Skinny Island Read Free Page A

gratifying experience to make his maiden appearance in our midst. He spoke in a mild, rather quavering tone that nonetheless had the persistence of a bubbling stream. If it was occasionally lost to louder tones; as soon as the latter subsided, it was heard again.
    "If you don't mind my saying so, Governor, you're going to see some rather cloudy skies in this Huntington Beach project. It's all very well for the developers to assume that the potato farmer will welcome the intrusion of additional summer residents, but have they taken into consideration...?"
    As the evening wore on my dismay began to identify itself more with my other guests than with Smull. For when other topics were introduced, a novel of Mark Twain's, plans for the new art museum, the plight of the Western bison, an exhibition of Kensett's landscapes, Smull treated them as if they had been so many coughs or sneezes, either keeping a brief silence or else countering with another business question, only perfunctorily related to the subject. And the table went along with him! My distinguished fellow members were like so many choir boys swapping stories, who came to respectful attention when the priest came in to direct their attention to the service. Had I discovered the essence of our civilization? Men will defer to the first in any group who introduces a topic that is recognized as sacred. On an English weekend, over the port, I have seen how quickly the subject is changed, even from politics, to hunting; in France, even from money, to women. With us it seems to be money. Spending it, hoarding it, marrying it, killing for it—all of which strike me as at least human or dramatic subjects—are not in question. Only the making or the increasing of money seems to matter to the true Yankee.
    As the evening wore on and I became more and more silent, the small white face of Jacob Smull with its ever-moving pale lips began to seem to me less dull than sinister. He even achieved a kind of dignity, for there were unquestionably aspects of leadership in this sere wisp of a man. He was not, after all, just a grubber for coins; he was in fact a kind of priest, the prelate of an established order, an Inquisitor, a Torquemada, who knew that he did not have to raise his voice or wave his arms to command attention and profound respect.
    After dinner he came to sit beside me in the library for a word apart from the others.
    "It has been a pleasant evening, Peltz," his flat tone reported. I have never heard him use a Christian name. "It occurred to me that you might like to hear of a gentleman who might appreciate these gatherings. I need not tell you of his distinguished public career. I refer to Judge Morrissey."
    I felt a tickling through my veins. I actually smiled at my interlocutor! And then I recognized what was going on in my mind and through my limbs. It was the arrival of an irreversible decision. It was actually a pleasant sensation!
    "No, you need not tell me, Smull. I know all about Judge Morrissey's treasonable career. Had he had his way we should now be two nations. And one of them would be a slave state."
    My tone was so matter-of-fact that Smull needed a minute to take in my meaning.
    "Was it treason to be opposed to Abe Lincoln?"
    "I believe so."
    "Then you wouldn't consider his candidacy?"
    "Never. But you're free, of course, to ask others. I shall simply resign if he's elected."
    Smull pursed his lips into a tiny arc. "Well, I guess if it's no club for you with him, it's none for me without him. Good night, Mr. Peltz. Do you need my written resignation?"
    "It won't be necessary, Mr. Smull. I'm sorry you feel as you do. We shall continue to meet at board meetings of the bank, I trust."
    "For a time, Mr. Peltz."
    He did not even have to put a threat in his tone. The words did everything.
    There was an atmosphere of relief when Smull had left, and the group now talked about everything under the sun, from the new territory of Alaska to the merit of Walt