Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (485 page)

Jerry
[emphatically].
No, I
won’t
give them to you. I’m a general, and I’m going to war. You can stay around here.
[Sarcastically, to Mr. Jones.]
He’ll straighten everything out, Mr. Jones.

General Pushing
[pleadingly].
Mr. President, I’ve waited for this war for forty years. You wouldn’t take away my coat and hat like that, just as we’ve got it almost ready.

Jerry
[pointing
to
the shirtsleeves].
That’s a nice costume to be hanging around the White House in.

General Pushing
[brokenly].
I can’t help it, can I? Who took my coat and hat, anyhow?

Jerry. if you don’t like it you can get out.

General Pushing
[sarcastically].
Yes. Nice lot of talk it’d cause if I went back to the War Department looking like this. “Where’s your hat and coat, General?” “Oh, I just thought I’d come down in my suspenders this morning.”

Jerry. You can have my coat — and my troubles.

Charlotte comes suddenly out of the White House, and they turn startled eyes upon her, like two guilty schoolboys.

Charlotte
[staring].
What’s the matter? Has everything gone to pieces?

General Pushing
[on the verge of tears].
He took my coat and hat.

Charlotte
[pointing to the General].
Who is that man?

General Pushing
[in a dismal whine].
I’m Major-General Pushing, I am.

Charlotte. I don’t believe it.

Jerry
[uneasily].
Yes, he is, Charlit. I was just kidding him.

Charlotte
[understanding immediately].
Oh, you’ve been
nag
ging people again.

Jerry
[beginning to unbutton the coat].
The General was nagging me, Charlit. I’ve just been teaching him a lesson — haven’t I, General?

He struggles out of the General’s coat and into his own. The General, grunting his relief and disgust, re-attires himself in the military garment.

Jerry
[losing confidence under Charlotte’s stare].
Honest, everything’s getting on my nerves. First it’s some correspondence school getting funny, and then
he [indicating the General]
comes around, and then all the people out in Idaho —  —

Charlotte
[with brows high].
Well, if you want to know what I think, I think everything’s going to pieces.

Jerry. No, it isn’t, Charlit. I’m going to fix everything. I’ve got a firm grip on everything. Haven’t I, Mr. Jones? I’m just nervous, that’s all.

General Pushing
[now completely buttoned up, physically and mentally].
In my opinion, sir, you’re a very dangerous man. I have served under eight Presidents, but I have never before lost my coat and hat. I bid you good morning, Mr. President. You’ll hear from me later.

At his salute the fife and drum commence to play. The trio execute about face, and the escort, at three paces, follows the General out the gate.

Jerry stares uneasily after them.

Jerry. Everybody’s always saying that I’m going to hear from ‘em later. They want to kick me out of this job — that’s what they want. They think I don’t know.

Jones. The people elected you, Mr. President. And the people want you — all except the ones out in Idaho.

Charlotte
[anxiously].
Couldn’t you be on the safe side and have yourself reduced to Vice-President, or something?

A Newsboy
[outside].
Extra! Extra! Idaho says: “Resign or be Impeached.”

Jerry. Was that newsboy yelling something about me?

Charlotte
[witheringly].
He never so much as mentioned you.

In response to Mr. Jones’s whistle a full-grown newsboy comes in at the gate. He hands Jerry a paper and is given a bill.

Jerry
[carelessly].
Keep the change. It’s all right. I’ve got a big salary.

The Newsboy
[pointing to Jerry’s frock coat].
I almost had one of them dress suits once.

Jerry
[not without satisfaction].
I got six of them.

The Newsboy. I hadda get one so I could take a high degree in the Ku Klux. But I didn’t get one.

Jerry
[absorbed in the paper].
I got six of ‘em.

The Newsboy. I ain’t got none. Well, much obliged. So long.

The newsboy goes out.

Jones
[reading over Jerry’s shoulder].
It says: “Idaho flays, Treasury choice.”

Charlotte
[wide-eyed].
Does that mean they’re going to flay Dada?

Jones
[looking at his watch].
Senator Fish will be here at any moment now.

Charlotte. Well, all I know is that I’d show some spunk and not let them kick
me
out, even if I
was
the worst President they ever had…

Jerry. Listen, Charlit, you needn’t remind me of it every minute.

Charlotte. I didn’t remind you of it. I just mentioned it in an ordinary tone of voice.

She goes into the White House. Senator Joseph Fish comes in hesitantly through the gate.

Jerry
[to Jones].
Here comes the State of Idaho.

Fish
[timorously].
Good morning, Mr. President. How are you?

Jerry. Oh, I’m all right.

Fish
[hurriedly producing the telegram and mumbling his words].
Got a little matter here, disagreeable duty. Want to get through as quickly as possible. “Senator Joseph Fish, Washington, D. C. Present the State of Idaho’s compliments to President Frost, and tell him that the people of Idaho demand his immediate resignation.”
[He folds up the telegram and puts it in his pocket.]
Well, Mr. President, I guess I got to be going.
[He moves toward the gate and then hesitates.]
This was to have been my wedding-reception day. Of course, Doris will never marry me now. It’s a very depressing thing to me, President Frost.
[With his hand on the gate latch.]
I suppose you want me to tell ‘em you won’t resign, don’t you?

Jones. We won’t resign.

Fish. Well, then it’s only right to tell you that Judge Fossile of the Supreme Court will bring a motion of impeachment at three o’clock this afternoon.

He turns melancholy eyes on Doris’s window. He kisses his hand toward it in a tragic gesture of farewell. Then he goes out.

Jerry looks at Mr. Jones as though demanding encouragement.

Jerry. They don’t know the man they’re up against, do they, Mr. Jones?

Jones. They certainly do not.

Jerry
[lying desperately and not even convincing himself].
I’ve got resources they don’t know about.

Jones. If you’ll pardon a suggestion, I think the best move you could make, Mr. President, would be to demand your father’s resignation immediately.

Jerry
[incredulously].
Put Dada out? Why, he used to work in a bank when he was young, and he knows all about the different amounts of money.

A pause.

Jerry
[uncertainly].
Do you think I’m the worst President they ever had?

Jones
[considering].
Well, no, there was that one they impeached.

Jerry
[consoling himself].
And then there was that other  fellow — I  forget  his name. He  was 
ter
rible.
[Another disconsolate pause.]
I suppose I might as well go down and get a cigar.

Jones. There’s just one more man out here to see you and he says he came to do you a favor. His name is — the Honorable Snooks, or Snukes, Ambassador from Irish Poland.

Jerry. What country’s that?

Jones. Irish Poland’s one of the new European countries. They took a sort of job lot of territories that nobody could use and made a country out of them. It’s got three or four acres of Russia and a couple of mines in Austria and a few lots in Bulgaria and Turkey.

Jerry. Show them all out here.

Jones. There’s only one.
[He goes into the White House, returning immediately.]

Jones. The Honorable Snooks, or Snukes, Ambassador to the United States from Irish Poland.

The Honorable Snooks comes out through the swinging doors. His resemblance to Mr. Snooks, the bootlegger, is, to say the least, astounding. But his clothes
—
they are the clothes of the Corps Diplomatique. Red stockings enclose his calves, fading at the knee into black satin breeches. His coat, I regret to say, is faintly reminiscent of the Order of Mystic Shriners, but a broad red ribbon slanting diagonally across his diaphragm gives the upper part of his body a svelte, cosmopolitan air. At his side is slung an unusually long and cumbersome sword.

He comes in slowly, I might even say cynically, and after a brief nod at Jerry, surveys his surroundings with an appraising eye.

Jones goes to the table and begins writing.

Snooks. Got a nice house, ain’t you?

Jerry
[still depressed from recent reverses].
Yeah.

Snooks. Wite, hey?

Jerry
[as if he had just noticed it].
Yeah, white.

Snooks
[after a pause].
Get dirty quick.

Jerry
[adopting an equally laconic manner].
Have it washed.

Snooks. How’s your old woman?

Jerry
[uneasily].
She’s all right. Have a cigar?

Snooks
[taking the proffered cigar].
Thanks.

Jerry. That’s all right. I got a lot of them.

Snooks. That’s some cigar.

Jerry. I got a lot of them. I don’t smoke that kind myself, but I got a lot of them.

Snooks. That’s swell.

Jerry
[becoming boastful].
See that tree?
[The white tree.]
Look, that’s a special tree. You never saw a tree like that before. Nobody’s got one but me. That tree was given to me by some natives.

Snooks. That’s swell.

Jerry. See this cane? The band around it’s solid gold.

Snooks. Is that right? I thought maybe it was to keep the squirrels from crawling up.
[Abruptly.]
Need any liquor? I get a lot, you know, on account of bein’ an ambassador. Gin, vermuth, bitters, absinthe?

Jerry. No, I don’t… See that sign? I bet you never saw one like that before.   I had it invented.

Snooks
[bored].
Class.
[Switching the subject.]
I hear you made your old man Secretary of the Treasury.

Jerry. My father used to work in a —  —

Snooks. You’d ought to made him official Sandy Claus…  How you gettin’ away with your job?

Jerry
[lying].
Oh, fine — fine! You ought to see the military review they had for me last week. Thousands and thousands of soldiers, and everybody cheered when they saw me.
[Heartily.]
It was sort of inspiring.

Snooks. I seen you plantin’ trees in the movies.

Jerry
[excitedly].
Sure. I do that almost every day. That’s nothing to some of the things I have to do. But the thing is, I’m not a bit stuck up about any of it. See that gate?

Snooks. Yeah.

Jerry
[now completely and childishly happy].
I had it made that way so that anybody passing by along the street can look in. Cheer them up, see? Sometimes I come out here and sit around just so if anybody passes by — well, there I am.

Snooks
[sarcastically].
You ought to have yourself covered with radium so they can see you in the dark.
[He changes his tone now and comes down to business.]
Say, you’re lucky I found you in this morning. Got the time with you?

Jerry pulls out his watch. Snooks takes it as though to inspect it more closely.

Look here now, Mr. President. I got a swell scheme for you.

Jerry
[trying to look keen].
Let’s hear it.

Snooks. You needn’t got to think now, just ‘cause I’m a hunerd per cent Irish Pole, that I ain’t goin’ to do the other guy a favor once in a while. An’ I got somep’m smooth for you.
[He puts Jerry’s watch in his own pocket
—
the nerve of the man!]

Jerry. What is it?

Snooks
[confidentially].
Islands.

Jerry. What islands?

Snooks. The BuzzardIslands.

Jerry looks blank.

Ain’t you neva hearda the BuzzardIslands?

Jerry
[apologetically].
I never was any good at geography. I used to be pretty good in penmanship.