Free Skinny Island by Louis Auchincloss Page B

similarly, in town in winter, because he was known to leave his house on Park Avenue to go only as far as his midtown private perch and not to the competitive reality of "downtown," he was made to pay for such simple pleasures as the opera, the symphony or the watching of animals with expensive and time-consuming trusteeships in opera, symphony and zoo. Of course, he was well enough respected, but he was also certainly used. And having no job, how could he ever retire? The balding, pokerfaced, wistful little man who stared bleakly out of his page in the current 1937 edition of
Parson's Notable New Yorkers
, always laid beside the
Social Register
on his neat, bare desk, betrayed clearly enough his age of sixty.
    "My dear Horace," a voice boomed in his ear, "may I have the honor of your company? May I share your pot of coffee?"
    Horace looked up helplessly. Simon Regner got on the train at Mount Kisco on the rare days when he was not driven to town in his yellow Hispano-Suiza.
    "Of course, Simon, please do."
    When Horace had first joined the club car, back in 1921, there had been no question of Jewish members, but with the many resignations caused by the depression, the club had become more liberal. Regner, the investment banker, a rather magnificent, if stout, gentleman with flowing gray hair, a pince-nez and velvet lapels on his black suits, had been the first Jew elected.
    "You can dispense with your newspaper, Horace. I can tell you the news is all bad. I had a call from Washington while I was shaving. The price of gold is down again."
    Horace had no feeling against Jews, but he had been brought up to believe that they were not desirable company, and he hesitated to assume that the older generation had been entirely wrong. But what particularly embarrassed him about Regner was the latter's habit of inviting him to his grand musical evenings, which Amelia would not even consider attending. "No, darling, you go if you like. Leave me out of it. I can't abide the man." And Regner would always accept Horace's stammering excuses in good faith, waving a hand airily and saying: "Another time, another time."
    "We had the pleasure of your son Douglas last night with his charming wife," Simon continued now. "They were brought to our Wagner evening by the Hulls. Oh, what you missed, Horace! Flagstad at her most sublime! And when it was over the young Devoes stayed on, and I had a real chat with your son and heir."
    "Oh? And what did that young good-for-nothing have to say for himself?" Horace adopted the bantering tone deemed proper in speaking of an adult child. Why the devil should Simon Regner be interested in Douglas Devoe?
    "My dear Horace, I hope you won't mind if I talk to you candidly. I assure you I have only your boy's best interests in mind."
    "That boy, as you call him, is thirty-one."
    "Precisely. Isn't it time he was doing something he really wants to do?"
    Horace stared. "You suggest he doesn't like being a lawyer in Curtis and Day?"
    "Be honest with me, Horace. Wasn't that your doing?"
    "You mean his getting the job there? Well, I suppose my being a client didn't exactly hurt. Douglas's record at law school left something to be desired. But I've never interfered since."
    "Would you interfere to have him made a partner?"
    "Certainly not!" Horace exclaimed indignantly. "We don't do things that way." Then he reflected that his pronoun might imply that only Jews did things that way. "I mean
I
don't," he added lamely.
    But Simon seemed unrebukable. He fixed his pince-nez carefully to the thin bridge of a nose that swelled out over his nostrils, and looked glitteringly at Horace. "And do you think he'll be made a partner without your assistance? Or, frankly, Horace, even with it?"
    "I haven't the least idea." Horace now found the discussion positively offensive.
    "Suppose I were to tell you that your son doesn't believe he ever will be made a partner?"
    Horace was trapped now. If Regner had actually received Douglas's