U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [16]
There Doc Bingham drew a large cigar from his pocket and began blowing a magnificent series of smoke rings. Fainy sat beside him with his feet under the seat trying to take up as little room as possible.
-38-Gradual y the compartment fil ed up with silent men and crinkly spiral ing cigarsmoke. Outside the rain beat against the windows with a gravel y sound. For a long time nobody said anything. Occasional y a man cleared his throat and let fly towards the cuspidor with a big gob of phlegm or a jet of tobacco juice.
"Wel , sir," a voice began, coming from nowhere in-particular, addressed to nowhere in particular, "it was a great old inauguration even if we did freeze to death."
"Were you in Washington?"
"Yessir, I was in Washington."
"Most of the trains didn't get in til the next day."
"I know it; I was lucky, there was some of them snowed up for forty-eight hours."
"Some blizzard al right."
All day the gusty northwind bore
The lessening drift its breath before
Low circling through its southern zone
The sun through dazzling snowmist shone,
recited Doc Bingham coyly, with downcast eyes.
"You must have a good memory to be able to recite verses right off the reel like that."
"Yessir, I have a memory that may I think, without undue violation of modesty, be cal ed compendious. Were it a natural gift I should be forced to blush and remain silent, but since it is the result of forty years of study of what is best in the world's epic lyric and dramatic litera-tures, I feel that to cal attention to it may sometimes encourage some other whose feet are also bound on the paths of enlightenment and selfeducation." He turned suddenly to Fainy. "Young man, would you like to hear Othel o's address to the Venetian senate?"
"Sure I would," said Fainy, blushing.
"Wel , at last Teddy has a chance to carry out his word about fighting the trusts." "I'm tel ing you the insurgent
-39-farmer vote of the great Northwest . . ." "Terrible thing the wreck of those inauguration specials."
But Doc Bingham was off:
Most potent grave and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approved good masters,
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter
It is most true; true, I have married her . . .
"They won't get away with those antitrust laws, be-lieve me they won't. You can't curtail the liberty of the individual liberty in that way." "It's the liberty of the individual business man that the progressive wing of the Republican party is trying to protect." But Doc Bingham was on his feet, one hand was tucked into his doublebreasted vest, with the other he was mak-ing broad circular gestures: Rude am I in speech And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace, For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith Till now some nine moons wasted they have used Their dearest action in the tented field.
"The farmer vote," the other man began shril y, but nobody was listening. Doc Bingham had the floor.
And little of the great world can I speak
More than pertains to broils and battle
And therefore little shall I grace my cause
In speaking for myself.
The train began to slacken speed. Doc Bingham's voice sounded oddly loud in the lessened noise. Fainy felt his back pushing into the back of the seat and then suddenly there was stil ness and the sound of an engine bel in the distance and Doc Bingham's voice in a queasy whisper:
"Gentlemen, I have here in pamphlet form a complete and unexpurgated edition of one of the world's classics, the
-40-famous Decameron of Boccaccio, that for four centuries has been a byword for spicy wit and ribald humor . . ." He took a bundle of little books out of one of his sagging pockets and began dandling them in his hand. "Just as an act of friendship I would be wil ing to part with some if any of you gentlemen care for them . . . Here, Fenian, take these and see if anybody wants one; they're two dol-lars apiece. My young friend here wil attend to distribu-tion . . . Goodnight, gentlemen." And he went off and the train had started again and Fainy found himself stand-ing with the little books in his hand in the middle of the lurching car with the suspicious eyes of al the smokers boring into him like so many gimlets.