Корнелл Вулрич - A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

“This is one I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on to you,” she said, when good mornings had been said, “considering its source. I’m no expert.”

Dickie didn’t wait for any further preamble. “Daddy, do canaries really go ffft? Tommy Holden has one at his house and I never heard it do anything but chirp.”

“Where’d you get that from?” Elliott looked completely blank for a moment. June stifled a burst of laughter.

“The paper says a canary went ffft at someone.”

“This,” said Amy sternly, producing the newspaper. “I always encourage him to read for himself as much as possible, and help him with the hard words. I saw he was having trouble, and it was only after I’d read the line to him that I realized what I was reading it from.”

Elliott smote himself on the forehead in dismay, then held a hand to one cheek. “Oh, Lord, a gossip column, no less,” he said in an undertone, giving his wife a plaintive look. “What do I do with that?”

“It’s your job, dear,” said June pertly.

“Buck passer,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.

“Let’s hear how he gets out of this one,” June whispered to Amy. “This is going to be good.”

He glanced upward for a moment, for inspiration.

“Cats really are the only ones that go ffft,” he began.

“You didn’t get the ffft quite right, dear,” said June. She was in one of her mischievous moods. She had her elbows on the table and her chin propped in her cupped hands, trying to throw him off by staring at him earnestly.

“Please,” he said ruefully. “This is tough enough without being heckled.”

He went back to the task in hand. “Now, real canaries don’t go ffft—”

“You got that ffft better,” said June.

He ignored her. “Ladies who sing are sometimes called canaries, because they sing so pretty,” he went on laboredly. “And if they get mad at somebody, sometimes they do go ffft.”

Dickie turned aggrievedly to his mother. “I didn’t understand a word Daddy told me,” he complained.

June turned her head sharply one way, Amy the other. In fact, the only two people in the room who weren’t convulsed with laughter were the two males, king-size and pint-size.

June patted the little boy’s head. “And you weren’t the only one, dear,” she whispered consolingly — a whisper she somehow managed to direct so that it reached Elliott’s ears.

“Let’s see you try it if you’re so good at it,” he whispered her way.

“I know someone who’s going to hear from me about bringing that rag into the house in the first place,” vowed Amy darkly. “That’s one thing I can’t compete with, a tabloid. I don’t know the right slang.”

“Bruce?” said Elliott. “Now don’t blame poor Bruce. He had nothing to do with it. I asked him to hop out a minute and get me the Times, and it hadn’t arrived at the stand yet, so he brought this back with him instead.”

“I notice he didn’t bring back Reader’s Digest or Atlantic Monthly” was Amy’s tart comment as she led Dickie out of the room.

June went to the door to see her husband off, as she did every day. Dickie joined the leave-taking, rushing at his father head-first and whiplashing his little arms about him at mid-thigh, which was as high as he could reach.

“See you tonight, Daddy, hunh?” he chirped. “See you tonight!”

June winked at Elliott over the little boy’s head.

She gave him one of her rare compliments when Dickie had been led away a second time, and he was kissing her goodbye — rare, but from the heart. “You’re a good father, Doug,” she said softly. “The best. Sense of humor and everything.”

“Don’t I get any rating as a husband also?” he wanted to know.

She closed her eyes dreamily, to show him that he did.

He became oddly serious for a moment, almost pensive. “That’s all I have,” he told her thoughtfully. “You and him. My family. That’s all I care about — really care about. I wouldn’t let anything — or anyone — stand in their way. I wouldn’t let anything — or anyone — threaten their happiness.” His eyes had a faraway look just then, as if he remembered he’d said that once before — some place, sometime, to someone.

Then he kissed her once more, and hurried down the long sun-dappled walk to where Bruce was waiting for him in the car.

“It’s a shame to go in on a day like this,” he said, taking a panoramic look at the Westchester landscape before getting in and closing the door.

“I can’t tell you how I sympathize with you, sir,” Bruce said, with just a touch of dryness. It was a genial sort of dryness, though, meaning, You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to, and you know it, but you’d still like me to feel sorry for you.

“As for you, young fellow,” Elliott warned him jocularly, “you’re in hot water with Amy. She thinks you were responsible for that tabloid.”

“Greater love hath no man,” quoted Bruce softly, “than he take a rap for his employer.”

“Who’s taking any rap for who?” Elliott brought him up short. “I squared that. I told her it was my fault.”

“I may as well be skinned for a wolf as for a sheep,” Bruce remarked as they sped along. “Amy’s standards of reading are so high I can’t even get up to them with my chin on the crossbar. Anything less than Proust is trash.”

“What sort of reading do you go in for, Bruce?” Elliott asked. “I’ve been meaning to ask you that.”

“Mostly mysteries, I drive a car, and I like things to move fast. They’ve got to be well-written, though.”

“They can be. I read them myself, quite frequently. If a mystery isn’t well-written, it’s not because it’s a mystery, it’s because the writer is a sloppy worker.”

They spent the rest of the drive into town discussing books in general, both mystery and non-mystery, and life itself, the greatest book of them all. Elliott found that he enjoyed it immensely. His driver was a college graduate, which he had always known of course, but in addition he was keenly intelligent, nimble-minded, and ambitious, which didn’t always necessarily follow. He was bound to get some place as soon as the door opened a little wider. This driving job was just temporary.

Elliott liked to know his fellow-men better, because he liked his fellow-men.

“Thank you, sir,” said Bruce when they’d reached the office.

“For what?” asked Elliott.

“At least you didn’t say I’m a credit to my race.”

“What race?” said Elliott blankly. “I don’t know what you mean.” And he actually didn’t.

“Pick you up at the same time, sir,” said Bruce, and drove off.

Elliott went upstairs to what he liked occasionally to refer to as “the grind.” If it was a “grind” (and it had to have some name, apparently), it was the most velvety, well lubricated, chromium-plated, air-conditioned grind conceivable. He didn’t even have to open his own letters. That was done for him. The one out of five that got through to him he could be sure would be worth his personal attention.

A little dictating — into a machine. A little phoning — here, there, around. From him, and more often, to him. Perhaps involving thousands and thousands of dollars — but you never would have guessed. Money was never even mentioned. The calls seemed to be mostly about golf, and the last country club dance, and the nest country club dance, and how’s Evelyn, ‘and June’s fine. And then an appointment for lunch would be set up, and after the lunch had come and gone, he’d be twenty thousand richer, or forty, or sixty, or more. Not at anyone’s expense. Certainly not at the client’s. The client went right along with him — twenty, forty, sixty. Not at the market’s, either. Because for everyone who sold, there was someone who bought. Just “the old grind.” Mystique.