Free Diary of a Yuppie by Louis Auchincloss Page B

voted on I ask every partner to consider carefully the effect of this procedure on the future of the firm. You will be deciding whether you wish to be managed by rules or by whim. You will be deciding whether every policy of your chosen managers will be subject to reversal by any disgruntled partner who shouts for special treatment."
    "Can't we just vote on a simple bonus question without all this emotion?" cried Glenn.
    "I want to finish, Mr. Deane. I want to emphasize the extreme gravity of this vote on the welfare of the firm." I paused here for several seconds. "Very well, will all those in favor of the motion please raise their right hand."
    Three hands in addition to Glenn's were promptly raised. The motion was lost. But four was a dangerous dissent. I resolved that the war with Deane should now be to the death. As he was volatile and I was patient it should not be too long before I found the proper time and cause.
    And indeed my opportunity came sooner than I expected. Only a week after the turbulent partners' lunch meeting, in a discussion with Douglas Hyde about the firm's reaction to our now distributed Christmas bonuses, I made an important discovery. The reaction had been unanimously enthusiastic.
    "Even with Deane's disappointed trio?" I asked sharply.
    "Even them. They don't seem disappointed at all. In fact, I hear they seem particularly smug about something."
    I jumped up from my desk. "That's it, then!" I cried. I was too excited for a second to say more.
    "What's
it
?" he demanded.
    "They've been paid their five g's!"
    "You mean Glenn paid their bonuses out of his own pocket?"
    "No, no, he'd never do that. Glenn fork over fifteen thousand bucks? Dream on. Ace Investors must have paid it."
    "Because they're so happy with our legal services they'll pay bonuses to our associates?"
    "Hardly. They would have taken it out of our fee."
    "How could they do that?"
    "Very simply. By reducing our bill by that amount."
    "But we'd have known!"
    "Not unless Glenn chose to tell us. Don't be dense, Doug."
    "Oh, I see what you're getting at. Glenn cut the firm's bill by fifteen grand and asked the client to pay his three associates directly."
    "Exactly. Ace Investors would have regarded it as irregular, but Glenn must have insisted that it was important for his three clerks' morale to feel the direct appreciation of the client. And, of course, he would have guaranteed the firm's approval. So they went along. Glenn Deane robbed his partners to pay his pets!"
    "How do we prove it?"
    "I suggest you call one of your pals at Ace Investors, Doug. Tell him you have a bookkeeping problem. Ask him if the payments to the three associates were for five g's or twenty-five hundred."
    "Won't he be suspicious?"
    "Why? Won't Glenn have told him the firm approved the payments?"
    Thus I discovered that the payments had actually been made. There was no time to lose. Douglas confirmed my suspicions on a Monday; the morrow was the day of our next partners' lunch. I even wondered if I dared wait so many hours. Should I call the firm into special session in the conference room that very afternoon? If Glenn found out that I knew, he would have the chance to go to the partners, one by one, and plead his case. I should have lost the needed elements of surprise and shock.
    But even as I debated my course of action he came to see me. I could always tell when Glenn knew he was in trouble; his oiliness became almost unbearable. It was as if, with his general contempt for the world around him, he wanted to satisfy himself that he could prevail over his opponent's worst opinion of him. "You think I'm a hypocrite," he would seem to be saying. "Well, damn right I'm a hypocrite! And a brilliant hypocrite like me can overcome an ass like you with all his cards face up on the table!"
    "We haven't been seeing much of each other lately, Bob," he began with a kind of leer. "I don't know why that should be. After all, we're really the daddy and mummy of this firm,