A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis

Author:William Gaddis
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Classics, Humour
ISBN: 0670855537
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 1994-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

—Jack Preswig. Look at that. Sincerely yours, Jack Preswig. They’ve put the whole case in the hands of some flunky who’s probably not even . . .

—You find your lawyers on matchbook covers what do you expect.

—That’s got nothing to do with it Christina. They all do it, these white shoe firms and all of them, look at Harry, a senior partner will bill you three or four hundred dollars an hour, look at Swyne & Dour, they put an associate on it and only bill you maybe one fifty. Look at Mister Mudpye.

—And look at Mister Basie. You’re simply not making any sense Oscar, I don’t know what in God’s name you’re complaining about. You want them to save you money don’t you? Now where are you going.

—To get back to work! couldn’t she see? spending all day here trying to capture these voices of men a hundred years ago swept by the tide of events toward the end of innocence? to bring them to life caught up in the toils of history, struggling vainly with the great riddles of human existence, justice and slavery, war, destiny, things are in the saddle and ride mankind in Emerson’s voice cut short by the tin trivial interruption of Jack Preswig? It mightn’t sound so trivial when he got their bill she prompted him, and it had sounded to her like he’d spent most of the morning that way on the phone himself, calling the zoo and asking for —But that’s exactly what I mean! he broke out, calling hotels, he’d been calling hotels in the theatre district, he’d been calling the theatre he’d tried calling the Directors Guild he’d even called the newspaper, he couldn’t make an appointment and just send this script off if he didn’t know where to send it could he? If he had somebody to help him, if he had a secretary like everybody else to handle these miserable chores but he was the one who ended up talking to their secretaries who were paid to be devoured by trivia, his indignation swerving back to the lilt of a brogue from the pages he’d picked up again struggling to recapture a voice from a hundred and more years ago, to bring it to life —now the word is out that it’s no more than a war to free the naygers?

—Is Lily in the kitchen? I forgot to ask her to peel those carrots for supper, and one of these days might it occur to you to shave.

—Yes, preserve the Union! he came on in a burst that brought him back to his feet —with four million naygers running around free? Why, the woods is full of them right now, and do you expect a nayger to go back into slavery once he’s been as free to come and go as yourself? The phone’s ring caught him off balance. By the time he got there it had stopped ringing; by the time he was back out of reach it rang again, stumbling over a wastebasket —hello? Well who is it .

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