Part 16 (2/2)
There's no mystery He can do as much for hiood And I' more: There's one man here to whom this particularly applies today This is his last call He's been here twice When he goes out this time he can't cos I've been telling you”
He subsided and opened his little pint of wine
Another day while I was there he began as follows:
”If there's one class of men that needs to be improved in this country, it's lawyers I don't knohy it is, but there's so in the very nature of the work of a lahich appears to make him cynical and to want to wear a know-it-all look Most lawyers are little more than sharper crooks than the crooks they have to deal with They're always trying to get in on some case or other where they have to outwit the law, save so what he justly deserves, and then they are supposed to be honest and high-et up here,” and then solance in his direction or steadfastly gaze at his plate or out the hile the others stared at him, ”you would think they were the salt of the earth or that they were following a really noble profession or that they were above or better than otherand tricky are fine traits, I suppose they are, but personally I can't see it Generally speaking, they're physically the poorest fish I get here They're slow and et too little exercise, I presuument A lawyer alants to stick in an 'if' or a 'but,' to get around you in so to answer you quickly or directly I've watched 'em now for nearly fifteen years, and they're all more or less alike They think they're very individual and different, but they're not Most of theood, all-around business or society man,” this in the absence of any desire to discuss these two breeds for the ti ”For the life of me I could never see why a really attractive woman would ever want toone little unsatisfactory trait after another in connection with the tribe, sand-papering their raw places as it were, until you would about conclude, supposing you had never heard hi any other profession, that lawyers were the noble, the pettiest, the most inefficient physically and mentally, of all the e state there would not be one to disagree with hier-like uet a physical rip which would leave you bleeding for days
The next day, or a day or two or four or six later--according to his mood--it would be doctors or merchants or society men or politicians he would discourse about--and, kind heaven, what a drubbing they would get!
He see on the vulnerable points of his victims, anxious (and yet presumably not) to show the creatures they were Thus in regard to e man who has a little business of soe house or a hotel or a restaurant, usually has a distinctly middle-class mind” At this all the ive a very sharp ear ”As a rule, you'll find that they know just the one little line hich they're connected, and nothing more One man knows all about cloaks and suits”
(this may have been a slap at poor Itzky) ”or he knows a little sooods or shoes or lamps or furniture, and that's all he knows If he's an Aht and day, sweat blood and make every one else connected with him sweat it, underpay his employees, swindle his friends, half-starve hiet a few thousand dollars and seeood as some one else who has a few thousand And yet he doesn't want to be different from--he wants to be just like--the other fellow If some one in his line has a house up on the Hudson or on Riverside Drive, when he gets his o there and live If the fellow in his line, or sos to a certain club, he has to belong to it even if the club doesn't want him or he wouldn't look well in it He wants to have the saars and go to the same summer resort as the other fellow They even want to look alike God! And then when they're just like every one else, they think they're sole idea outside their line, and yet because they've made money they want to tell other people how to live and think Iine a rich butcher or cloak- to tell h he saw many exemplifications of his picture present And it was always interesting to see how those whoh he could not possibly be referring to them
Of all types or professions that came here, I think he disliked doctors most The reason was of course that the work they did or were about to do in the world bordered on that which he was trying to accomplish, and the chances were that they sniffed at or at least critically exa its weak spots In many cases no doubt he fancied that they were there to study and copy histhe decency later on to attribute their knowledge to him It was short shrift for any one of them with ideas or ”notions” unfriendly to hi my stay there was a smooth-faced, rather solid physically and decidedly self-opinionated mentally, doctor who ate at the sa his views, medical and otherwise He confided toto Culhane's views and methods but that they were ”over-emphasized here, over-es too As for himself he had decided to achieve a happy medium if possible, and for this reason (for one) he had come here to study Culhane
As for Culhane, in spite of the young doctor's condescension and understanding, or perhaps better yet because of it, he thoroughly disliked, barely tolerated, hi medics with their ”pill cases” and easily acquired book knowledge, boasting of their supposed learning ”which somebody else had paid for,” as he once said--their fathers, of course And when they were sick, some of them at least, they had to come out here to hirafting sanitarium of their own He knew them
One noon ere at lunch Occasionally before seating hilance about and, having good eyes, would spy some little defect or delinquency somewhere and of course immediately act upon it One of the rules of the repair shop was that you were to eat as put before you, especially when it differed from what your table companion received Thus a fat ht receive a small portion of lean meat, no potatoes and no bread or one little roll, whereas his lean acquaintance opposite would be receiving a large portion of fat meat, a baked or boiled potato, plenty of bread and butter, and possibly a side dish of soht well be, as indeed was often the case, that each would be dissatisfied with his apportione plates
But this was the one thing that Culhane would not endure So upon one occasion, passing near the table at which sat myself and the above-, he noticed that he was not eating his carrots, a dish which had been especially prepared for his the first day or two of his stay, those very things would be all but ra concerning which one guest and another occasionally cautioned newcomers However this may have been in this particular case, he noticed the uneaten carrots and, pausing ayour carrots?” We had al
”Who,up ”Oh, no, I never eat carrots, you know I don't like them”
”Oh, don't you?” said Culhane sweetly ”You don't like them, and so you don't eat theood just as a change”
”But I never eat carrots,” retorted the ht show of resent perhaps a new order
”No, not outside perhaps, but here you do You eat carrots here, see?”
”Yes, but why should I eat theree with ree with me just because it's a rule or to please you?”
”To pleaseyou please--but eat 'em”
The doctor subsided For a day or two he went about co was, how ridiculous to make any one eat as not suited to him, but just the same while he was there he ate thee boiled potatoes and substantial orders of fat and leanbeen so foolish as to show this preference, I received but the weakest,little spuds and pale orders of meat--with, it is true, plenty of other ”side dishes”; whereas a later table-mate of --I soon learned he especially abhorred the as my two fists
”Now look at that! Now look at that!” he often said peevishly and with a kind of sickly whine in his voice when he saw one being put before hiet! And look at the little bit of a thing he gives you! It's a shas people, especially over this food question I don't think there's a thing to it I don't think eating a big potato does ood, or you the little one, and yet I have to eat the blank-blank things or get out And I need to get on my feet just now”
”Well, cheer up,” I said sye potato perhaps ”He isn't always looking, and we can fix it Youpotato and put butter and salt on it, and I'll do the sa we'll shi+ft”
”Oh, that's all right,” he commented, ”but we'd better look out If he sees us he'll be as sore as the devil”
This syste all the potato I wanted and congratulatingpotatoes out of his dish,and feared that our trick had been discovered It had Perhaps some snaky waitress has told on us, or he had seen us, even fro on here at this table,” he growled savagely, ”and I want you two to cut it out This big boob here” (he was referring to th of will or character enough to keep hiht up here by his brother, hasn't brains enough to see that when I plan a thing for his benefit it is for his benefit, and not mine Like most of the other damned fools that come up here and waste their a that will let him sho much cuter he is than I am And he's supposed to be a writer and have a little horse-sense! His brother claims it, anyhow And as for this other si the asse towardto knohat I could do for hiaely, talking to the rooeneral, ”sometiht thing would be to set these two, and about fifty others in this place, out on the o to hell They don't deserve the attention of a conscientious --what happens? A lot of nincohts with more money than brains sneak off into a field of an afternoon on the excuse that they are going for a walk, and then sit down and lose or win a bucket of money just to show off what hells of fellows they are, what sports, what big 'I a, not because I think it's literally going to kill anybody but because I think it looks bad here, sets a bad exaht to be broken of the vice, and besides, because I don't like cigarette-s here--don't want it and won't have it What happens? A lot of sissies and h brains to cut 'eet out and work, coet the servants to, and then hide out behind the barn or a tree down in the lot and sneak and smoke like a lot of cheap schoolboys God, itout a fact during a lifeti other people have the benefit of it--not because he needs their oing to have such cattle to deal with?
Not one out of twenty or forty men that come here really wants me to help him or to help himself What he wants is to have soo, kick hi hi with such daht to take the whole pack and run 'e-whip” He waved his hand in the air ”It's sickening It's impossible