Free Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson

.”
    He moved toward the door and, after insisting that everyone precede him out, walked beside Tom to the elevator, still talking. Gradually, Tom found himself relaxing. It was ridiculous to be nervous with this friendly little man who seemed so anxious to please him. Now that Tom had met him, the conversations he had had with Bill Hawthorne seemed absurd.
    When they got on the elevator, Tom saw immediately that the operator was the familiar-appearing man he had seen before. The elevator man glanced at him, then quickly looked toward Hopkins.
    “Good morning, Mr. Hopkins!” he said in his deep voice, and shot down to the ground floor without any intermediate stops. Hopkins insisted on being the last man out of the elevator. As they walked out of the building, Tom glanced over his shoulder and saw the elevator operator standing there at the door of his car watching them. Tom looked away quickly. Hopkins led the way across Rockefeller Plaza to another building, at the top of which was a club with a large dining room overlooking the city. They sat down at a corner table, and a waitress took orders for cocktails.
    “I understand that Bill and Gordon here have told you something about the new project we’re thinking of starting,” Hopkins said when the drinks had arrived. “What do you think of it?”
    “I don’t know any of the details yet, but it certainly sounds interesting,” Tom replied, trying to combine wariness, sagacity, and enthusiasm.
    “We don’t know the details ourselves yet,” Hopkins said. “It all started when a group of doctors called on me a few months ago. They apparently felt that there is too little public understanding of the whole question of mental illness, and that a campaign like the fight against cancer or polio is needed. I was impressed by the statistics they gave me. Do you know that more hospital beds are occupiedby the mentally ill than by all the cancer, heart, and polio patients put together?”
    “I’ve heard that,” Tom said. “Did the doctors have any specific program to suggest?”
    Hopkins smiled. “I’m afraid it’s up to us to develop a program,” he said. “What would you do?”
    “I suppose we could, in general, divide the operation into two parts,” Tom said, “publicity and action.”
    “Which do you feel is the more important?” Hopkins asked mildly.
    “I don’t think their importance can be rated,” Tom said, “for the purpose of publicity would be to get action.”
    “That’s very true,” Hopkins said, as though he had just heard something very profound. “What kind of action do you think we should try to get?”
    A waitress came and replaced the empty cocktail glasses on the table with full ones. “Of course, I’m just talking off the top of my head,” Tom began, “but theoretically I suppose we could urge people to donate more money for research on mental illness, we could try to get them to vote more state and federal funds for mental hospitals, and we could suggest some kind of direct action at the local level, such as the organization of community psychiatric clinics.”
    “How would we do that?” Ogden asked in an unmistakably bored voice which contrasted sharply with Hopkins’ enthusiasm.
    “I suppose we’d have to consult with a lot of people to determine that,” Tom said quickly, “I certainly couldn’t tell you now.”
    “Of course,” Hopkins said reassuringly. “None of us can spell anything out at this stage.”
    Walker sat looking amused and saying nothing. Tom’s nervousness was returning. A waiter took orders for food.
    “I hear you live out in Westport,” Hopkins said to Tom. “I live out that way myself–I just got a place in South Bay.”
    “South Bay!” Tom said. “I was born there. My grandmother lives out there now.”
    It was ridiculous, but Tom found it somehow impossible to think of Hopkins in South Bay. It seemed to Tom that everyone in South Bay either was something like his grandmother and her