Reuben, Reuben by Peter De Vries

Author:Peter De Vries [De Vries, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 1964-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

nineteen

THE HAXBYS’ PARTY had started off with a bang, but now most of the men were slightly ill from the mentholated cigars C.B.S. had passed out after dinner on behalf of the sponsors of his television show, who were “pushing” the experiment in some Eastern regional test marketing. “Maybe they’re putting a little too much menthol in them,” said Jack Haxby, scowling at his. “Well you see, that’s the sort of thing we’re trying to find out,” C.B.S. said. Haxby was now irritated with himself for having let his brother-in-law make guinea pigs of his guests. He ran a palm across his short thick gray hair, which in color and pile matched the carpeting under his feet, as though the entire house had been decorated around him. He wore a plaid Madras jacket with black silk lapels. A solid, barrel-chested muscularity, together with a dented nose, made him resemble a handsome prizefighter.

He was anxious to talk about the pet project with which he currently relieved the strain of a distinguished dentistry practice, as well as gave his life some measure of cultural substance—speed reading. He was an advisory vice-president of the local branch workshop of the American Reading Clinic, and was impatient to explain its merits to three business executives who were present, conceivable prospects for the six months’ evening course. Accelerated reading had proved a boon to so many businessmen who despaired of ever getting through the reports accumulating in their briefcases. However, the after-dinner moment Haxby had chosen for introducing the subject proved inauspicious: two of the executives—Hugh Shotwell of United Rubber and Jumbo Harper of Harper Matchbooks—were quite green from the effects of the mentholated cigars, while the third, Art Meighan, proprietor of a chain of shoe stores, was clearly bucking to get to the billiard table.

As he sat waiting for his guests to recover, Haxby pondered again this whole business of recreation. It honestly seemed to him that middle-aged men became worse wrought up over their hobbies than they did about the jobs from which the hobbies were intended to offer escapes. Here he was, itching to hold forth on the nation’s reading lag and tensing up perceptibly because he was balked by a lousy cigar somebody else had probably dreamed up to amuse himself with. “I’m never this on edge when I have a tricky tooth to save,” he mused. He was candid about all that with himself.

His eye moved to McGland, who had quite brazenly strolled away from the half of the L-shaped living room to which Haxby had herded the men for a spot of brandy and good talk, and was peering round the elbow in the wall to the half where the ladies were chattering away over their crème de menthes. McGland had declined one of C.B.S.’s cigars and so felt fine. Haxby bridled. Background “mood music” issued unobtrusively from stereophonic speakers set in two corners of the ceiling at the elbow, but their gentle strains seemed to do very little to soothe Haxby: his mood was growing fouler by the minute.

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