Free Diary of a Yuppie by Louis Auchincloss

that we come back together again."
    Alice gave me a long look in which I thought I could read several things. But I think that assent—or at least a willingness to consider assent—was one of them. Or was she simply debating that for the girls' sake, and my sake, or perhaps even for her own, she had better make the best of me? That I was a bit mad, but perhaps not as wicked as she had neurotically assumed?
    "I'm listening, Bob."
    I told her now, in all gravity, that I was determined that my firm should be a success. And not just a financial success, either: a
moral
success. I was resolved that it would be a union of highly trained, competent men and women who would do everything for a client that could be lawfully done. We should be taut, keen, hard-boiled, comprehensive. There would be no room for sentimentality and none for sloppiness. Uniform rules of office procedure would be laid down and rigidly adhered to; overhead would be kept strictly under control. Partners and associates would be paid in accordance with the quality of their labor and the fees that it produced. The perfect machinery of the firm would be totally at the service of its legal expertise.
    And what would that expertise be used for? Well, first and foremost, of course, for the clients—for the skillful handling of their interests within the last letter of the law, but never a millimeter beyond. Nor would the client ever be subjected to the smallest piece of moral advice or guidance; all such matters would be strictly the client's affair. My firm would be a sharp cutting weapon to be picked up and used; weapons did not preach, but they had to be paid for. On the other hand, when we operated in the public area—and I was willing to commit us to a substantial number of hours a week for
pro bono
work—then we would show an equal zeal and an equal ruthlessness. Even should my biggest client, for example, Atlantic Rylands, object to a suit that we were bringing—say, on an environmental issue—it would be told, politely but firmly, to mind its own business.
    When I had finished Alice was silent. Then she asked unexpectedly, "Do you ever see Mr. Blakelock? I wonder what he'd think of your ideals?"
    "As a matter of fact I had lunch with him last week. I told him just what I've told you."
    "And what did he say?"
    I hesitated for several moments. But then I saw, in what I deemed a flash of true Service inspiration, that the truth was precisely what might clinch her coming back to me. "He wasn't very nice. He said that what I was really doing was putting together a firm that another Robert Service would not be able to eviscerate."
    Alice's hands flew to her mouth in a gesture of combined horror and amusement. "Ah, the wicked man!" she cried. Then she got up. "Let's go to lunch, darling." Darling? I was right! "I'm starved. But don't worry; I'm on your side. I shan't be a silly ass again. At least not for a while, I hope. Oh, Bob, the world takes a lot of knowing, doesn't it?"
    One thing I resolved, when I returned to work after our long and happy meal in which we split a bottle of Pouilly-Fume, was to continue to keep this journal in my office after I should have come home to my old apartment. I have no intention of taking the chance that Alice might read of my intention somehow to dispose of Glenn Deane. She has not yet learned to accept the necessity of getting rid of rotten apples or the fact that the "good life" is only bought at a price. But I am now fairly confident that Alice can learn this in time. After all, she is very intelligent.
    I have told Douglas Hyde to keep a sharp eye on Deane. Douglas is my "number two" in the firm, my "executive officer," a large-featured, snowy-haired young man who never loses his temper, a silent operator who sees that life is funny without more than smirking at it, an indefatigable worker and, I guess, as ambitious a lawyer as myself. Douglas would use me, but it would be for my benefit as well as