"The fact of the matter is, Albert, I have devoted my unfortunate life
to two arts: the military and the potatory. As you may have noticed,
most of the miserable creatures on the wrong side of a bar adopt one of
two reprehensible courses: either they treat drinking as though the aim
of blending liquids were to imitate some French chef's fiddlefaddle--a
dash of bitters, a squirt of orange, an olive, cherry, or onion wrenched
from its proper place in the saladbowl, a twist of lemonpeel, sprig of
mint or lump of sugar and an eyedropperful of whisky; or else they
embrace the opposite extreme of vulgarity and gulp whatever rotgut is
thrust at them to addle their undiscerning brains and atrophy their
undiscriminating palates. Either practice is foreign to my nature and
philosophy. I believe the happiest combinations of liquors are simple
ones, containing no more than two ingredients, each of which should be
noble--that is to say, drinkable in its own right."
He raised his fresh glass, containing brandy and arrack. "No doubt you
have observed a catholicity in my taste; I range through the whole gamut
from usquebaugh to sake, though during the present conflict for obvious
patriotic reasons, I cross vodka from my list, while as a man born south
of the Mason-Dixon Line, sir, I leave gin to Nigras."
I must say, though somewhat startled by his manner of imbibing, I was
inclined to like General Thario, but I was impatient to discuss the
matter of a contract for Consolidated Pemmican. Every time I attempted
to bring the subject round to it he waved me grandly aside. "Dinner," he
confirmed, when the waiters brought in their trays. "Yes; no drink is
complete without a little bit of the right food to garnish it. Eating in
moderation I approve of; but mark my words, Albert, the man who takes a
meal on an empty stomach is digging his grave with his teeth."
If he would not talk business I could only hope his amiability would
carry over till I saw him again in his office tomorrow. I settled down
as far as I could, simply to enjoy his company. "You may have been
surprised at my referring to my life as unfortunate, Albert, but it is a
judicious adjective. Vilely unfortunate. I come of a military family,
you know; you will find footnotes mentioning the Tharios in the history
of every war this country has had."
He finished what was in his glass. "My misfortunes, like Tristram
Shandy's, began before my birth--and in the same way, exactly the same
way. My father was a scholar and a gentleman who dreamed his life away
over the campaigns of the great captains instead of attempting to become
a great captain himself. I do not condemn him for this: the organization
of the army is such as to encourage impracticality and inadvertence, but
the consequences were unfortunate for me. He named me after his favorite
heroes, Stuart Hannibal Ireton Thario, and so aloof was he from the
vulgarities of everyday life that it was not until my monogram was
ordered painted upon my first piece of luggage that the unfortunate
combination of my initials was noted. Hannibal and Ireton promptly
suppressed in the interests of decency, nevertheless at West Point my
surname was twisted by fellow classmates into Lothario, giving it a
connotation quite foreign to my nature. I lived down both vexations only
to encounter a third. Though Ireton remained successfully concealed, the
Hannibal leaked out and when, during the World War, I had the misfortune
to lead a company which was decimated"--his hand strayed to the ribbons
on his chest--"behind my back the enlistedmen called me Cannibal
Thario."
He began discussing another drink. "Of one thing I'm resolved: my son
shall not suffer as I have suffered. I did not send him to West Point so
he might win decorations on the field of valor and then be shunted off
to sit behind an unsoldierly desk. I broke with tradition when I kept
him from a military career, quite on purpose, just as I was thinking of
his welfare and not some silly foible of my own when I called him by the
simplest name I could find."
"What is your son's name?" I was constrained to ask.
"George," he answered proudly, "George Thario. There is no nickname for
George as far as I know."
"And he's not in the army now?" I queried, more in politeness than
interest.
"No, and I don't intend he shall be." The general's pink face grew
pinker with his vehemence. "Albert, there are plenty of dunderheads and
duffers like me in the country who are good for nothing better than
cannonfodder. Let them go and be killed. I'm willing enough--only an
idiotic General Staff has booted me into the Quartermaster Corps for
which I am no more fitted than to run an academy for lady marines--but
I'm not willing for a fine sensitive boy, a talented musician like
George to suffer the harsh brutalities of a trainingcamp and
battlefield."
"The draft ..." I began tentatively.
"If George had a civilian position in an essential industry--say one
holding a contract with the army for badly needed fieldrations...."
"I should like to meet your son," I said. "I have been looking around
for some time for a reliable manager...."
"George might consider it." General Thario squinted his glass against
the light. "I'll have him stop by your hotel tomorrow."
The little radio behind the bar, which had been mumbling to itself for
hours, spoke loudly. "We interrupt this program to bring you a
newsflash: Eire has declared war on the Soviet Union. I repeat, war has
been declared on the Union of Soviet Republics by Eire. Keep tuned to
this station for further details. We return you now to our regular
program."
There was an absent pattering of applause and General Thario stood up
gravely, glass in hand. "Gallant little Eire--or, if I may be permitted
once the indulgence of using the good old name we know and love so
well--brave old Ireland. When the world was at war, despite every
provocation, she stayed peaceful. Now that the world is disgracefully
pacific--and you have all heard foreign ministers unanimously declaring
their countries neutral--so fast did they rush to the microphones that
they were still panting when they went on the air--when the whole world
was cautious, Ireland, true to her traditions, joined the just cause.
Gentlemen, I give you our fighting ally, Eire."
Departing from his usual custom, he drank the toast in one gulp, but no
one else in the room paid any attention. I considered this lack of
enthusiasm for a courageous gesture quite unworthy and meditated for a
moment on the insensitivity into which our people seemed to have sunk.
As the evening went on, the general grew more and more affable and, if
possible, less and less reticent. He had, he assured me, been the
constant victim, either of men or of circumstances. At the military
academy he had trained for the cavalry only to find himself assigned to
the tank corps. He had reconciled himself, pursued his duties with zeal,
and was shunted off to the infantry, where, swallowing chagrin, he had
led his men bravely into a crossfire from machineguns. For this he got
innumerable decorations and a transfer to the Quartermaster's
Department. His marriage to the daughter of an influential politician
should have assured peacetime promotion, but the nuptials coincided with
an election depriving the family's party of power.
Now another war had come and he was a mere brigadier pigeonholed in an
unimportant office with juniors broadly hinting at his retirement while
classmates were leading divisions and even army corps to glorious
victory on the field of battle. At least, they would have been leading
them to glorious victory if there had been any action at all.
"Invade," insisted General Thario, becoming sufficiently stirred by his
fervor to lapse into sober incoherence. "Invade them before they invade
us. Aircraft out ... gentlemen's agreement ... quite understand ... well
... landingbarges ... Bering Sea ... strike south ... shuttle
transports ... drive left wing TransSiberian ... holding operation by
right and center ... abc ..."
No doubt it was a pity he was deprived of the opportunity to try these
tactics. I was one of the few who had not become a military theoretician
upon the outbreak of the war, but to my lay mind his plan sounded
feasible. Nevertheless, I was more interested in the possible contract
for food concentrates than in any strategy, no matter how brilliant. I'm
afraid I showed my boredom, for the general abruptly declared it was
time to go home.
_41._ I was a little dubious that after all the drinking and confidences
he would remember to send his son around, and to tell the truth, in the
calm morning, I felt I would not be too sorry if he didnt, for he had
not given me a very high opinion of that young man. What on earth
Consolidated Pemmican could do with a musician and a draftevader as
generalmanager--even if the title, as it must be, were purely
honorary--I couldnt imagine.
I had been long up, shaved and breakfasted and had attended to my
correspondence, before the telephone rang and George Thario announced
himself at my disposal.
He was what people call a handsome young man. That is, he was big and
burly and slow and his eyelashes were perceptible. His hair was short
and he wore no hat, but lounged about the room with his hands, thumbs
out, in his jacketpockets, looking at me vaguely through the curling
smoke from a bent pipe. I had never seen anyone look less like a
musician and I began to wonder if his father had been serious in so
describing him.
"I don't like it," he announced abruptly.
"Don't like what, Mr Thario?" I inquired.
"Joe to you," he corrected. "Mister from you to me belies our
prospective relationship. Just call me Joe."
"I thought your name was George."
"Baptismal--whim of the Old Man's. But it's a stuffy label--no
shortening it, you know, so the fellows all call me Joe. Chummier. Don't
like the idea of evading the draft. Shows a lack of moral courage. By
rights I ought to be a conchie, but that would just about kill the Old
Lady. She's in a firstclass uproar as it is--like to see me in the
frontlines right now, bursting with dulce et decorum. I don't believe it
would bother the Old Man any if I sat out the duration in a C O camp,
but it'd hurt his job like hell and the poor old boy is straining his
guts to get into the trenches and twirl a theoretical saber. So I guess
I'm slated to be your humble and obedient, Mr Weener."
"I'll be delighted to have you join our firm," I said wryly, for I felt
he would be a completely useless appendage. In this I am glad to say I
did him an injustice, for though he never denied his essential lack of
interest in concentrates and the whole process of moneymaking, he proved
nevertheless--at such times as he chose to attend to his duties--a
faithful and conscientious employee, his only faults being lack of
initiative and a tendency to pamper the workers in the plant.
But I have anticipated; at the moment I looked upon him only as a
liability to be balanced in good time by the asset of his father's
position. It was therefore with irritation I listened to his insistence
on my coming to the Thario home that afternoon to meet his mother and
sisters. I had no desire for purely social intercourse, last evening's
outing being in the nature of a business investment and it seemed
superfluous to be forced to extend courtesies to an entire family
because of involvement with one member.
However great my reluctance I felt I couldnt afford to risk giving
offense and so at fouroclock promptly I was in Georgetown, using the
knocker of a door looking like all the other doors on both sides of the
street.
"I'm Winifred Thario and youre the chewinggum man--no, wait a minute,
I'll get it--the food concentrate man who's going to make Joe essential
to the war effort. Do come in, and excuse my rudeness. I'm the youngest,
you know, except for Joe, so everybody excuses me." Her straight, blond
hair looked dead. The vivacity which lit her windburned face seemed a
false vivacity and when she showed her large white teeth I thought it
was with a calculated effort.
She led me into a livingroom peopled like an Earlyvictorian
conversationpiece. Behind a low table, in a rockingchair, sat a large,
fullbosomed woman with the same dead hair and weatherbeaten cheeks, the
only difference being that the blondness of her hair was mitigated by
gray and in her face were the tiny broken red lines which no doubt in
time would come to Winifred.
"This is Mama," said Winifred, accenting the second syllable strongly
and contriving at once to be vivacious and reverent.
Mama inclined her head toward me without the faintest smile, welcoming
or otherwise, placing her hand as she did so regally upon the teacozy,
as upon a royal orb.
"Mrs Thario," I said, "I am delighted to meet you."
Mama found this beneath her condescension.
"And this is Constance, the general's firstborn," introduced Winifred,
still retaining her liveliness despite Mama's low temperature. Constance
was the perfect connectinglink between Winifred and her mother, not yet
gray but soon to be so, without Winifred's animation, but with the same
voluntary smile showing the same white teeth. She rose and shook my hand
as she might have shaken a naughty puppy, with a vigorous sidewise jerk,
disengaging the clasp quickly.
"And this," announced Winifred brightly, "is Pauline."
To say that Pauline Thario was beautiful would be like saying Mount
Everest is high. In her, the blond hair sparkled like newly threshed
straw, the teeth were just as white and even, but they did not seem too
large for her mouth, and her complexion was faultless as a cosmetic ad.
She was an unbelievably exquisite painting placed in an appropriate
frame.
And yet ... and yet the painting had a quality of unreality about it, as
though it were the delineation of a madonna without child, or of a nun.
There was no vigor to her beauty, no touch of the earthiness or of
blemish necessary to make the loveliness real and bring it home. She did
not offer me her hand, but bowed in a manner only slightly less distant
than her mother's.
I sat down on the edge of a petitpoint chair, thoroughly illatease. "You
must tell us about your pills, Mr Weener," urged Winifred.
"Pills?" I asked, at a loss.
"Yes, the thingamyjigs youre going to have Joe make for you," explained
Constance.
Mama made a loud trumpeting noise which so startled me I half rose from
my seat. "Damned slacker!" she exclaimed, looking fiercely right over my
head.
"Now, Mama--bloodpressure," enjoined Pauline in a colorless voice.
Mama relapsed into immobility and Winifred went on, quite as if there
had been no explosion. "Are you married, Mr Weener?"