dick drove in with J. W. but stopped off
on Fiftyseventh to run round to his mother's apartment on
Fiftysixth to change his shirt. When he got to the office the
switchboard operator in the lobby gave him a broad grin.
Everything was humming with the Bingham account. In
the vestibule he ran into the inevitable Miss Williams. Her
sour lined oldmaidish face was twisted into a sugary smile.
"Mr. Savage, Mr. Moorehouse says would you mind
meeting him and Mr. Bingham at the Plaza at twelve
thirty when he takes Mr. Bingham to lunch?"

 

He spent the morning on routine work. Round eleven
Eveline Johnson called him up and said she wanted to see
him. He said how about towards the end of the week. "But
I'm right in the building," she said in a hurt voice. "Oh,
come on up, but I'm pretty busy. . . . You know Mon-
days."

 

Eveline had a look of strain in the bright hard light
that poured in the window from the overcast sky. She had
on a grey coat with a furcollar that looked a little shabby
and a prickly grey straw hat that fitted her head tight and
had a kind of a last year's look. The lines from the flanges
of her nose to the ends of her mouth looked deeper and
harder than ever. Dick got up and took both her hands.
"Eveline, you look tired."

 

"I think I'm coming down with the grippe." She talked
fast. "I just came in to see a friendly face. I have an ap-

 

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pointment to see J. W. at eleven fifteen. . . . Do you
think he'll come across? If I can raise ten thousand the
Shuberts will raise the rest. But it's got to be right away
because somebody has some kind of an option on it that
expires tomorrow. . . . Oh, I'm so sick of not doing any-
thing. . . . Holden has wonderful ideas about the pro-
duction and he's letting me do the sets and costumes . . .
and if some Broadway producer does it he'll ruin it. . . .
Dick, I know it's a great play."

 

Dick frowned. "This isn't such a very good time . . .
we're all pretty preoccupied this morning."

 

"Well, I won't disturb you any more." They were
standing in the window. "How can you stand those riveters
going all the time?"

 

"Why, Eveline, those riveters are music to our ears,
they make us sing like canaries in a thunderstorm. They
mean business. . . . If J. W. takes my advice that's where
we're going to have our new office."

 

"Well, goodby." She put her hand in its worn grey
glove in his. "I know you'll put in a word for me. . . .
You're the whitehaired boy around here."

 

She went out leaving a little frail familiar scent of co-
logne and furs in the office. Dick walked up and down in
front of his desk frowning. He suddenly felt nervous and
jumpy. He decided he'd run out to get a breath of air and
maybe a small drink before he went to lunch. "If anybody
calls," he said to his secretary, "tell them to call me after
three. I have an errand and then an appointment with Mr.
Moorehouse."

 

In the elevator there was J. W. just going down in a
new overcoat with a big furcollar and a new grey fedora.
"Dick," he said, "if you're late at the Plaza I'll wring your
neck. . . . You're slated for the blind bowboy."

 

"To shoot Bingham in the heart?" Dick's ears hummed
as the elevator dropped.

 

J. W. nodded, smiling. "By the way, in strict confidence

 

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what do you think of Mrs. Johnson's project to put on a
play? . . . Of course she's a very lovely woman. . . .
She used to be a great friend of Eleanor's. . . . Dick, my
boy, why don't you marry?"

 

"Who? Eveline? She's married already."

 

"I was thinking aloud, don't pay any attention to it."
They came out of the elevator and walked across the
Grand Central together in the swirl of the noontime
crowd. The sun had come out and sent long slanting mote-
filled rays across under the great blue ceiling overhead.
"But what do you think of this play venture? You see I'm
pretty well tied up in the market. . . . I suppose I could
borrow the money at the bank."

 

"The theater's always risky," said Dick. "Eveline's a
great girl and all that and full of talent but I don't know
how much of a head she has for business. Putting on a
play's a risky business."

 

"I like to help old friends out . . . but it occurred to
me that if the Shuberts thought there was money in it
they'd be putting it in themselves. . . . Of course Mrs.
Johnson's very artistic."

 

"Of course," said Dick.

 

At twelve thirty he was waiting for J. W. in the lobby
of the Plaza chewing sensen to take the smell of the three
whiskeys he'd swallowed at Tony's on the way up off his
breath. At twelve fortyfive he saw coming from the check-
room J. W.'s large pearshaped figure with the paleblue
eyes and the sleek strawgrey hair, and beside him a tall
gaunt man with untidy white hair curling into ducktails
over his ears. The minute they stepped into the lobby Dick
began to hear a rasping opinionated boom from the tall
man.

 

". . . never one of those who could hold my peace
while injustice ruled in the marketplace. It has been a long
struggle and one which from the vantage of those three-
score and ten years that the prophets of old promised to

 

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man upon this earth I can admit to have been largely
crowned with material and spiritual success. Perhaps it was
my early training for the pulpit but I have always felt, and
that feeling, Mr. Moorehouse, is not rare among the
prominent businessmen in this country, that material suc-
cess is not the only thing . . . there is the attainment of
the spirit of service. That is why I say to you frankly that
I have been grieved and wounded by this dark conspiracy.
Who steals my purse steals trash but who would . . .
what is it? . . . my memory's not what it was . . . my
good name . . . Ah, yes, how do you do, Mr. Savage?"

 

Dick was surprised by the wrench the handshake gave
his arm. He found himself standing in front of a gaunt
loosejointed old man with a shock of white hair and a big
prognathous skull from which the sunburned skin hung in
folds like the jowls of a birddog. J. W. seemed small and
meek beside him. "I'm very glad to meet you, sir," E. R.
Bingham said. "I have often said to my girls that had I
grown up in your generation I would have found happy
and useful work in the field of publicrelations. But alas in
my day the path was harder for a young man entering life
with nothing but the excellent tradition of moral fervor
and natural religion I absorbed if I may say so with my
mother's milk. We had to put our shoulders to the wheel
in those days' and it was the wheel of an old muddy wagon
drawn by mules, not the wheel of a luxurious motorcar."

 

E. R. Bingham boomed his way into the diningroom. A
covey of palefaced waiters gathered round, pulling out
chairs, setting the table, bringing menucards. "Boy, it is no
use handing me the bill of fare," E. R. Bingham addressed
the headwaiter. "I live by nature's law. I eat only a few
nuts and vegetables and drink raw milk. . . . Bring me
some cooked spinach, a plate of grated carrots and a glass
of unpasteurized milk. . . . As a result, gentlemen, when
I went a few days ago to a great physician at the request of
one of the great lifeinsurance companies in this city he was

 

-498-

 

dumbfounded when he examined me. He could hardly be-
lieve that I was not telling a whopper when I told him I
was seventyone. 'Mr. Bingham,' he said, 'you have the
magnificent physique of a healthy athlete of fortyfive' . . .
Feel that, young man." E. R. Bingham flexed his arm
under Dick's nose. Dick gave the muscle a prod with two
fingers. "A sledgehammer," Dick said, nodding his head.
E. R. Bingham was already talking again: "You see I prac-
tice what I preach, Mr. Moorehouse . . . and I expect
others to do the same. . . . I may add that in the entire
list of remedies and proprietary medicines controlled by
Bingham Products and the Rugged Health Corporation,
there is not a single one that contains a mineral, a drug or
any other harmful ingredient. I have sacrificed time and
time again hundreds of thousands of dollars to strike from
my list a concoction deemed injurious or habitforming by
Dr. Gorman and the rest of the splendid men and women
who make up our research department. Our medicines and
our systems of diet and cure are nature's remedies, herbs
and simples culled in the wilderness in the four corners of
the globe according to the tradition of wise men and the
findings of sound medical science."

 

"Would you have coffee now, Mr. Bingham, or later?"

 

"Coffee, sir, is a deadly poison, as are alcohol, tea and
tobacco. If the shorthaired women and the longhaired men
and the wildeyed cranks from the medical schools, who are
trying to restrict the liberties of the American people to
seek health and wellbeing, would restrict their activities to
the elimination of these dangerous poisons that are sap-
ping the virility of our young men and the fertility of our
lovely American womanhood I would have no quarrel
with them. In fact I would do everything I could to aid
and abet them. Someday I shall put my entire fortune at
the disposal of such a campaign. I know that the plain
people of this country feel as I do because I'm one of them,
born and raised on the farm of plain godfearing farming

 

-499-

 

folk. The American people need to be protected from
cranks."

 

"That, Mr. Bingham," said J. W., "will be the keynote
of the campaign we have been outlining." The fingerbowls
had arrived. "Well, Mr. Bingham," said J. W., getting to
his feet, "this has been indeed a pleasure. I unfortunately
shall have to leave you to go downtown to a rather im-
portant directors' meeting but Mr. Savage here has every-
thing right at his fingertips and can, I know, answer any
further questions. I believe we are meeting with your sales
department at five."

 

As soon as they were alone E. R. Bingham leaned over
the table to Dick and said, "Young man, I very much need
a little relaxation this afternoon. Perhaps you could come
to some entertainment as my guest. . . . All work and no
play . . . you know the adage. Chicago has always been
my headquarters and whenever I've been in New York
I've been too busy to get around. . . . Perhaps you could
suggest some sort of show or musical extravaganza. I be-
long to the plain people, let's go where the plain people
go." Dick nodded understandingly. "Let's see, Monday
afternoon . . . I'll have to call up the office. . . . There
ought to be vaudeville. . . . I can't think of anything but
a burlesque show." "That's the sort of thing, music and
young women. . . . I have high regard for the human
body. My daughters, thank God, are magnificent physical
specimens. . . . The sight of beautiful female bodies is
relaxing and soothing. Come along, you are my guest. It
will help me to make up my mind about this matter. . . .
Between you and me Mr. Moorehouse is a very extraor-
dinary man. I think he can lend the necessary dignity. . . .
But we must not forget that we are talking to the plain
people."

 

"But the plain people aren't so plain as they were, Mr.
Bingham. They like things a little ritzy now," said Dick,
following E. R. Bingham's rapid stride to the checkroom.

 

-500-

 

"I never wear hat or coat, only that muffler, young lady,"
E. R. Bingham was booming.

 

"Have you any children of your own, Mr. Savage?"
asked E. R. Bingham when they were settled in the taxi-
cab. "No, I'm not married at the moment," said Dick
shakily, and lit himself a cigarette. "Will you forgive a
man old enough to be your father for pointing something
out to you?" E. R. Bingham took Dick's cigarette between
two long knobbed fingers and dropped it out of the win-
dow of the cab. "My friend, you are poisoning yourself
with narcotics and destroying your virility. When I was
around forty years old I was in the midst of a severe eco-
nomic struggle. All my great organization was still in its
infancy. I was a physical wreck. I was a slave to alcohol
and tobacco. I had parted with my first wife and had I had
a wife I wouldn't have been able to . . . behave with her
as a man should. Well, one day I said to myself: ' Doc
Bingham' -- my friends called me Doc in those days -- 'like
Christian of old you are bound for the City of Destruction
and when you're gone, you'll have neither chick nor child
to drop a tear for you.' I began to interest myself in the
proper culture of the body . . . my spirit I may say was
already developed by familiarity with the classics in my
youth and a memory that many have called prodigious.
. . . The result has been success in every line of endeavor.
. . . Someday you shall meet my family and see what
sweetness and beauty there can be in a healthy American
home."

 

E. R. Bingham was still talking when they went down
the aisle to seats beside the gangplank at a burlesque show.
Before he could say Jack Robinson, Dick found himself
looking up a series of bare jiggling female legs spotted
from an occasional vaccination. The band crashed and
blared, the girls wiggled and sang and stripped in a smell
of dust and armpits and powder and greasepaint in the
glare of the moving spot that kept lighting up E. R. Bing-

 

-501-

 

ham's white head. E. R. Bingham was particularly de-
lighted when one of the girls stooped and cooed, "Why,
look at Grandpa," and sang into his face and wiggled her
geestring at him. E. R. Bingham nudged Dick and whis-
pered, "Get her telephone number." After she'd moved
on he kept exclaiming, "I feel like a boy again."

 

In the intermission Dick managed to call Miss Williams
at the office and to tell her to suggest to people not to
smoke at the conference. "Tell J. W. the old buzzard
thinks cigarettes are coffinnails," he said. "Oh, Mr. Sav-
age," said Miss Williams reprovingly. At five Dick tried
to get him out but he insisted on staying till the end of
the show. "They'll wait for me, don't worry," he said.

 

When they were back in a taxi on the way to the office
E. R. Bingham chuckled. "By gad, I always enjoy a good
legshow, the human form divine. . . . Perhaps we might,
my friend, keep the story of our afternoon under our hats."
He gave Dick's knee a tremendous slap. "It's great to play
hookey."

 

At the conference Bingham Products signed on the
dotted line. Mr. Bingham agreed to anything and paid no
attention to what went on. Halfway through he said he
was tired and was going home to bed and left yawning,
leaving Mr. Goldmark and a representative of the J. Win-
throp Hudson Company that did the advertising for Bing-
ham Products to go over the details of the project. Dick
couldn't help admiring the quiet domineering way J. W.
had with them. After the conference Dick got drunk and
tried to make a girl he knew in a taxicab but nothing came
of it and he went home to the empty apartment feeling
frightful.

 

The next morning Dick overslept. The telephone woke
him. It was Miss Williams calling from the office. Would
Mr. Savage get himself a bag packed and have it sent
down to the station so as to be ready to accompany Mr.
Moorehouse to Washington on the Congressional. "And,

 

-502-

 

Mr. Savage," she added, "excuse me for saying so, but we
all feel at the office that you were responsible for nailing
the Bingham account. Mr. Moorehouse was saying you
must have hypnotized them." "That's very nice of you,
Miss Williams," said Dick in his sweetest voice.

 

Dick and J. W. took a drawingroom on the train. Miss
Williams came too and they worked all the way down.
Dick was crazy for a drink all afternoon, but he didn't dare
take one, although he had a bottle of scotch in his bag, be-
cause Miss Williams would be sure to spot him getting
out the bottle and say something about it in that vague
acid apologetic way she had, and he knew J. W. felt he
drank too much. He felt so nervous he smoked cigarettes
until his tongue began to dry up in his mouth and then
took to chewing chiclets.

 

Dick kept J. W. busy with new slants until J. W. lay
down to take a nap saying he felt a little seedy; then Dick
took Miss Williams to the diner to have a cup of tea and
told her funny stories that kept her in a gale. By the time
they reached the smoky Baltimore tunnels he felt about
ready for a padded cell. He'd have been telling people he
was Napoleon before he got to Washington if he hadn't
been able to get a good gulp of scotch while Miss Williams
was in the ladies' room and J. W. was deep in a bundle of
letters E. R. Bingham had given, him between Bingham
Products and their Washington lobbyist Colonel Judson
on the threat of pure food legislation.

 

When Dick finally escaped to his room in the corner
suite J. W. always took at the Shoreham, he poured out
a good drink to take quietly by himself, with soda and ice,
while he prepared a comic telegram to send the girl he
had a date for dinner with that night at the Colony Club.
Held barely sipped the drink when the phone rang. It was
E. R. Bingham's secretary calling up from the Willard to
see if Dick would dine with Mr. and Mrs. Bingham and
the Misses Bingham. "By all means go," said J. W. when

 

-503-

 

Dick inquired if he'd need him. "First thing you know I'll
be completing the transaction by marrying you off to one
of the lovely Bingham girls."

 

The Bingham girls were three strapping young women
named Hygeia, Althea and Myra, and Mrs. Bingham was
a fat faded flatfaced blonde who wore round steel spec-
tacles. The only one of the family who didn't wear glasses
and have buckteeth was Myra who seemed to take more
after her father. She certainly talked a blue streak. She was
the youngest, too, and E. R. Bingham, who was striding
around in oldfashioned carpetslippers with his shirt open
at the neck and a piece of red flannel undershirt showing
across his chest, introduced her as the artistic member of
the family. She giggled a great deal about how she was
going to New York to study painting. She told Dick he
looked as if he had the artistic temperament.

 

They ate in some confusion because Mr. Bingham kept
sending back the dishes, and flew into a towering passion
because the cabbage was overcooked and the raw carrots
weren't ripe and cursed and swore at the waiters and finally
sent for the manager. About all they'd had was potatosoup
and boiled onions sprinkled with hazelnuts and peanut-
butter spread on wholewheat bread, all washed down with
Coca-Cola, when two young men appeared with a micro-
phone from N.B.C. for E. R. Bingham to broadcast his
eighto'clock health talk. He was suddenly smiling and
hearty again and Mrs. Bingham reappeared from the bed-
room to which she'd retreated crying, with her hands over
her ears not to hear the old man's foul language. She came
back with her eyes red and a little bottle of smellingsalts
in her hand, just in time to be chased out of the room
again. E. R. Bingham roared that women distracted his
attention from the mike, but he made Dick stay and listen
to his broadcast on health and diet and exercise hints and
to the announcement of the annual crosscountry hike from
Washington to Louisville sponsored by Rugged Health,

 

-504-

 

the Bingham Products houseorgan, which he was going to
lead in person for the first three days, just to set the pace
for the youngsters, he said.

 

After the broadcast Mrs. Bingham and the girls came
in all rouged and powdered up wearing diamond earrings
and pearl necklaces and chinchilla coats. They invited Dick
and the radio young men to go to Keith's with them but
Dick explained that he had work to do. Before Mrs. Bing-
ham left she made Dick promise to come to visit them at.
their home in Eureka. "You come and spend a month,
young feller," boomed E. R. Bingham, interrupting her.
"We'll make a man of you out there. The first week
orangejuice and high irrigations, massage, rest. . . . After
that we build you up with crackedwheat and plenty of milk
and cream, a little boxing or trackwork, plenty of hiking
out in the sun without a lot of stifling clothes on, and
you'll. come back a man, nature's richest handiwork, the
paragon of animals . . . you know the lines of the im-
mortal bard . . . and you'll have forgotten all about that
unhealthy New York life that's poisoning your system.
You come out, young man. . . . Well, good night. By the
time I've done my deep breathing it'll be my bedtime.
When I'm in Washington I get up at six every morning
and break the ice in the Basin. . . . How about coming
down for a little dip tomorrow? Pathé Newsreel is going
to be there. . . . It would be worth your while in your
business." Dick excused himself hastily, saying, "Another
time, Mr. Bingham."

 

At the Shoreham he found J. W. finishing dinner with
Senator Planet and Colonel Judson, a smooth pink toad-
faced man with a caressingly amiable manner. The senator
got to his feet and squeezed Dick's hand warmly. "Why,
boy, we expected to see you come back wearin' a tigerskin.
. . . Did the old boy show you his chestexpansion?" J. W.
was frowning. "Not this time, senator," said Dick quietly.

 

"But, senator," J. W. said with some impatience, evi-

 

-505-

 

dently picking up a speech where it had been broken off,
"it's the principle of the thing. Once government inter-
ference in business is established as a precedent it means
the end of liberty and private initiative in this country."
"It means the beginning of red Russian bolshevistic tyr-
anny," added Colonel Judson with angry emphasis. Sena-
tor Planet laughed. "Aren't those rather harsh words,
Joel?""What this bill purports to do is to take the right of
selfmedication from the American people. A set of lazy
government employees and remittancemen will be able to
tell you what laxative you may take and what not. Like all
such things, it'll be in the hands of cranks and busybodies.
Surely the American people have the right to choose what
products they want to buy. It's an insult to the intelligence
of our citizens."

 

The senator tipped up an afterdinner coffeecup to get
the last dregs of it. Dick noticed that they were drinking
brandy out of big balloonglasses. "Well," said the senator
slowly, "what you say may be true but the bill has a good
deal of popular support and you gentlemen mustn't forget
that I am not entirely a free agent in this matter. I have
to consult the wishes of my constituents . . ." "As I look
at it," interrupted Colonel Judson, "all these socalled pure
food and' drug bills are class legislation in favor of the
medical profession. Naturally the doctors want us to con-
sult them before we buy a toothbrush or a package of
licorice powder." J. W. picked up where he left off: "The
tendency of the growth of scientificallyprepared proprie-
tary medicine has been to make the layman free and self-
sufficient, able to treat many minor ills without consulting
a physician." The senator finished his brandy without an-
swering.

 

"Bowie," said Colonel Judson, reaching for the bottle
and pouring out some more. "You know as well as I do
that the plain people of your state don't want their free-
dom of choice curtailed by any Washington snoopers and

 

-506-

 

busybodies. . . . And we've got the money and the or-
ganization to be of great assistance in your campaign. Mr.
Moorehouse is about to launch one of the biggest educa-
tional drives the country has ever seen to let the people
know the truth about proprietary medicines, both in the
metropolitan and the rural districts. He will roll up a great
tidal wave of opinion that Congress will have to pay at-
tention to. I've seen him do it before."

 

"Excellent brandy," said the senator. "Fine Armagnac
has been my favorite for years." He cleared his throat and
took a cigar from a box in the middle of the table and lit
it in a leisurely fashion. "I've been much criticized of late,
by irresponsible people of course, for what they term my
reactionary association with big business. You know the
demagogic appeal."

 

"It is particularly at a time like this that an intelligently-
run organization can be of most use to a man in public
life," said Colonel Judson earnestly. Senator Planet's black
eyes twinkled and he passed a hand over the patch of spiky
black hair that had fallen over his low forehead, leaving a
segment of the top of his head bald. "I guess it comes
down to how much assistance will be forthcoming," he
said, getting to his feet. "The parallelogram of forces."

 

The other men got to their feet too. The senator flicked
the ash from his cigar. "The force of public opinion, sena-
tor," said J. W. portentously. "That is what we have to
offer.""Well, Mr. Moorehouse, you must excuse me, I
have some speeches to prepare. . . . This has been most
delightful. . . . Dick, you must come to dinner while
you're in Washington. We've been missing you at our lit-
tle dinners. . . . Goodnight, Joel, see you tomorrow."
J. W.'s valet was holding the senator's furlined overcoat
for him. "Mr. Bingham," said J. W., "is a very public-
spirited man, senator, he's willing to spend a very consid-
erable sum of money." "He'll have to," said the senator.


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