Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (406 page)

“Eighteen or nineteen.”

“I bought three.”

McComas looked at him impatiently.

“How did you spend your time?” he asked. “Take you two weeks apiece to get them?”

“Took me two days,” said Van Camp gloomily. “Then I had an idea.”

“What was that?” McComas’ voice was ironical.

“Well — McTeague had all the good stores.”

“Yes.”

“So I thought the best thing was to buy McTeague’s company over his head.”

“What?”

“Buy his company over his head,” and Van Camp added with seeming irrelevance, “you see, I heard that he’d had a big quarrel with his uncle who owned fifteen per cent of the stock.”

“Yes,” McComas was leaning forward now — the sarcasm gone from his face.

“McTeague only owned twenty-five per cent and the storekeepers themselves owned forty. So if I could bring round the uncle we’d have a majority. First I convinced the uncle that his money would be safer with McTeague as a branch manager in our organization — “

“Wait a minute — wait a minute,” said McComas. “You go too fast for me. You say the uncle had fifteen per cent — how’d you get the other forty?”

“From the owners. I told them the uncle had lost faith in McTeague and I offered them better terms. I had all their proxies on condition that they would be voted in a majority only.”

“Yes,” said McComas eagerly. Then he hesitated. “But it didn’t work, you say. What was the matter with it? Not sound?”

“Oh, it was a sound scheme all right.”

“Sound schemes always work.”

“This one didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“The uncle died.”

McComas laughed. Then he stopped suddenly and considered.

“So you tried to buy McTeague’s company over his head?”

“Yes,” said Max with a shamed look. “And I failed.”

The door flew open suddenly and Honoria rushed into the room.

“Father,” she cried. At the sight of Max she stopped, hesitated, and then carried away by her excitement continued:

“Father — did you ever tell Russel how you proposed to Mother?”

“Why, let me see — yes, I think I did.”

Honoria groaned.

“Well, he tried to use it again on me.”

“What do you mean?”

“All these months I’ve been waiting — “ she was almost in tears, “waiting to hear what he’d say. And then — when it came — it sounded
familiar
— as if I’d heard it before.”

“It’s probably one of my proposals,” suggested Van Camp. “I’ve used so many.”

She turned on him quickly.

“Do you mean to say you’ve ever proposed to any other girl but me?”

“Honoria — would you mind?”

“Mind. Of course I wouldn’t mind. I’d never speak to you again as long as I lived.”

“You say Codman proposed to you in the words I used to your mother?” demanded McComas.

“Exactly,” she wailed. “He knew them by heart.”

“That’s the trouble with him,” said McComas thoughtfully. “He always was my man and not his own. You’d better marry Max, here.”

“Why — “ she looked from one to the other, “why — I never knew you liked Max, Father. You never showed it.”

“Well, that’s just the difference,” said her father, “between your way and mine.”

LIPSTICK: A COLLEGE COMEDY

School was over. The happy children, their books swinging carelessly at a strap’s end, tripped out into the Spring fields — Wait a minute, that’s the wrong story.

School was over. Without marking the page, the nineteen-year-old teacher closed McMaster’s History of the United States, stood up and said in an uncertain voice: “I suppose you know this will be my last day — “

“Good for you, kid!” a pupil cried in the front row.

“We’re all for you, Dolly. Go on out and knock ‘em dead!”

There was a spontaneous ovation. When it died away the teacher continued:

“I’m sorry you aren’t all coming with me — yet. Just remember when the days seem awfully long — that we’ve all got to go to school.”

Her friendly gaze moved down the rows where the women convicts sat — the sad, the shifty-eyed, the hard, the weak — each one dressed like herself in a belted smock of prison grey. For two years she had shared their lives — the same roof, the same food, the endless monotony. Now, in a few hours, she would be free and, as the word filled her mind like a song, their faces seemed to slip with all old unhappy things into the past.

“That’s all,” she said, stepping down from her desk. “School is over.”

School is over. In another educational institution not a hundred miles away a great bronze bell is ringing in a central tower. The campus is swarming suddenly with life. A stream of young men pours from each of twoscore arched doors, blurs to a crowd that eddies about for a moment in the green quadrangle, and then dividing once more into orderly streams files through other arched doorways and disappears. The young men are dressed in knickerbockers that are not too big, flannels not too wide, or in “business” suits that have no collegiate smack about them; if they wore sweaters, which they don’t, there would be no letter on them no matter how legitimately won for this is one of the oldest and most conservative of eastern universities, given over in large measure to the education of those who have had money for several generations, and its manners are simply the good manners of the world outside.

Whistling and in step a last group has moved out of sight across the campus. A lost rider has taken his bicycle from its place against the ivied wall and pedaled away, when two young men enter the quadrangle hurriedly and head for a doorway, conscious of being late. They are the two Manny brothers, one of whom, Ben, is the hero of this story.

Ben is tall, long-legged, fair (or so I see him) and, if not handsome, at least has reserve, consideration and dignity in his face. He is what used to be known as a “superior” person — that is he is sure of himself, he knows that his position in this world is based on solid rock of confidence and plenty and this has given him an air of “Who are you, anyhow?” toward those whose breeding he suspects — and even a certain arrogance. All this, mind you, is carefully hidden — otherwise he would be merely a snob. Only occasionally when he is excited does his politeness relax and this quality of “superiority” shows forth suddenly. In a way he is like his university — a symbol of its type. He is a man who is recognized, even deferred to, without being quite popular. He is twenty-two, a senior, the chairman of the dance committee and belongs to one of the best fraternities in college.

His brother Cupid is more human, more democratic, more popular and a great deal stouter. Not a roly-poly fat boy — he nevertheless reminds you of comfortable chairs, beer, hospitality, bawdy laughter.

On a classroom door the brothers are confronted by the following notice in pen and ink.

“Prof. Swope’s group in Science of Society will meet by the main gateway at         for an experimental trip to Hamlin Prison.”

They consult their watches, rush to the rendezvous. The party starts out in two cars.

At the other educational institution our late teacher, Miss Dolly Carrol, is preparing with the means at her disposal for her exit into the world. The means consist — some white powder in a piece of paper, a black spot drawing crayon, which must do service as an eye pencil, and a short stick of lip rouge which seems to have dried out in the balmy days of Lillian Russell, and yields no red. Look at her a moment. What mark have these two years left on her? No prison pallor, but in her eyes a sadness, a baffled hunger for life. Part of her youth has been lost here, and the sting and ignominy of it will stay with her for awhile.

Look around her cell and you will hear the drums that have beat in her ear on lonely nights. Pictures of debutantes, of society functions, bathing beauties, actresses, golf champions, film stars — people revelling through life, being happy.

Miss Mimi Haughton presented to society at dinner dance at the Plaza.

Flapper Army besieges Mayor for Mother’s Relief.

Contest winner gets lead in “Amorous Love.”

“Necking parties on wane” say Club Women.

These are life to her — the world outside…

The pathetic lipstick breaks, loses its pieces beneath the bed. She gropes for them, finds a morsel and presses it against her lips as if to extract its secret. She looks at herself hopefully — and then the futility of her little efforts to impress the world outside sweeps over her and tears that she bravely neglects to shed, glisten in her eyes.

Another scene. The group of young men from a plutocratic university who have chosen to study the science of society have entered the prison. Accompanied by a warden they make a tour of the cells.

Ben Manny lingers behind the others already overcome by a profound distaste. When the distorted face of a devilish hag, a face full of hate, malice, and condensed evil leers out at him from one cell, he starts, jumps away in horror.

In her cell Dolly, dressed simply in her old street clothes, makes a last round of the small monotonous walls.

“Mimi Haughton, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. P. Haughton of 39 East 68th Street.”…….

A newspaper clipping of a young, chic debutante, — piquant face, dress from the Rue de la Paix.

“You wait,” Dolly says, gazing defiantly at the picture.”I’ll catch up with
you.”

A prisoner delivering mail stops at the cell door, congratulates Dolly on her release and gives her a letter and a package. They have an interesting flavor, as mail sometimes has. But before Dolly has time to do more than speculate upon them the students of sociology, Professor Swope in the lead, move curiously past her cell.

Professor Swope — a small man of thirty with a mother to support, impractical, inexperienced, fatuous — yet within his limits honorable, earnest, thorough, aglow with the latest ideas about reforming the criminal and uplifting the lost.

He sees Dolly.

All the young men see Dolly.

She is used to being looked at as a specimen. She stares back boldly. The group halts — the professor gathers the group about him and in a whisper asks them how they can regard this girl as anything but a victim of bad living conditions or bad early environment. One look at her would convince anyone of that.

Ben Manny, a little in the rear, wanders up. His eyes meet Dolly’s. He is not interested — he passes on, catches up with the group in time to hear the last of the professor’s words.. . .

But something has happened to Dolly. She is not able to look back defiantly and indifferently at this boy. She turns away from his eyes, busies herself about the cell — then stares after him, excited and discontented. Luckily she can’t hear what he’s saying: “Bunch of degenerates, Professor. Aren’t there enough deserving people to pity without wasting it on the dregs of humanity? We’re a nation of sentimentalists — a pretty face can do no wrong.”

The Professor listens, determined he will be broadminded. But the face of the girl in the cell he has just passed haunts him.

One young man nudges Cupid Manny.

“See the one back there, Cupid? She didn’t have a previous engagement. You could ask her down to the prom. You’d be sure of
her
anyhow.”

Professor Swope is annoyed at the facetious note.

“You might do worse,” he murmurs.

The group passes on. Putting Ben Manny’s supercilious face out of mind Dolly opens her letter.

My Dearest Niece:

Two years ago when the firm found out that someone had been selling their chemical formulas to a rival you took the shame and blame from your old uncle’s shoulders and saved his worthless life by going to prison in his place. I’ve prospered out here in New Mexico and I haven’t forgotten. You’re not going to be a typist any more.

Take what you find waiting for you outside the prison gates, and enjoy the youth and happiness you sacrificed $94

Your loving and grateful Uncle.

Years ago I stumbled on an old Indian Chemical secret called “The scent of love.” I have made it into a gift for you.

Confused Dolly drops the letter, and opens the package — it contains a large red lipstick in a case of curious design. Before she can examine it a guard comes to the door of her cell and cheerfully,

“Whether you want to or not — out you go.”

He picks up her grip.

The warden in his office is formally polite. He dumps out the little box that contains her few small possessions, among them a diploma from a business school — and adds the usual gifts of the state, some good advice and a five dollar bill. He likes Dolly. They shake hands.

Meanwhile Professor Swope has been seized by a curious longing to talk to the pretty prisoner. What was her offense — or hermisfortune? He steps away from his students and retraces his steps toward her cell. It is empty. A prisoner sweeping tells him that Dolly is free and directs him to the warden’s office —

She has just emerged and is trying the lipstick, curiously and eagerly, glad merely for the fact that it will make her lips red.

“I beg your pardon, here is my card. I saw your face and I couldn’t resist wanting to talk to you. They told me you were leaving today. If there’s anything I can do — “

What a kind world. What a funny little man. She smiled at him — he became confused.

“I’m all right,” she said. “Thanks.”

Why, she was beautiful he thought. To offer her charity was an insult. To think that his students had spoken trivially of such a girl.

The prom indeed — how many prom girls could look at a man with a gaze as fresh and lovely. Probably she would behave as well as anyone at a prom. What an experiment it would be to take her. That mouth — it was like a flower — why, it was worth a life time of study — of devotion.

“Professor!” Her voice brought him to himself — his lips were not two inches away from hers.

“I beg your pardon,” he faltered. Then words springing from some spontaneous source gushed from him, “Would you honor me by coming with me to the University dance next month?”

He was trembling, astonished at himself.