“A young major just out of the army and covered over with medals he got in the war.
He was so hard up he had to keep on wearing his uniform because he couldn’t buy some regular clothes.
First time I saw him was when he come into Winebrenner’s poolroom at Forty-third Street and asked for a job.
He hadn’t eat anything for a couple of days. ’Come on have some lunch with me,’I said.
He ate more than four dollars’worth of food in half an hour.”
“Did you start him in business?” I inquired.
“Start him!
I made him.”
“Oh.”
“I raised him up out of nothing, right out of the gutter.
I saw right away he was a fine-appearing, gentlemanly young man, and when he told me he was an Oggsford I knew I could use him good.
I got him to join up in the American Legion and he used to stand high there.
Right off he did some work for a client of mine up to Albany.
We were so thick like that in everything”—he held up two bulbous fingers—“always together.”
I wondered if .this partnership had included the World’s Series transaction in 1919.
“Now he’s dead,” I said after a moment.
“You were his closest friend, so I know you’ll want to come to his funeral this afternoon.”
“I’d like to come.”
“Well, come then.”
The hair in his nostrils quivered slightly, and as he shook his head his eyes filled with tears.
“I can’t do it—I can’t get mixed up in it,” he said,
“There’s nothing to get mixed up in.
It’s all over now.”
“When a man gets killed I never like to get mixed up in it any way.
I keep out.
When I was a young man it was different—if a friend of mine died, no matter how, I stuck with them to the end.
You may think that’s sentimental, but I mean it—to the bitter end.”
I saw that for some reason of his own he was determined not to come, so I stood up.
“Are you a college man?” he inquired suddenly.
For a moment I thought he was going to suggest a “gonnegtion,” but he only nodded and shook my hand.
“Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead,” he suggested.
“After that, my own rule is to let everything alone.”
When I left his office the sky had turned dark and I got back to West Egg in a drizzle.
After changing my clothes I went next door and found Mr. Gatz walking up and down excitedly in the hall.
His pride in his son and in his son’s possessions was continually increasing and now he had something to show me.
“Jimmy sent me this picture.”
He took out his wallet with trembling fingers.
“Look there.”
It was a photograph of the house, cracked in the corners and dirty with many hands.
He pointed out every detail to me eagerly.
“Look there!” and then sought admiration from my eyes.
He had shown it so often that I think it’was more real to him now than the house itself.
“Jimmy sent it to me.
I think it’s a very pretty picture.
It shows up well.”
“Very well.
Had you seen him lately?”
“He come out to see me two years ago and bought me the house I live in now.
Of course we was broke up when he run off from home, but I see now there was a reason for it.
He knew he had a big future in front of him.