New Yorkers by Hortense Calisher Page B

that was it,” he said. “And the end of it, do you remember that? What Ralston said to Mendes, after they’d agreed?” It had been Mendes’s climax, half the reason for his telling the story at all, even to Simon, and when he was telling it out of the family, all of it.
    “Not so’s I could say.”
    “Why, Ralston said, ‘Well, at least this time I’m not letting in one of those god-damned Jews.’ And then Father Mendes had to tell him. Never occurred to him that people sometimes didn’t know what a Mendes was; he was so proud of it. ‘I think I should tell you, Mr. Ralston,’ he said, ‘that I am a Jew.’” The Judge paused—here was the part that had always tickled him. “Mendes always said he also offered at once to let the deal go. I’d like to be sure of that. But I’m not.”
    “Heh,” said Chauncey appreciatively. “Well—and so—”
    The Judge lifted a finger, forgetting about interruptions—Olney’s recall seemed sturdy enough, almost impenetrable. “So young Ralston stared. Then, Mendes said, he looked around the room as if he were tallying it. Then back to Mendes again, with a kind of funny smile on his face all that time. Then he shook his head. ‘That may be, Mr. Mendes,’ he said. ‘But at least you’re not one of these god-damned ones.’”
    “Heh-heh.” Chauncey gave a heel-stamp. “Must say I’ve heard that same little twist from others of your co-religionists. So I’d say you were right about Mendes, maybe.” He coughed. “Well now—want to hear the end of the story?”
    The Judge stared. Then he said gently, “Yes, Chauncey. Tell me the end of it.”
    “Well.” Olney sat with his hands on the curled paws of his chair, his thin legs uncrossed, the lamplight in the hollows under his cheekbones, the rest of him in shadow; he might have been gowned and in court. He was sitting in judgment, Mannix realized—in judgment on two quite other men that had appeared in Mendes’s version. Seventy years later there was still satisfaction in it. “My father-in-law was rascal-rich, you know, I guess you do. And not used to all his own red velvet yet, slathers of it all over his drawing-room, gold fittings that I didn’t know weren’t brass till I touched them. So you understand why he said what he did. I’ve never forgotten it. ‘So, Olney,’ he said to me when we got out of there. ‘Did you see?’ And I said, ‘Yes, sir, I think I learned something about the law tonight.’ He gaped at me. ‘You smart-allicking me, Mr. Olney?’ But he saw I wasn’t, that I was serious. ‘Why you young poop,’ he said. The law? Didn’t you watch him at all, Ralston? Didn’t you see it?’ When I said I hadn’t seen anything special, that freckle of his turned bright red. ‘Oh, so?’ he said. ‘Oh, so. Not so smart as I thought. Let me tell you something, mister. The way to be rich is the way that young man is rich, the way my own boy is going to be, if I can make him. My girls have got to take their chances; I can only do it once, and I’ll do it for my boy. Only got one.’ He almost choked on it, telling me. ‘Can’t do it for yourself. Has to be done for you. That boy Ralston is miles away from his own money. Don’t know where it’s from, scarcely knows that it comes. Has to be done for you—that.’ He even shook me by the arm, as if to wake me up. ‘Miles away,’ he said, ‘did you see it? Miles and miles away.’”
    Into the dying fall of that other-century voice and Olney’s silence, the Judge said, “Wonderful story, Chauncey. Wonderful telling, too. You’re a past master.”
    “Damn well ought to be, in that one. Far as I know, he didn’t pick me for his daughter’s husband, she did, and I was already after her, I guess, that night. But I was always very careful, later, not to go into his firm.” He sipped from his brandy and dried his lips. “Sometimes I wonder, though. He was rich enough after all to give his girls their own money, in the end.