The Embezzler by Louis Auchincloss Page A

same for my friend. I knew my own limitations and Rex's capabilities. I knew the fault of his stubbornness and the virtue of my flexibility. I knew the advantages of my connections and the indispensability of his industry. We were a team made in heaven. But I had sufficient acquaintance with my friend's demonic pride to know that matters would have to be arranged so that Mr. de Grasse's offer, if it came, should appear to have come spontaneously. It would not be easy.
    Marcellus de Grasse, head of the banking partnership that bore his name, had been my parents' summer landlord since I could remember. He owned a pine-covered hill, overlooking the village of Bar Harbor, with a magnificent view of the bay islands and sea, on the crest of which perched his big, stone, multi-porched, styleless mansion, "The Eyrie." There were three much smaller shingle villas on the hillside abutting his mile-long driveway, one of which he leased to my family. Father was never one of his intimates, but as a contemporary of the large, shy, giggling de Grasse daughters I was frequently invited to the big house. In time, however, my invitations came from the master himself. The boy and the tycoon had formed an odd friendship.
    He seemed on a first meeting almost effete. He was tall, thin and very languid, with ivory skin and brown, wig-like hair; one half expected him to raise snuff to his nostrils with a rustle of lace cuffs. He professed to despise everything that had happened since 1850, and he found New York and even poor little Bar Harbor hopelessly vulgarized by the stampede for wealth that, to his eyes, had blotted the fair and promising copy book of American history. Because his grandfather had owned a fleet of clipper ships, he always tried to identify de Grasse Brothers with the China trade and what he deemed the cleaner marine atmosphere of those earlier days. He had filled the little Doric temple at the corner of Wall and Pearl Streets, which housed the family bank, with prints of sailing vessels and the harpooning of whales, with paintings of Chinese ports and of Chinese merchants, with cases of rare porcelains and golden dragons. Not for him were the spittoon, the ticker-tape, the dreary photographs of bearded, dead partners.
    Yet the little airs and mannerisms by which the world makes its judgments and which should mean so little to the seeker of truth, meant even less in his case than in others. The essence of Marcellus de Grasse was in the speculative quality of his intellect and in his own delight in its exercise. He hated reference books and compendia of statistics. When a question arose, he liked to sit back, clasping the arms of his chair with his long white fingers, and seek the answer by pure deduction.
    When I first struck his attention as something more than a friend of his daughters, we were sitting in his study after a de Grasse family Sunday lunch at which he and I had been the only males. He happened to apologize for speaking sharply to the butler, who had brought the wrong brandy. I suppose he was embarrassed to have shown his irritability before a boy.
    "One should never be impatient with servants," he told me when the man had gone. "They can't talk back. Besides, one doesn't pay them enough to abuse them. They're not like lawyers or doctors."
    "But they have their commissions," I pointed out. Father had made me worldly wise in such matters.
    "Commissions?"
    "They get a percentage in the village on everything you buy."
    "Dear me, is it as definite as that?"
    "Oh, yes, sir. To be the de Grasse butler is a very great thing in Bar Harbor. Ida, our cook, told me he could retire after five years."
    "And what would you do about it if you were de Grasse? Fire him?"
    "Oh, no, sir. But I might make him divvy up!"
    Mr. de Grasse was amused. "I see you should be the banker, young fellow. You make me feel very naïve."
    "But it's not your fault, sir. Father says it's simple to steal a dollar from a man who is always thinking of