Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner [127]
“I was only suggesting some of the possibilities of government science,” Prager said.
“Now that you’ve abandoned ship and joined the enemy. Tell the people what’s happened to Ross Raymond, as a possibility of private expertise.”
Prager laughed and laid his hand on his thigh. “Alas.”
“Alas, why?” Jackson asked.
“Alas his mine is played out. It’s been high-graded to death.”
“According to whom?”
“According to an upright government scientist, who just might have been tipped off by a private expert. They both got here too late to keep him from making a mistake that’s going to cost somebody a lot of money.”
“Oh, what a shame,” Susan said. She had liked Rossiter Raymond, and he had been so uplifted by the altitude, and the prospects of the mine, and the company in her cabin. “He was such a good companion,” she said.
“When he had that well-ventilated head here,” Prager said. “Well, he’s like Henry, he’ll get over his error, unless he should make another mistake and come back to Denver and meet some of his principals. Then he’d really have a well-ventilated head.”
“Which does not answer my original question,” said Mrs. Jackson, placid in her rocker. “I know mining experts make mistakes–my heavens, I’m married to one. Mr. Janin pretends to think they are paid by investors to tell investors what investors want to hear. By that rule Mr. Raymond made no mistake at all. By any rule he hasn’t been dishonest. But how does a government scientist remain honest? I read newspaper editorials saying that Mr. King and Mr. Donaldson and Major Powell and Secretary Schurz are inaugurating a period of unfamiliar integrity in the Department of the Interior. Given the temptations, how can you guarantee any such thing?”
King’s lips pursed, his bright blue eyes looked at once amused and watchful. Intelligence jumped in them, words formed on his lips but did not fall. He looked a question at Donaldson, but Donaldson pushed the unspoken suggestion away with bearlike hands.
“Well,” King said, “Schurz has it easy. He’s a crusading Dutchman, honesty has brought him to power and there’s no reason he should change. He finds it as natural to remain honest in office as Mrs. Jackson would. Donaldson has it easy, too. His report on the public lands will be the only thing of its kind ever undertaken in this country, incomparably better than anything we’ve had, but Western Congressmen will seize on its information and ignore its recommendations, and bury. the report so efficiently that nobody will ever offer poor Tom a bribe worth taking. Powell also has it easy. Having only one hand, and having that in a dozen things, he has no other to hold out. I’m the one to pity. I’d prefer to be honest but I’d like very much to be rich. It’s a precarious position.”
“I shall begin to believe the Tribune can’t be believed,” said Mrs. Jackson with a smile.
“You know,” said Oliver unexpectedly from his seat against the wall, “I’d kind of like to hear you answer that question of Mrs. Jackson’s.”
It was the wrong note. They were all having such fun, like skaters cutting figures on rubbery ice, and now Oliver had clumsily fallen through. His remark suggested criticism of King’s playfulness. Playfulness was part of his charm. No one doubted his integrity in the least –who in the country had demonstrated more? She bent her brows very slightly at Oliver behind the semicircle of heads, but the damage was done. She could feel King, Prager, Janin, Emmons, all of them, with their impeccable social awareness, adjusting with the slightest changes of position and expression to the new tone.
“You mean you’re serious,” King said.
“I certainly am,” said Mrs. Jackson.
“Me too,” said Oliver.
She wished he had not taken off his coat, hot as the cabin was. With his brown corded forearms and his sunburned forehead he seemed one fitted for merely physical actions, like a man one might hire to get work done, not one who could devise policy and direct the actions of others. With a sad, defensive certainty she saw that he lacked some quality of elegance and ease, some fineness of perception, that these others had. It seemed to her that he sat like a boy among men, earnest and honest, but lacking in nimbleness of mind.