XXI

In those hectic years before and during the war Willis did not have much time for non-business reading except for his fifteen minutes a day with the Harvard Classics. There was no time for reading during the day, and frankly he was pretty tired by the time he got home before supper for his play hour with the children. Usually, in the evenings he and Sylvia dined out with some of their new friends at the country club or had a couple in at home to play a rubber or so of bridge. Briefly, like most men he knew, Willis did not have much time to read. Yet some of the best people Willis knew gave serious thought to reading. Joe McKitterick, for whom Willis had a deep respect and a warm spot in his heart, always knew about the best plays and latest best sellers if only because he read the book-review section in the Sunday New York Times. In fact nearly all the other topflight people whom Willis met could cope intelligently with talk about the international situation, the columnists, Broadway hits, and best sellers.

These things helped form the interests of a well-rounded man, and some of the best-rounded that Willis contacted frankly gave every appearance of enjoying this sort of talk. Almost in self-defense Willis began doing a little reading when he was laid up with a cold or on Sunday mornings when Sylvia was servicing the children. Even when he was rushed he skimmed through the New York Times Book Review, and finally at the suggestion of Ted Perlman, one of the new salesmen he had hired at Rahway, Willis bought a useful periodical called The Book Review Digest. It was a relief to Willis that he already had acquired a certain literary background. The Dickens and Thackeray, the Scott, the single Austen, and the Brontë which his mother had read to him in his childhood began to pay real dividends by the time he reached forty. Also he discovered that there were ways of knowing about a book without having read it. For example, book reviewers, especially in the Sunday supplements, usually told you what it was all about.

Besides reviews and condensations, Willis also read several full-length novels, simply because Sylvia had talked so much about them. He read Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis only because Sylvia had once said, playfully, that he would get to be like Mr. Lewis’s Babbitt if he did not keep in touch with a few intellectual things. He also read The Prodigal Parents, and he got through half of Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, but could not finish it because of its manifest unfairness. Somehow or other these other novels, which, he thought, might have had a few cheerful thoughts in them, always left a bad taste in his mouth. Frankly, Willis preferred a plain down-to-earth writer like Dale Carnegie. It was shocking to Willis, but he had to face it, that the men who wrote these books really did not seem to like America. They did not like their country in spite of all the fine things America had done for them, such as the education it had given them and the chance to sell their books and motion-picture rights for enormous prices. They did not like America in spite of the opportunity American gave them to acquire lovely homes and have their pictures in Life and Time. These people were constantly sneering at solid institutions, snapping at the very hand that fed them. When they wrote about business, they looked upon people who earned an honest dollar by selling products, running banks or production lines as crass materialists, devoid of ideals and social conscience. Businessmen in all these novels were ruthless and very dumb. Willis often wished that he might have a talk with some of these writers. He wished that he could show them that men who ran factories and sold the products and dickered with bankers, tax examiners, and labor-union organizers were not as dumb as a lot of novelists who always seemed to be at Palm Beach with some blonde.

It was the American businessman and not the novelist who had created Palm Beach, and Willis was willing to bet that any top-flight businessman, like old P. L. Nagel for instance, could take any blonde away from any novelist. The truth was that businessmen had a lot of good ideas outside their fields. They understood, for one thing, a lot about human relations. Anyone who ran a big office force was naturally a better judge of character than a novelist. Businessmen could also put their thoughts succinctly into a few sentences, without writing pages and chapters.

In this regard Willis never forgot the advice of old P. T. Green, president of the Green Gauge and Roller Company, who once did him the real honor of asking him to come over to Green Gauge. When you are out on a business trip, old P.T. used to say, whether or not you had been playing with other gals on the road, be sure to come with a present for the wife and kids. Willis recollected that homely advice when he took the midnight home from Boston—not that he had anything whatsoever for which to reproach himself. He had gone to Boston for an important piece of negotiation, and he had succeeded far better than he had hoped. By four o’clock the next afternoon it had been obvious that he and Mr. Bryson and Mr. Roger Harcourt had talked the whole deal into being and that all the dangerous corners had been rounded. It was a great relief to go and have tea with Bess.

He and Bess had had tea entirely by themselves, sitting side by side on a sofa. Bess had asked him in a rather pointed manner to close the door to the hall. The Ewings were living in one of those old houses on Chestnut Street, and Bess had said that the house was very draughty, particularly in March. The only way you could keep warm was to close every door possible. It seemed to Willis that Bess, in spite of all her joking, was impressed by him, and in all modesty, he could see why, considering Edward Ewing—not that Bess had not spoken of Edward Ewing with warmth and affection. You always knew where Edward stood, she had said, and that was something. Edward was just as easy as an old shoe, Bess had said, that never pinched you, and strangely enough, she could occasionally do with a pinch.

By the time Bess had made this remark she had opened a small cupboard and had produced some of Edward’s Scotch. Then they sat in a relaxed way on the sofa while Willis gave her a few highlights about Rahway Belt and the Harcourt Mill. It had been a friendly worthwhile visit and a useful one, because Bess had been right on his side from the very beginning.

“Well, it will be like old times if you’re to be at the mill,” Bess said.

It was an improvement over old times, but Willis had not forgotten Sylvia for a single minute. When Bess had suggested that he stay for dinner, he had refused at once, because he had promised to go to the Hodgeses’ for supper. He had to bring Sylvia the news about her family.

After an early breakfast in the Grand Central Station Willis began to look for something to bring home, and it was a real pleasure to be thinking of Sylvia. It was so early that the gift would have to come from the Liggett’s, and fortunately this store contained a large selection of articles which had nothing to do with drugs. When one of the salesladies asked if she might help him, Willis smiled at her disarmingly.

“Frankly,” Willis said, “I can’t go home without some little gift for my wife and the two babies.” It always paid to take someone into your confidence. In half a minute he had bought a Teddy bear for Al and a rattle for little Paul.

“We’ve got some cut-price electric hair dryers,” the saleslady said.

“Oh, no,” Willis said, “not a hair dryer.”

“Bath salts?” the saleslady said. “We have some very nice geranium bubble-bath salts.”

It was close to half past nine o’clock, and he could only stay at home for a few minutes, but there was nothing like that sense of homecoming. Little Al was in his play pen and he was very glad to get the Teddy bear.

“Yoo hoo,” Willis called at the foot of the stairs. “Are you up there, honey?” He felt an indescribable sense of relief when he heard Sylvia call back. Of course he knew that she would be up there but, at the same time, there was a shade of doubt, which perhaps other husbands shared.

“Come on up,” Sylvia called. “I’m giving Paul his breakfast.”

Willis knew enough about child rearing to understand perfectly that a breast-fed baby had a far better chance in later life than a bottle-fed baby. Breast-fed babies were less subject to adenoids; their teeth came in straighter because their jaws were better developed. There was no real substitute for mothers’ milk.

“Maybe I’d better wait until Paul is finished, honey,” Willis said.

It did not help the situation any to have both Sylvia and the trained nurse laugh.

“Now, Willis,” Sylvia said, “it’s time you learned the facts of life. Sit down and tell me everything.”

It was not the time or place to tell Sylvia everything and besides he had to get to the office.

“I brought you a little present, honey,” Willis said.

“Oh, Willis,” Sylvia said, “how sweet. What is it?”

“Bath salts. Geranium effervescent tablets.”

“Oh, God,” Sylvia said, “not geranium!”

Sylvia was putting Paul through a process technically known to young mothers as bubbling. The resultant digestive sounds from Paul interrupted Willis’s train of thought.

“How’s Mother?” Sylvia asked.

“She’s wonderful,” Willis said. “And so is your father. It is always a real pleasure to have a talk with him. Laura was away, of course.” Willis glanced nervously at Paul. “You’re not going to keep on feeding him, are you?”

“Why, he’s only started,” Sylvia said. “What else?”

“Well,” Willis said, “everything is going even better than I hoped.”

“Oh, I don’t mean that,” Sylvia said. “I mean about Father and Mother and Laura and Tom and everybody.”

“Oh, Willis said. “Well, frankly I wasn’t there long enough to learn everything—but I did gather from your mother that Laura has an admirer.”

“Did Mother call him an admirer?” Sylvia asked. “What’s he like? Who is he? Please try to remember.”

It went to show how far women were removed from reality, that Sylvia should have expected him to remember details about a young man whom he’d never seen.

“His name just came up for a minute in the conversation, honey,” Willis said. “The only thing I can remember is that he goes to the Harvard Business School.”

“Oh, no,” Sylvia said, “not the Harvard Business School!” She began to laugh; and until she did the connection had never occurred to Willis.

“Honey,” he said, “I’m sorry if you look down on the Harvard Business School.”

“I don’t, dear,” Sylvia answered, “but you must admit it’s a coincidence.”

“Honey,” he said, “I know this house is sort of tacky and it is a little small for two babies. I don’t honestly blame you if it makes you restless, and certainly a Harvard Business School graduate ought to do better. I promise to do something better as soon as I can.”

“Why, Willis, I don’t know what put that into your head,” Sylvia told him. “I love this house and I keep asking you not to do extravagant things. Just tell me everything that happened up in Boston.”

It was obviously neither the time nor place for giving any account of what had happened, and besides he had to get down to the plant. And he also wanted to call on Mrs. Jacoby at the earliest possible moment. Yet in spite of all his preoccupation, that talk with Sylvia had given him a new idea. It was time they moved into a home of their own, and if you kept your eyes open there were some pretty good real-estate buys around the Oranges.

Sylvia had asked him to tell her everything—a familiar but vague expression. Willis was only thirty-three, but his business experience was beginning to approximate, in many respects, that of someone close to forty, and he knew already that you never could tell anyone everything about anything, even yourself. For instance, there was one story which had to be prepared for the Rahway stockholders and another story for Mrs. Jacoby and still another one for the negotiating lawyers. These stories all differed in detail, not because concealment was advisable but because certain people were more interested in certain facts than in others.

When everything was over and the final agreements for the merger of Rahway Belt with the Harcourt Mill were signed, Willis had attended a small dinner that the new company—now called Harcourt Associates—tendered to the new officers, directors and to some of the key personnel; and the various negotiating lawyers were also present. Among the latter was Mr. F. Augustus Tremaine, who had always handled Mrs. Jacoby’s affairs and who had negotiated in behalf of the Rahway interests. Then there had been Mr. Tom Bolsen, Sr., and his son T. Bolsen, Jr., of the Boston firm that represented the Harcourts. Mr. Earl Decker had also been present in his capacity as general counsel for the Harcourt Mill. It had been a happy and friendly dinner. Even Mr. Tremaine, who had never missed a trick that Willis could remember, had been in a pleasant glow and had referred to Mr. Decker handsomely in his after-dinner speech as his learned friend and advisor.

Willis, as first vice president of Harcourt Associates, had made one of the main speeches of the evening, speaking not only as an officer but as a stockholder, since he owned personally 15 per cent of the common shares of the new company. Willis had given much time and thought to its preparation, and had been assisted now and then by a bright young Harvard Law School graduate who had recently entered Mr. Tremaine’s office. This assistance, however, was of a very minor nature, consisting of a little brushing up of paragraph and sentence structure—more of a clerical service than otherwise, and one which any executive expected from his organization when he had to make a speech. But all of the ideas the speech contained were original with Willis. It was highly gratifying that the speech made an even better impression than he had hoped. He had started slowly but he had built up to a real climax.

“What is an idea?” he asked in the beginning, adding facetiously, “I ought to know, after the last three months, when Mr. Tremaine and Mr. Bolsen and Mr. Decker have tossed around so many good ones.” It was a relief to feel that his dinner audience knew what he meant by tossing ideas around.

Willis was never quite sure whether he or the Harvard Law School graduate had set up these sentences, but it made no difference, because Willis was positive that the general conception was basically his own.

“I may as well face the fact,” he continued, “that I may have been responsible in the beginning for the idea of merging Rahway Belt with Harcourt into our new strong company. But seriously, gentlemen, let us never forget that no idea can stand by itself. It must be activated to have value. A team must be behind it, and I think tonight we all know we have a real team.

“Yes, gentlemen, an idea must be activated, and to achieve this end patience is necessary and an ability to understand what the other fellow has on his mind, but above all else, good fellowship and team play are the true ingredients of success.”

He had to stop at this point until the applause died down.

“Now I don’t want to talk too lengthily,” Willis said, “but I would like to leave just one more thought before I close. As a good sailor steers by a star let us, too, keep our eyes on the main objective. And what is that objective? It is basically the joining of the Planeroid with the Hartex line—two complementary lines which will make a perfect unity of production. There is new competition in the belting industry tonight and new vigor. Let us all who have been responsible for this latest achievement rededicate ourselves anew to pushing forward a new sort of belting gospel. May I raise my glass in conclusion—and I wish it were a loving cup—to the unlimited future of Harcourt Associates.”

The setting and the mood were exactly right for everything that Willis had said. They were obviously on the threshold of new and unpredictable demands for conveyor belting, and a new aggressive company like Harcourt Associates could compete for those demands.

“Willis,” Mr. Bryson Harcourt said, “that was a magnificent speech.”

“Why, thank you very much, sir,” Willis said. “I’m very glad indeed if you think it went all right.”

He could be deferential to Mr. Bryson Harcourt still, but they were both perfectly aware of a new relationship. Even if Mr. Bryson or Mr. Roger wanted, neither of them could push him out of Harcourt Associates. Some such thoughts had been in back of Willis’s mind when he returned from Boston after that dinner. The Harcourts could not put him out of the new company, but still he would like to have a larger control of it. There was a chance of buying Mrs. Jacoby’s stock, if he only had the money. It would not hurt, he thought, to stop for a few hours in New York on his way home from Boston and talk things over with a bank—and on this trip Willis never thought of bringing Sylvia a present.

During the Harcourt negotiations Willis had begun to learn the banking facts of life. Among other things, he learned that bankers could be more generous than otherwise with money, given the proper stimulus. Never be afraid to ask, and when you did, make it a substantial sum—the more the better, provided you came with a program of what you were going to accomplish in a business way. You had, of course, to develop a warm relationship with a banker first, so that he had a real belief in you and a keen personal interest.

One of the best contacts along these lines that Willis had made was with a Yale graduate some ten years his senior named Gilbert Bakeliss. Gil, as Willis learned to call him, had sat in as one of the underwriters’ representatives on a lot of the Harcourt conferences. Willis admired the way Gil could keep facts in order, and he also admired Gil’s prematurely graying hair. He found that Gil, who was married and lived at Cos Cob, had a lot of good ideas about physical exercise and diet. When Willis had told Gil about sprinkling wheat germ over tomato juice Gil had been really interested, and several times Gil had asked Willis to lunch at the Yale Club. It had been a pleasure to be in a position that enabled him to return the compliment. At Mr. Jacoby’s suggestion, Willis had joined the New York Harvard Club, a move which he had never regretted, either in a social or in a business way. Willis had explained to Gil, without unduly underlining the fact, that he was not really a Harvard man but a graduate of Boston University. He had, however, attended the Harvard School of Business Administration, which rendered him eligible for the New York Harvard Club.

Much as Willis would have enjoyed hurrying back to Orange to Sylvia and the children when he reached New York after the Harcourt dinner, he had determined to see Gilbert Bakeliss first. He had never felt so much like a Harvard man as when he arrived from dinner in Boston and had breakfast at the Harvard Club. He seemed to be more a part of the handsome dining room than he had ever been before. He knew better than to show undue eagerness by calling Gil Bakeliss at the stroke of ten, and ten-fifteen would look like a self-conscious delay. Willis actually did not call Gil until ten-twenty-three. It was pleasant to note that Gil sounded more than conventionally cordial.

“Well, well,” Gil Bakeliss said, “so the Pilgrim has returned.”

Willis laughed with real appreciation.

“That’s right,” Willis said, “I missed you at that dinner, Gil.”

“You know I’d have come,” Gil said, “if Geraldine and I hadn’t been in one of those duplicate bridge tournaments. It must have been quite a love feast.”

“Well, it frankly wasn’t so bad, Gil,” Willis said. “I mustn’t take up all your time, but if you’ve nothing to do for lunch I’ll be right here at the Harvard Club.”

“Let’s see. You mean lunch today?”

Willis laughed again.

“I know there’s not much chance with anyone as popular as you, Gil. I just thought something might have broken in your schedule, and it isn’t often that I can get to town from Rahway.”

“There isn’t anything I can’t put off,” Gil said. “Will twelve-thirty be all right?”

If Willis had not known many bankers, it had been his privilege to meet and chat on friendly terms with many top executives in other lines of business. A proven knowledge of his own ability and worth gave him an ease more genuine than that possessed by the usual bright young man. He was beginning at last to achieve naturalness, because there were not so many things about himself which now demanded his attention.

When Gilbert Bakeliss entered the Harvard Club at twelve-thirty precisely, Willis was able to meet him with this new naturalness. Gil Bakeliss was in his middle forties, and his business suit—a dark gray flannel—though correct in every detail, hung in a studied careless manner. The wear and tear of competition had only sharpened Gil’s aquiline features, making them more alert and intelligent. He could afford, like Willis, to be natural and the bridge of years between them was not disturbing.

This is a nice thought of yours to ask me here,” Gil Bakeliss said. “Frequently when I enter this place I wish I had been a Harvard man.”

“I always have the same wish myself, Gil,” Willis said. “Would you care to visit the bar before we go to the dining room?”

Willis asked this last question in a most tentative manner, because he never dreamed that Gil would touch a drop of anything in the middle of the day.

“Let’s see,” Gil said. “The meeting I was to attend this afternoon was called off. Under the circumstances I should like a Martini, just in the nature of a celebration after what you and I have been through together.”

This was a compliment and Willis knew it. A man like Gil Bakeliss would never have taken a Martini on a business day without a very good reason.

“I’m awfully glad to hear you say that, Gil,” Willis said. “And it will be great fun to join you.”

Willis smiled at the barkeeper.

“Two Martinis, please, very dry,” he said. “That is, if that’s all right with you, Gil? I’m somewhat of a fanatic on the subject of dry Martinis.”

Neither of them spoke as they watched the barman fill the glasses.

“Well, here’s to Harcourt Associates,” Gil said.

“Thank you, Gil,” Willis answered. “That is something I can drink to with genuine enthusiasm.”

“How was Mr. Roger Harcourt last evening?” Gil Bakeliss asked.

Willis was listening carefully for any change of tone.

“He was very mellow last night, for Mr. Roger,” Willis said.

Gil Bakeliss took a small sip of his Martini.

“I suppose it’s lèse-majesté to speak disparagingly of one of your substantial stockholders,” Gil said, “but I have very seldom seen anyone whose personality was so annoying.”

They were obviously on a very pleasant and friendly basis, and they said a few words about everyone else—Mr. Tremaine, Mr. Bolsen, Mr. Decker, Mr. Bryson Harcourt—before they reached the dining room.

“It isn’t every day I entertain a banker,” Willis said, and he laughed. “I need hardly say we’ll sit at a table and have the food passed to us, shall we? Instead of getting it ourselves?”

At the beginning of lunch talk turned to the war in Europe. It was surprising to Willis that people like Gil Bakeliss should worry about the war, not for business but for purely personal reasons. One explanation of this, Willis supposed, was that many men in the Bakeliss age group had participated in the last war, and memories and old reactions clouded their perspective.

“The trouble seems to be,” Willis said, “that the Allies don’t seem to have many tanks.”

He was sure he was on firm ground when he advanced this idea because he had read it that very morning in the New York Times.

“I don’t know whether that’s so or not,” Gil Bakeliss said, “but you can’t tell me that the French haven’t made as good a study of this so-called mechanized warfare as the Boche. But don’t discount the French.”

“That’s what my wife keeps saying,” Willis said. “Sylvia’s crazy about France. She spent a winter in Paris once.”

“You never forget it if you’ve lived there,” Gil said. “Well, let’s talk about something more cheerful.” He glanced at Willis and his expression changed. “It seems to me you ought to be pretty well pleased about this Harcourt Associates thing, Willis.”

It was a time to display restraint, because anyone who was too pleased about anything aroused opposition.

“Well, it was my baby in the beginning,” Willis said, “so maybe I’m prejudiced. I hope this is just a start, that’s all.”

When Gil Bakeliss glanced at him again, Willis was sure he had said the right thing.

“Well,” Gil said, “maybe they don’t know it yet, but you’re running the whole show.”

“Oh, come now, Gil,” Willis said, “I wouldn’t say that exactly.”

“Perhaps not exactly,” Gil Bakeliss said. “And you made a nice deal in the common stock.”

“Well,” Willis said, “neither Harcourt nor Rahway common has paid a dividend for years. It’s just a gamble, Gil.”

Gil Bakeliss smiled.

“If there’s any more lying around loose, I should think you’d want to buy it,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind owning a bit myself.”

It was clever of Gil to put his finger on the stock, because it was the heart of the situation. Gil Bakeliss must have been wondering why Willis had asked him to lunch.

“I’m glad you brought that point up,” Willis said.

Gil Bakeliss did not laugh, but his expression was amused.

“I had an idea you might be,” he said, and he put the tips of his fingers together and looked at Willis. “Do you know if there is any common stock floating around for sale?”

“Well, frankly,” Willis said, “I think I know where there is quite a little. You remember Mrs. Jacoby’s interest, don’t you, Gil? Of course she relinquished some of her shares, as others did, to induce me to remain with the management. Everybody was most kind that way, but I think she has some more.”

It was beautiful to see how accurately Gil Bakeliss did business.

“If you think she’ll sell I’d buy,” Gil said. “I don’t know what she’d want for them, but you ought to be able to figure some sort of price.”

A time for frankness always arrived in any sort of interview, and there was no doubt any longer that the time was there; and yet one could be frank without being flat-footed.

“Mrs. Jacoby’s not interested in things at Rahway any longer,” Willis said, “not since the death of her husband. I wish you could have known Mr. Jacoby, Gil. He was quite a character. I think she would rather like me to have those shares. There’s only one great difficulty.”

He paused, and Gil Bakeliss smiled again.

“How much money do you think it would take, Willis?” he asked.

The way that bankers spoke of money was always interesting. They made it seem like any available commodity, and after all it was.

“I don’t exactly know, Gil,” Willis said, “and the question’s merely academic for anyone in my position. I only wish …”

He paused and shook his head in a defeated way.

“It’s funny how people begin wishing as soon as they get near a bank,” Gil said. “How much do you wish?”

Willis’s instinct told him it was not the time to set a figure. He smiled and shook his head again.

“That isn’t the point, Gil,” he said. “I was wishing that Harcourt Associates’ common stock would be decent collateral for a bank loan, but of course it isn’t.”

The cards were on the table now, and there was one of those indecisive moments when everything was in balance, but in a second it was over.

“Now, Willis,” Gil Bakeliss said. “It happens that we’re interested—in a small academic way, of course—in Harcourt Associates. Why else do you think I came over here for lunch?”