So Little Time (55 page)

The apartment house seemed new and pleasant after his call on Minot Roberts. If it was out of date, at least it stood for the more recent days of 1929 when Washington statesmen were speaking of two cars in every garage and two chickens in every pot. It was a monument dating from the time when Mr. Fisher of Yale had announced that stocks had reached a permanent high level which they would maintain for years and years. The glory had not vanished yet, and this may have been why Madge said it made her feel secure. The doorman was secure; the elevator boy was young, sprightly, sober, and intelligent.

“Good evening, Mr. Wilson,” the elevator boy said. “It's been a nice afternoon for March, hasn't it?”

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “not a bad afternoon.”

“How's Mr. Jim, Mr. Wilson?” the elevator boy asked.

Jeffrey smiled. He remembered now that this was the boy who always asked for Jim. He wondered whether he asked just to be polite, or whether he liked Jim, and whether Jim had ever talked to him, and if he had, what they would have said.

“He's all right,” Jeffrey said. “You don't see much of boys when they get to be Jim's age.”

“He's busy at college, I guess,” the elevator boy said.

“He's always glad to get down here,” Jeffrey said.

“Yes, sir,” the boy answered, and he laughed. “He certainly likes New York.”

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, and he laughed, too. “He certainly likes New York.”

“Jeff,” he heard Madge call, when he was taking off his overcoat, “where
have
you been?” A note of irritation in her voice made him realize that she had been waiting for him. The front hall had been picked up very neatly. The chairs in the living room were all in the right positions. The shades were drawn and there was a bowl of daffodils on the piano. Madge was wearing her russet-brown dinner dress with gold trimmings.

“Jeff,” Madge said, “hurry. You know they're always on time. And you know they always dress.”

“Who?” Jeffrey asked. “I didn't know anyone was coming to dinner.”

“Darling,” Madge said, “Laura and Milton Cooke are coming. He wanted you to sign your powers of attorney before you go. Don't you remember?”

Of course, it all came back to Jeffrey's mind at once.

“I'm awfully sorry, Madge,” he said, “I won't be a minute,” and he began running up the stairs.

He had wanted to talk to Milton Cooke about investments, of course, before he went to the Coast, and for some reason, which he could never get clear in his mind, having everything right was a part of the background when one talked investments. There was a slight professional tenseness to everything, just as though the doctor were coming for a purely social visit, which demanded that you look fresh and healthy.

“Oh, Jeff,” Madge said, and he stopped on the stairs. Madge had never lost the habit of calling him back just as he was leaving. “Jeff, you'll remember to ask him about who is to take the exemptions, won't you?”

“Madge,” Jeffrey said, “I've told you—there's no use bothering about that when nobody in God's world knows what the income taxes will be next year.”

“Well, Jeff,” Madge said, “it won't do any harm. He'll know more about it than you do.”

“I don't want to make a damned fool of myself asking him such a question,” Jeffrey said.

“Well,” Madge said, “just to please me, won't you ask him?”

He did not know why he should be sensitive about appearing financially foolish before Milton Cooke. After all, he did not have implicit confidence in Milton's judgment, and yet he depended upon Milton because Milton was in the Standard Bank and knew about such things. What was more, Madge always depended on Milton, because Milton was what she described as “a man of business.” When Madge's father had died, she had started right away having Milton look after her things, because she had to have somebody, and Jeffrey was not a man of business. It was true that Milton had sold some of Madge's things, which had gone up later, and had reinvested the proceeds in South American bonds and in a German department store with branches in Berlin, Munich and Hamburg. It had not seemed to Jeffrey a wise choice at the time; but then, Milton had private sources of information. It was true that all the bonds defaulted, but as Milton said, that was water over the dam, and if you had distribution, you could cut losses. And Madge said it was water over the dam, too, and that no business man could always be right, always, and besides, Milton was “in touch.”

When people from the Internal Revenue Bureau began to call upon Jeffrey, after he had paid his income tax, with all sorts of questions which he could not answer, Madge had said that Milton ought to look after his things too, because he was looking after her things. Besides, Milton was a friend—they had been in the same class at Harvard. Jeffrey had never known about this until Milton had told him one day, shortly after he began looking after Madge's things, and shortly after that, Milton had asked him to lunch at the Harvard Club at one of the tables where there were waiters and not self-service. Shortly after that, Milton had asked them to his apartment for a quiet little dinner, and while Madge and Laura, Milton's wife, talked in the other room, Milton had told Jeffrey what a headache everything was on Wall Street. There might have been a time, Milton said, when one man, with reasonable intelligence, could supervise his own savings, but now it was getting to be more and more of a science. Only the other day, Roger Newell—Jeffrey knew Rodge Newell, didn't he?—well, Rodge had come to him in an awful state, because his things were all mixed up; and the Statistical Department at the Bank had looked over Rodge's things, and then Milton had rechecked the suggestions. It changed Rodge's whole setup. He had been in a very dangerous position, but now he was sixty per cent liquid and this was the time to be sixty per cent liquid. Milton didn't care what Babson or what any other of those professional dopesters said, liquidity was the only safe position for the next six months, and Milton hoped that Jeffrey was liquid, and particularly not tied-up in chemicals. And speaking of liquidity, how about a highball? Then Jeffrey asked Milton what about du Pont, and Milton asked if Jeffrey owned any. When Jeffrey said he did, Milton said that it was typical. Anyone like Jeffrey, who didn't work downtown, would own du Pont—not that du Pont wasn't a fine stock with a real potential leverage. It depended on what else Jeffrey had on his list. Then Milton said that he didn't want to be personal, but why didn't Jeffrey let him see the list and let the Statistical Department go over it. The things he had should after all be co-ordinated with Madge's things—and after that, Milton began handling Jeffrey's things. Shortly before the fall of France, Jeffrey had suggested to Milton over the telephone that it might be well to sell some common stock, but Milton had said that now was the time to hold on with the big orders for heavy goods coming from France and England. When everything dropped Milton had said you should take the long view. It was a matter of holding on, and no time to be liquid.

“Jeff,” he heard Madge calling, “Jeff, they're at the door.”

“All right,” he called, “I'll be right down.”

“Well, hurry,” Madge called back. “Don't keep them waiting.” For some reason, he felt, too, that it was not right to keep Milton waiting.

Milton was bald and wore horn-rimmed glasses. He was in a dinner coat and Laura was in a dinner dress.

“I came in late,” Jeffrey said, “I'm awfully sorry.”

“Oh, no,” Milton said, “you're not late. We're early,” and Laura laughed.

“You know Milton,” she said. “I call him my alarm clock. Milton's always on time.”

Milton must have been on time for school when he was a little boy. He must have been on time at all his lectures later, on time when he worked in a bond house downtown, on time to his luncheons at the Harvard Club, on time for golf dates, and now he was on time to dinner, right there on the tick. Jeffrey wondered what Milton had gained by it. It made Jeffrey think of Milton as someone trying to deal with certainties when there were no certainties, trying to balance columns and averages when there were no averages. It would come out all right in the end, Milton always said. You had only to look at the curve of industrial activity. There had been wars before, but there had also been curves of industrial activity. Jeffrey often wondered whether Milton really believed it.

“It's such a lovely apartment,” Laura said. “I'm awfully glad that Milton let you take it.”

Madge laughed and looked at Jeffrey.

“If Milton says we can afford it, it must be all right,” she said, and Laura laughed.

“Don't you love it,” she said, “the way Milton always treats his people as though they were children? And the queerest thing about it is that Milton doesn't like children.”

Milton stood with his hands clasped behind him, gazing out of the window at the lights on the river.

“They're complicated,” he said. “You'd know if you ever set up a trust fund for children. If they die before their majority, where does it go then?”

“To the Government,” Jeffrey said.

“Oh, no,” Milton said, “it's not as bad as that.”

Milton's expression was patient and serene, as though he had some secret information that the clouds were breaking somewhere.

“In certain brackets,” he said, “perhaps; but for most people, hardly as bad as that. They're not going absolutely crazy in Washington. You see, some of them have some money themselves, some of them.”

Jeffrey felt as he always did when he knew that he must talk to Milton about business after dinner. In a way, it was like preparing for a confessional, or for a minor operation, something which was personal, but would not really hurt. Milton with his pencil would probe into his affairs, discovering his carelessnesses and his extravagances, but they must not talk about business at dinner. They must find something else in common, and this was always hard, because Jeffrey's mind was always on what he was to say to Milton afterwards.

Milton was talking about the S.E.C., and about a scandal that had broken downtown, and Milton had known the man very well. No one had been as surprised as Milton. It was not so much the money that was involved, as the disloyalty. In times like these, one should be loyal to one's class. It had hurt morale badly downtown, but it was just as well to have it over and out in the open and not hanging fire.

Jeffrey sat listening, watching Joseph pour the sherry.

“Joseph,” he said, “will you leave the brandy in the library—”

The dining room seemed like the place where you waited in the Bank before the grilles of the safe-deposit vault. Milton's voice was as suave and confident as the voice of the man to whom you showed your key and who guided you past the tiers of the safe-deposit boxes to the one that had your number. Then you went into a little cubbyhole and opened up the box, and all around you was the rustling of heavy paper and the soft snipping of scissors, busy with the coupons. It was a world that was unfamiliar to Jeffrey, it was a world of saving and estate building, where you tried to keep what you had and to make a little more.

“Laura, let's go into the living room,” Madge said. “They can have coffee in the library and have their talk.”

“We don't want to go, you know,” Milton said. “But then, it won't take long.”

“Jeff,” Madge said, “you'll be sure to ask Milton about—that, won't you?”

Jeffrey often thought that the library was made for private talks, and for nothing else. Milton seemed to belong more to the library than he did, perhaps because much of Milton's life had been spent in quiet talks in libraries. Milton sat down near the desk, and Jeffrey closed the door, and Milton unsnapped his brief case.

“Here you are,” he said, “the powers, in triplicate. We might as well sign them now and get it over with. Write where your initials are marked in pencil.”

Milton laid the powers of attorney before Jeffrey, gently.

“Take my pen,” he said. “It works pretty well.” Milton always had a fountain pen that worked and he always said that it worked pretty well.

“Just in case anything comes up while you're in Hollywood—” Milton said—“not that anything will come up.”

Milton was always sure that nothing would come up, but then, you never could tell. Milton seemed to have a dusty sort of immortality. He made Jeffrey feel that he might die, but that somehow Milton never would, since estates and investment lists must go on forever. Milton was reaching into the brief case again, his fingers moving adroitly through the papers.

“Here we are,” Milton said, “here's the whole picture.” Milton always referred to it as a picture. “You've got a good deal of cash on hand. We might invest a little. There's International Nickel.”

“Don't you think we've been losing enough,” Jeffrey said, “in International Nickel?”

“You never lose,” Milton said, “when you're holding. Only when you sell. Now, let's look at the rest. Railroads, industrials; we're low on utilities, but it's just as well, considering what they're doing in Washington. Now, let's see, how much money do you think you'll make this year?”

“God knows,” Jeffrey said. “Maybe none at all.”

“That's what makes your picture interesting,” Milton said. “You see, most of my clients don't make money. It's a question of a fixed income from securities.”

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “I know.”

“You haven't saved much, have you?” Milton said. “I wish that we could fix it so that you'd be a little more secure.”

“There's no way to fix it,” Jeffrey said. “I've never been secure.”

“Have you ever thought,” Milton said, “of saving and letting Madge spend her income? So you'll have something to fall back on—well—when you don't do so well in Hollywood.”