U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [518]
"But what do you think of this play venture? You see I'm pretty wel tied up in the market. . .
. I suppose I could borrow the money at the bank."
"The theater's always risky," said Dick. "Eveline's a great girl and al that and ful of talent but I don't know how much of a head she has for business. Putting on a play's a risky business."
"I like to help old friends out . . . but it occurred to me that if the Shuberts thought there was money in it they'd be putting it in themselves. . . . Of course Mrs. Johnson's very artistic."
"Of course," said Dick.
At twelve thirty he was waiting for J. W. in the lobby of the Plaza chewing sensen to take the smel of the three whiskeys he'd swal owed at Tony's on the way up off his breath. At twelve fortyfive he saw coming from the check-room J. W.'s large pearshaped figure with the paleblue eyes and the sleek strawgrey hair, and beside him a tal gaunt man with untidy white hair curling into ducktails over his ears. The minute they stepped into the lobby Dick began to hear a rasping opinionated boom from the tal man.
". . . never one of those who could hold my peace while injustice ruled in the marketplace. It has been a long struggle and one which from the vantage of those three-score and ten It has been a long struggle and one which from the vantage of those three-score and ten years that the prophets of old promised to
-497-man upon this earth I can admit to have been largely crowned with material and spiritual success. Perhaps it was my early training for the pulpit but I have always felt, and that feeling, Mr. Moorehouse, is not rare among the prominent businessmen in this country, that material suc-cess is not the only thing . . . there is the attainment of the spirit of service. That is why I say to you frankly that I have been grieved and wounded by this dark conspiracy. Who steals my purse steals trash but who would . . . what is it? . . . my memory's not what it was . . . my good name . . . Ah, yes, how do you do, Mr. Savage?" Dick was surprised by the wrench the handshake gave his arm. He found himself standing in front of a gaunt loosejointed old man with a shock of white hair and a big prognathous skul from which the sunburned skin hung in folds like the jowls of a birddog. J. W. seemed smal and meek beside him. "I'm very glad to meet you, sir," E. R. Bingham said. "I have often said to my girls that had I grown up in your generation I would have found happy and useful work in the field of publicrelations. But alas in my day the path was harder for a young man entering life with nothing but the excel ent tradition of moral fervor and natural religion I absorbed if I may say so with my mother's milk. We had to put our shoulders to the wheel in those days' and it was the wheel of an old muddy wagon drawn by mules, not the wheel of a luxurious motorcar." E. R. Bingham boomed his way into the diningroom. A covey of palefaced waiters gathered round, pul ing out chairs, setting the table, bringing menucards. "Boy, it is no use handing me the bil of fare," E. R. Bingham addressed the headwaiter. "I live by nature's law. I eat only a few nuts and vegetables and drink raw milk. . . . Bring me some cooked spinach, a plate of grated carrots and a glass of unpasteurized milk. . . . As a result, gentlemen, when I went a few days ago to a great physician at the request of one of the great lifeinsurance companies in this city he was
-498-dumbfounded when he examined me. He could hardly be-lieve that I was not tel ing a whopper when I told him I was seventyone. 'Mr. Bingham,' he said, 'you have the magnificent physique of a healthy athlete of fortyfive' . . . Feel that, young man." E. R. Bingham flexed his arm under Dick's nose. Dick gave the muscle a prod with two fingers. "A sledgehammer," Dick said, nodding his head. E. R. Bingham was already talking again: "You see I prac-tice what I preach, Mr. Moorehouse . . . and I expect others to do the same. . . . I may add that in the entire list of remedies and proprietary medicines control ed by Bingham Products and the Rugged Health Corporation, there is not a single one that contains a mineral, a drug or any other harmful ingredient. I have sacrificed time and time again hundreds of thousands of dol ars to strike from my list a concoction deemed injurious or habitforming by Dr. Gorman and the rest of the splendid men and women who make up our research department. Our medicines and our systems of diet and cure are nature's remedies, herbs and simples cul ed in the wilderness in the four corners of the globe according to the tradition of wise men and the findings of sound medical science."