Эптон Синклер - Oil!

But intellectually they were far from being mated. Vee would listen to anything he wanted to talk about, but how little she really cared about serious things would be comically revealed by her sudden shifting of the conversation. She had her own life, one of speed and excitement and show. She might jeer at the movie world and its works, but nevertheless, she was of that world, and applause and attention were the breath she lived by. She was always on the stage, playing a part—the world’s professional darling; always bright, always fresh, young, beautiful, sprightly. Such a thing as thoughtfulness was suspect, a cloak for dangerous enemies stealing into your mind. “What’s the matter, Bunny-rabbit? I believe you’re thinking about that horrid strike!”

Sitting down and reading a book was a thing quite unknown to this world’s darling. A newspaper, yes, of course, or a magazine—one had them lying about, and a man would pick them up and glance over something, but always ready to stop to look at a new dress or listen to a bit of gossip. But to become absorbed in reading and not want to be interrupted—well, it didn’t seem quite polite, did it? As for spending a whole afternoon or evening reading a book—Vee had simply never heard of such a thing. She did not put it into words, but Bunny could understand that a book was cheap; anybody could get one and sit off in a corner, but few could have a box at the theatre, presented by the management, and sit there, almost as important as the play.

One of the young fellows who had taught at Dan Irving’s labor college was in New York, and Bunny met him, and they talked about what was going on in the labor movement all over the world. Bunny would have liked to meet him again, and to go to meetings—there were so many exciting things in this great city, headquarters of the radical movement as of everything else. But Vee found out about this, and set out to save him—just as if he had wanted to smoke opium or drink absinthe! She would make engagements for him, and claim his time, and question him, with an anxious, “Where is my wandering boy tonight?” sort of an air. Bunny knew, of course, that she was doing it for his soul’s salvation, and doubtless at Dad’s direct request; but all the same it was a bore.

He had one other acquaintance, to whom Vee made no objection—his mother. She had married again some time ago, and her husband was rich, and she had a lovely home, so she had written. Bunny went to see her, and had to make an extreme effort not to reveal his consternation at her appearance. A dreadful example of what happened when a woman yielded to her craving for a square meal! Mamma had filled out till she was round as a ball of butter, and so soft that it was hard to keep together on a hot day like this. “Fair, fat, and forty” runs the saying; the surgeons add, “and a bad gall bladder,” but Bunny didn’t know that, and neither did Mamma. She was dressed like a queen in his honor, and had a poodle dog—selected, as Vee would have said, to match her figure. Her husband was a dealer in jewelry, and apparently he used his wife instead of a safe. She insisted on giving Bunny a diamond ring, and when he told her about the strike, she gave him another to be sold for the strikers’ relief fund. Oil men were cruel, said Mamma—she knew!

Dad was attending to the business which had brought him east. He didn’t say much about it, and that was unusual, so Bunny knew it was something off color. Presently he wormed it out of his father, it had to do with those naval reserve leases they were planning to get. President Harding had been inaugurated, and had made Barney Brockway his attorney-general, according to schedule, and appointed Vernon Roscoe’s man as secretary of the interior. This was Senator Crisby, an old party hack who had served Roscoe and O’Reilly when they were occupied in turning out one Mexican administration and putting in another; they had held over the Mexicans’ heads the threat of American intervention, and this Crisby, as senator from Texas, had clamored for war and almost got it. He couldn’t let women alone, Dad said, and so he was always busted, and ready for any new job that came along.

Now he was to give the oil men a whole string of valuable leases for practically nothing; but he had to have more money, there were a lot of fellows that had to have a lot more money. That was the trouble in dealing with politicians; you bought them before election, and then you had to buy them again after election, they wouldn’t “stay put,” like business men. What Dad had come on here for was to consult a lawyer that Verne considered the greatest in the country, and fix up a little corporation for the purpose of buying government officials legally. Of course Dad didn’t put it in those crude words, but that was what it amounted to, Bunny insisted, and how could it be done? Dad answered that a real good lawyer could do anything. This was going to be a Canadian corporation, so that it wouldn’t have to obey United States laws; and the men that took stock in it were to get their leases in the end. But the trouble was, nobody could be sure just what the leases would be worth, and Pete O’Reilly and Fred Orpan were trying to make Dad and Verne put up too big a share of the money. Verne was mad and said they could go to hell, and he wanted Dad to settle down and wait a while in New York, and bluff them out. Could Bunny make up his mind to skip the rest of his college term, and maybe do some studying with a tutor, and pass his examinations in the fall?

Bunny said he didn’t care about college, but this worried him—what was Dad getting in for with this Canadian corporation? Dad insisted it was perfectly all right, he had the best lawyer in the country. But Bunny said, “Are you sure Verne isn’t putting something over on you?” Dad was shocked at that, how could Bunny have such an idea, why Verne was the best friend Dad had ever had in business, he was straight as they made them. “Yes, Dad, but they don’t make them so very straight in the oil game. And why doesn’t Verne do his own bribing? Why didn’t he come to New York?”

“But son, Verne has got to handle the strike—you know he couldn’t get away now. He’s taken that off my shoulders, and you ought to be glad.” Dad added a naive remark, the oil men wouldn’t let him deal with labor, he was “too soft.” The phrase sounded familiar.

It turned out that Vee and Dad had been putting their heads together. Vee wanted a vacation, also; they would go up to Canada to complete Dad’s business, and then they would find a camp, and instead of tiresome “gym” work, she and Bunny would tramp the forests and swim in a beautiful lake. So Dad sent a telegram to President Alonzo T. Cowper, D.D., Ph.D., LL.D., explaining that urgent business compelled his son to remain in the east, and could it be arranged that Bunny might return and take his examinations in the fall? Dr. Cowper wired that the authorities would be very pleased indeed to grant this favor.

And then, the very morning after it was all settled, a telegram came for Bunny, and he opened it and read the signature, Ruth Watkins. With swiftly flying eyes he took in the sense of it—Paul and Eddie Piatt and Bud Stoner and Jick Duggan and four others of their group had been arrested, charged with “suspicion of criminal syndicalism,” and were lodged in the San Elido county jail with ten thousand dollars bail demanded for Paul and seventy-five hundred for each of the others. “They have done nothing and everybody knows it,” declared the telegram, “merely scheme to lock them up during strike. Jail is horrible place Paul’s health will not stand it implore you for sake our old friendship obtain needed bail for all surely no need assure you no money will be lost on our boys.”