Free Love & Mrs. Sargent by Patrick Dennis Page A

business. Let my brother, Q. Horace, do that. I want to go into journalism—like Bertie and Randy Hearst,” He probably lived with his damned doberman pinscher because the dog was the last living creature in Chicago well bred enough to share J. Howard Malvern’s bachelor flat.
    “Some lovely homes out here,” Malvern said inanely. Anything to end the silence. Then he realized that Nice People didn’t say Lovely Homes, they said Nice Houses.
    “Mm-hmm,” Peter said. I suppose that J. Howard is going to point to that limestone palace and tell me that he only uses it for weekends.
    Again they rode in silence, each growing angrier and more miserable. Why the hell did Worldwide have to send me out to write up this broad, Peter wondered. No room at the Neatsfoot Inn, or whatever the hell the Lake Forest hotel was called. “Mrs. Sargent would be delighted to have your reporter stay with her.” Sure, so he can make a damned fool of himself with the wrong fork and wash his socks in the finger bowl. Why me? Why couldn’t Worldwide have sent that fair-haired boy from Princeton who talked as though he were having a hard movement?
    The stillness became unbearable. Desperately Peter said, “Read any good books lately?”
    “Well, uh, I love books and I have an awful lot of them,” Malvern said, “but I don’t get. much chance to read.”
    “That must be tough,” Peter said, visualizing Malvern’s great, bleak, galleried library with its rows of first editions.
    What Mr. Malvern said was perfectly true. He had The Syntopicon and the six volumes of Churchill’s war memoirs. He had never opened one of them but he meant to. More than a little conscious of the lapses in his formal education, Malvern had instructed the editor of The Weekend Bookworm at Famous Features to make up a regular reading list for him. The editor had not failed. He covered the best seller list and tossed in— with unerring accuracy—whatever titles he felt would be fashion able or discussed in Mr. Malvern’s social circles. Kroch’s & Brentano’s delivered the goods every Friday, along with a brief critique from the Bookworm editor on the last seven days’ contributions to belles lettres. Mr. Malvern read the critique, the jacket blurbs, and even began some of the books. He hadn’t finished a book since The Caine Mutiny and he hadn’t much liked the ending of that. But, if one didn’t plumb too deeply, J. Howard Malvern gave the impression of being quite well read.
    “Are you fond of Ivy Compton-Burnett?” Malvern asked.
    “Not especially.”
    Neither was Mr. Malvern. “Bernard Malamud? James Purdy? Lawrence Ferlinghetti? Joyce?” There, that was a showy collection—and a catholic one.
    “I don’t have much time for reading either,” Peter said bitterly. So this Malvern was an intellectual snob, too.
    “ What has interested you lately?” Malvern asked with what he hoped was suavity.
    “Well, coming out on the plane I commenced Bitter Laughter, by Richard Sargent, junior.”
    “Oh?” Malvern said. “Quite a boy, Dicky. I plan to get around to that this week. Sheila’s been very concerned, naturally.”
    “Naturally,” Peter said. “My God, couldn’t she have stopped him?”
    The car swerved wildly. “What?”’ Mr. Malvern said.
    “Well, I mean I started reading it only out of duty to Worldwide Weekly. But after ten pages or so I was so fascinated that . . .”
    “You mean it’s got the old Sargent touch?”
    “I mean it’s the worst tripe I ever picked up in my life. Dull, pedantic, pedestrian and derivative of every other book about a prep school ever written. But why his mother couldn’t have. . . .”
    “Well, after all, Dicky’s only twenty.”
    “That’s no excuse. He should have waited until he had something to say.”
    “Well, it takes all sorts of opinions. Perhaps some people will like it as much as you dislike it. Mind you, I haven’t read it myself. But a lot of novels are controversial. That makes