Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment

It was. We dined on Horsham Manor's simple fare, but Jerry ate it as though he had never been away. And when dinner was over we adjourned to the library and talked far into the night. I observed for one thing, that he was now smoking cigarettes with perfect facility. I made no comment, but could not help recalling the fact that it was in this, too, that Eve had tempted and Adam fallen. He ran on at a great rate, but said little of the girl Marcia, or indeed of any women. I think he hadn't been able to forget my attitude toward them, and in the light of his new contacts considered himself vastly superior to me in experience of the world. But the mere fact that he now avoided mention of the Van Wyck girl advised me that his thoughts of her were of a sort which he thought I could not possibly comprehend.

He told of some of the things already mentioned, with humor and some bewilderment. He had made it a habit to go and walk the streets for awhile every day when he could mingle with the crowds and try and get their point of view. He hadn't gotten very far yet, but he was learning. He knew the different parts of the city and chose for his walks the East side by preference. He had seen filth and squalor on one avenue and on the next one elegance and wealth. The contrasts were amazing.

"Something's wrong, Roger," he said again and again. "Something's wrong. It doesn't seem fair somehow. I'm sure the people on one street can't all be deserving and those on another all undeserving. The Fifth Avenue lot, the ones I associate with in the clubs, are all very well in their way, but they seem to waste a lot of time. They don't produce anything, they're not helping to keep the world together. The real workers are elsewhere. I've seen 'em, talked to some of 'em. They've got vitality that the other chaps haven't. Flynn's friends are great. I've been sparring with 'em—some pretty good ones, too."

"How did you manage?"

"All right. You know, Flynn always said I gave promise of being a pretty good boxer, so I've been working a little in the afternoon at his gymnasium. I had to, Roger, to keep in shape. There are all sorts of chaps there, mostly professionals. You know he's training this new middleweight, Carty, for a fight next March. I didn't like to put on the gloves with any of 'em, but Flynn insisted."

Jerry paused and I saw a smile growing slowly at the corners of his lips. I knew that smile. Jerry wore it the day Skookums disobeyed orders and had the encounter with the skunk.

"You had a good go of it?" I asked.

He nodded.

"You see, there was a big Jew named Sagorski, 'Battling' Sagorski they call him, hanging around the place. He's a 'White Hope.' He's been sparring partner of one of the champions and he thinks a good deal of himself. Flynn doesn't like him a great deal—some dispute about a debt, I believe. I was sparring with Flynn, Sagorski watching.

"I heard someone make a remark and then Sagorski's voice sneering. Flynn dropped his hands and turned.

"'Ye always c'ud talk, Sagorski,' said he. 'But talk's cheap. I'll match the bye again ye six rounds, fer points, double or quits, the same bein' the small amount that's been hangin' betune us the little matter of a year.'

"Sagorski was up in a moment, smiling rather disdainfully. 'Yer on,' he growled.

"They fixed us up, seconds, timekeepers and all, and we went at it. He was a good one and strong but slow, Roger. You know, Flynn's lighter than I am, but lightning fast. Sagorski gave me more time, but he had a good left and an awful wallop with his right. Flynn had warned me to look out for that right and I did. The first round was slow. Each of us was feeling the other out. I landed a few and got one in the ribs. The second round went faster. I avoided him by ducking and side-stepping, but he kept boring in, still smiling disagreeably. I didn't like that smile. He wanted to knock me out, I think, for he made several vicious swings that might have settled me, but I got away from them and kept him moving.

"'Wot's this, sonny?' he sneered at last, 'a foot race?'

"But he didn't make me mad—not then. I kept hitting him freely, not hard, you know, but piling up points nicely for Flynn. He couldn't really reach me at all and was getting madder and madder. It was funny. I think I must have let up a little then, for I think it was in the fourth round he got in past my guard and swung a hard right on my nose. The blow staggered me and I nearly went down. Anyway, Roger, it made me angry. It seemed a part of that ugly smile. I saw red for a moment and then I went for him with everything I had, straight-arms, swings, uppercuts—everything. I think I must have been in better shape than he was, for by the time the round was ended he was groggy.

"When we came up for the next I heard Flynn whispering at my ear, 'Finish him, Masther Jerry. If you don't, he'll put ye out.'

"I didn't need that warning. I sparred carefully for a minute, feeling out what he had left. He swung at me hard, just grazing my ear. Then I went after him again, feinted into an opening and caught him flush on the point of the chin."

He paused for breath. "I didn't want to, you know, Roger, but Flynn was so insistent—and, of course, having started—"

"'You bored in, that th' opposed might beware of thee,'" I paraphrased.

He laughed.

"Yes, I bored in. There was nothing else to do. Flynn didn't say much, but he was pleased as punch. It took ten minutes to bring the fellow around. I was bending over Sagorski, wetting his face, and as he looked up at me I told him I was awfully sorry. What do you think he said?

"'Aw, you go to hell!' Impolite beggar, wasn't he?"

"You have been at least catholic in the choice of companions," I remarked, with a smile, recalling Flynn's prediction about Jerry's weight in wild cats.

"Oh, yes. All sorts of people. I think on the whole I understand the poorer classes best. They do swear, I find, horribly at times, but they don't intend harm by it. I doubt if they really know what it means. 'Hell' is merely an expletive like 'Oh' or 'By Jove' with us chaps. Funny, isn't it?"

"That truck-driver didn't think so," I said.

"That was my first week. I know a lot more now. I've felt sorry about him."

"You needn't," I laughed.

And after a pause:

"And down town, Jerry," I inquired. "How are things going there?"

His expression grew grave at once.

"Oh, I've been going to the office pretty regularly, but it's slow work. I don't understand why, but I don't seem to get on at all."

"That's too bad," I said slowly. "You must get on, old man."

"Yes, I know, but it comes hard. It seems that I'm frightfully rich. In fact, nobody seems to know how rich I am. I've got millions and millions, twenty—thirty perhaps. So much that it staggers me. It's like the idea of infinity or perpetuity. I can't grasp it at all. It's piling up in new investments, just piling up and nothing can stop it."

"You don't want to stop it, do you?"

"But if it was only doing some good—When I see the misery all about—"

"Wait a bit. You're putting the cart before the horse, my boy. There's no sin in being rich, in piling it up, as you say, if you're not doing anybody any harm. Have you ever thought of the thousands who work for you, of the lands, the railroads, the steamships, the mills, all carrying and producing—producing, Jerry, helping people to live, to work? Isn't it something to have a share in building up your country?"

"But not the lion's share. It's so impersonal, Roger. My companies may be helping, but I'm not. I want to help people myself."

"That's just what I'm getting at. The more money you make, the more people you can help," I laughed. "It's simplicity itself."

"In theory, yes. But I see where it's leading me. If I go on making money, where will I find the time to give it away? It seems to be a passion with these men getting more—always more. I don't want to get like Ballard or Stewardson. And I won't!"

He snapped his jaws together and strode with long steps the length of the room.

"I won't, Roger," he repeated. "And I've told 'em so."

I remained silent for a moment, gazing at the portrait of John Benham on the wall opposite me. He had a jaw like Jerry's, not so well turned and the lips were thinner, a hard man, a merciless man in business, a man of mystery and hidden impulses. The boy was keen enough, I knew, when it came to a question of right and wrong. There was some ancient history for Jerry to learn. Did Jerry already suspect the kind of man his father had been?

"You're sure that you're right?" I asked quietly.

"Positive. It's all very well to talk about those my money helps, but it harms, too. If anything gets in the way of Ballard's interests or mine, he crushes 'em like egg-shells. My father—"

Jerry hesitated, repeated the word and then paced the floor silently for a moment. I thought it wise to remain silent.

"Oh, I know what it all means to those men. Power! Always! More power! And I don't want it if it's going to make me the kind of man that Henry Ballard is, blind to beauty, deaf to the voice of compassion, a piece of machinery, as coldly scientific in his charities as he is in the—"

"But that's necessary, Jerry," I broke in. "A man of Henry Ballard's wealth must plan to put his money where it will do the most good—"

"Or where it will magnify the name of Henry Ballard," he said quickly. "Oh, I don't know much yet, but I'm pretty sure that kind of thing isn't what Christ meant."

He threw out his arms in a wide gesture. "Roger, I've talked to some of these poor people. There's something wrong with these charity organizations. They're too cold. They patronize too much. They don't get under the skin."

"You haven't wasted a great deal of time," I remarked when he paused.

He smiled. "Well, you know, I couldn't sit in a club window and watch the buses go by."

"Have you declared these revolutionary sentiments to your executors?" I asked after awhile.

He threw himself in an armchair and sighed.

"I suppose I ought to say that Mr. Ballard has been very patient with me. He was. I told him that I didn't want any more money, that I had enough. I think I rather startled him, for he looked at me for a long while over the half-moons in his glasses before he spoke.

"'I don't think you realize the seriousness (he wanted to say enormity but didn't) of your point of view. There's no standing still in this world,' he said. 'If you don't go ahead, you're going to go back. That's all very well for you personally if you choose to remain idle, but it won't do where great financial interests are involved. I want to try to make you understand that a going concern moves of its own momentum. But it's so heavy that once you stop it, it won't go again. The thought of abandoning your career is in itself hazardous. I hope you will not repeat the sentiments you have expressed to me elsewhere. If the street heard what you have just said there would be a fall in your securities which might be disastrous.'

"'But other people would benefit, wouldn't they?' I asked.

"He glared at me, speechless, Roger, and got very red in the face. 'And this,' he stammered at last, 'is the fine result of your Utopia. Ideals! Dreams! My God! If your father could hear you—he'd rise in his grave!'

"I'm just what he made me,' I said coolly.

"He stared at me again as though he hadn't heard what I had said.

"'Do you mean that you're going to abandon this career we've made for you, the most wonderful that could be given mortal man?' he asked, though his tone was not pleasant.

"I did owe him a lot, you see. He's true to his own ideals, though they're not mine. And I was very uncomfortable.

"'I hope you won't think me ungrateful, Mr. Ballard,' I said as calmly as I could. 'In some ways you've been very like a father to me. I want you to understand that I appreciate all that you and the other co-executors have done for me. I've been very happy. But I want you to know, if you don't know it already, that I'm very stupid about business. It bewilders me. I'll try as hard as I can to please you and will do my best at it, but you can understand that that won't be very much when my heart isn't in it. I don't want to see the Benham securities fall, because that would hurt you, too. I'll keep silent for awhile and do just what you want me to do. But I don't want any more money. The responsibility, the weight of it, oppresses me. I'm too simple, if you like, but I don't think I'll change.'

"'And what,' he asked slowly when I stopped, 'what do you propose to do with all this money we've kept together for you?'

"His voice was low, but his face was purple and he snapped his words off short as if their utterance hurt him.

"'With your permission, sir,' I said quietly, 'I expect to give a great deal of it away.'

"Roger, he couldn't speak for rage. He glared at me again and then, jamming his hat on his head, stalked stiffly out. Oh, I've made a mess of things, I suppose," he sighed, "but I can't help it. I'm sick of the whole miserable business."

I made no comment. I had foreseen this interview, but it had come much sooner than I had expected. I felt that I had known Jerry's mind and what he would do eventually, but it was rather startling that he had come to so momentous a decision and had expressed it so vigorously at the very outset of his career. It was curious, too, as I remembered things that had gone before, how nearly his resolution coincided with the one boyishly confessed to the female, Una Smith, in the cabin in the woods last summer. At the time, I recalled, the matter had made no great impression upon me. I had not believed that Jerry could realize what he was promising. But here he was reiterating the promise at the very seats of the mighty.

The subject was too vast a one for me to grasp at once. I wanted to think about it. Besides, he didn't ask my advice. I don't think he really wanted it. I looked at Jerry's chin. It was square. For all his sophistries, Jack Ballard was no mean judge of human nature.