U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [412]
you like, anythin' Nat says. Stock, sure. Swop every last share. What the hel would a guy want stock for in a plant in a town where he'd been rol ed in a clip joint. Detroit, sure, right away. Nat, cal a taxi, we're goin' to Detroit.
Then they were back at the apartment and Taki was
chattering and Nat attended to everything and Farrel was saying, "I'd hate to see the other guy's eye," and Charley could sign his name al right this time. First time he signed it on the table but then he got it on the contract, and Nat fixed it al up about swapping his Askew-Merritt stock for Tern stock and then Nat and Farrel said Charley must be
-235-sleepy and Taki kept squeaking about how he had to take right away a hot bath. Charley woke up the next morning feeling sober and
dead like a stiff laid out for the undertaker. Taki brought him orangejuice but he threw it right up again. He
dropped back on the pil ow. He'd told Taki not to let any-body in, but there was Joe Askew standing at the foot of the bed. Joe, looked paler than usual and had a worried frown like at the office, and was pul ing at his thin blond mustache. He didn't smile. "How are you coming?" he said.
"Soso," said Charley.
"So it's the Tern outfit, is it?"
"Joe, I can't stay in New York now. I'm through with this burg."
"Through with a lot of other things, it looks like to me."
"Joe, honest I wouldn'ta done it if I hadn't had to get out of this town . . . and I put as much into this as you did, some people think a little more."
Joe's thin lips were clamped firmly together. He started to say something, stopped himself and walked stiffly out of the room.
" Taki," cal ed Charley, "try squeezin' out half a grape-fruit, wil you?" NEWSREEL LVI his first move was to board a fast train for Miami to see whether the builders engaged in construction financed by his corporation were speeding up the work as much as they might and to take a look at things in general
Pearly early in the mornin'
-236- Oh joy
Feel that boat arockin'
Oh boy
See those darleies floclein'
What's that whistle sayin'
All aboard toot toot
AIR REJECTION BLAMED FOR
WARSHIP DISASTER
You're in Ken-tucky just as sure as you're born LINER AFIRE
POSSE CLOSING IN ON AIRMAIL
BANDITS
Down beside the summer sea
Along Miami Shore
Some one waits alone for me
Along Miami Shore
SINCE THIS TIME YESTERDAY NEARLY
TWO THOUSAND MEN
HAVE CHANGED TO CHESTERFIELDS
PEACHES FLED WITH FEW CLOTHES
Saw a rosebud in a store
So I'm goin' where there's more
Good-bye blues
the three whites he has with him appear to be of primitive Nordic stock. Physical y they are splendid creatures. They have fine flaxen hair, blue-green eyes and white skins. The males are covered with a downlike hair
Let me lay me down to sleep in Carolina
With a peaceful pillow 'neath my weary head
For a rolling stone like me there's nothing finer Oh Lordy what a thrill To hear that whip-poor-will
In Carolina
-237-THE CAMERA EYE (48)
westbound to Havana Puerto-MexicoGalveston out
of Santander (the glassy estuary the feeling of hil s hem-ming the moist night an occasional star drips chil y out of the rainy sky a row of lights spil s off the muffled shore) the twinscrews rumble
at last westbound away from pension spinsters tasty about watercolors the old men with crocodile eyes hiding their bloody claws under neat lisle gloves the landscapes corroded with literature westbound
for an old man he is old
for an old man he is grey
but a young man's heart is full of love
get away old man get away
at the dinnertable westbound in the broadlit saloon the amplybosom'ed broadbeamed la bel a cubana in a yel-low lowcut dress archly with the sharp rosy nail of her littlest finger points
the curlyhaired young bucks from Bilbao (louder and funnier) in such tightwaisted icecreamcolored suits silk shirts striped ties (westbound to Havana for the sugar-boom) the rich one has a diamond ring tooshiny eyes look the way her little finger jabs but a young man's heart is ful of love
-238-she whispers He came out of her cabin when I
was on the way to the bath Why was she giggling in