A Penny Spent, F. Scott Fitzgerald

I

The Ritz Grill in Paris is one of those places where things happen—like the first bench as you enter Central Park, South, or Morris Gest’s office, or Herrin, Illinois. I have seen marriages broken up there at an ill-considered word and blows struck between a professional dancer and a British baron, and I know personally of at least two murders that would have been committed on the spot but for the fact that it was July and there was no room. Even murders require a certain amount of space, and in July the Ritz Grill has no room at all.

Go in at six o’clock of a summer evening, planting your feet lightly lest you tear some college boy bag from bag, and see if you don’t find the actor who owes you a hundred dollars or the stranger who gave you a match once in Red Wing, Minnesota, or the man who won your girl away from you with silver phrases just ten years ago. One thing is certain—that before you melt out into the green-and-cream Paris twilight you will have the feel of standing for a moment at one of the predestined centers of the world.

At 7:30, walk to the center of the room and stand with your eyes shut for half an hour—this is a merely hypothetical suggestion—and then open them. The gray and blue and brown and slate have faded out of the scene and the prevailing note, as the haberdashers say, has become black and white. Another half hour and there is no note at all—the room is nearly empty. Those with dinner engagements have gone to keep them and those without any have gone to pretend they have. Even the two Americans who opened up the bar that morning have been led off by kind friends. The clock makes one of those quick little electric jumps to nine. We will too.

It is nine o’clock by Ritz time, which is just the same as any other time. Mr. Julius Bushmill; manufacturer; b. Canton, Ohio, 1 June 1876; m., 1899, Jessie Pepper; Mason; Republican; Congregationalist; Delegate M. A. of A. 1908; pres. 1909-12; director Grimes, Hansen Co. since 1911; director Midland R. R. of Indiana—all that and more—walks in, moving a silk handkerchief over a hot scarlet brow. It is his own brow. He wears a handsome dinner coat, but has no vest on because the hotel valet has sent both his vests to the dry-cleaners by mistake, a fact which has been volubly explained to Mr. Bushmill for half an hour. Needless to say, the prominent manufacturer is prey to a natural embarrassment at this discrepancy in his attire. He has left his devoted wife and attractive daughter in the lounge while he seeks something to fortify his entrance into the exclusive and palatial dining room.

The only other man in the bar was a tall, dark, grimly handsome young American, who slouched in a leather corner and stared at Mr. Bushmill’s patent-leather shoes. Self-consciously Mr. Bushmill looked down at his shoes, wondering if the valet had deprived him of them too. Such was his relief to find them in place that he grinned at the young man and his hand went automatically to the business card in his coat pocket.

“Couldn’t locate my vests,” he said cordially. “That blamed valet took both my vests. See?”

He exposed the shameful overexpanse of his starched shirt.

“I beg your pardon?” said the young man, looking up with a start.

“My vests,” repeated Mr. Bushmill with less gusto—‘lost my vests.”

The young man considered.

“I haven’t seen them,” he said.

“Oh, not here!” exclaimed Bushmill. “Upstairs.”

“Ask Jack,” suggested the young man, and waved his hand toward the bar.

Among our deficiencies as a race is the fact that we have no respect for the contemplative mood. Bushmill sat down, asked the young man to have a drink, obtained finally the grudging admission that he would have a milk shake; and after explaining the vest matter in detail, tossed his business card across the table. He was not the frock-coated and impressive type of millionaire which has become so frequent since the war. He was rather the 1910 model—a sort of cross between Henry VIII and “our Mr. Jones will be in Minneapolis on Friday.” He was much louder and more provincial and warm-hearted than the new type.

He liked young men, and his own young man would have been about the age of this one, had it not been for the defiant stubbornness of the German machine gunners in the last days of the war.

“Here with my wife and daughter,” he volunteered. “What’s your name?”

“Corcoran,” answered the young man pleasantly, but without enthusiasm.

“You American—or English?”

“American.”

“What business you in?”

“None.”

“Been here long?” continued Bushmill stubbornly.

The young man hesitated.

“I was born here,” he said.

Bushmill blinked and his eyes roved involuntarily around the bar.

“Born here!” he repeated.

Corcoran smiled.

“Up on the fifth floor.”

The waiter set the two drinks and a dish of Saratoga chips on the table. Immediately Bushmill became aware of an interesting phenomenon—Corcoran’s hand commenced to flash up and down between the dish and his mouth, each journey transporting a thick layer of potatoes to the eager aperture, until the dish was empty.

“Sorry,” said Corcoran, looking rather regretfully at the dish. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his fingers. “I didn’t think what I was doing. I’m sure you can get some more.”

A series of details now began to impress themselves on Bushmill—that there were hollows in this young man’s cheeks that were not intended by the bone structure, hollows of undernourishment or ill health; that the fine flannel of his unmistakably Bond Street suit was shiny from many pressings—the elbows were fairly gleaming—and that his whole frame had suddenly collapsed a little as if the digestion of the potatoes and milk shake had begun immediately instead of waiting for the correct half hour.

“Born here, eh?” he said thoughtfully. “Lived a lot abroad, I guess.”

“Yes.”

“How long since you’ve had a square meal?”

The young man started.

“Why, I had lunch,” he said. “About one o’clock I had lunch.”

“One o’clock last Friday,” commented Bushmill skeptically.

There was a long pause.

“Yes,” admitted Corcoran, “about one o’clock last Friday.”

“Are you broke? Or are you waiting for money from home?”

“This is home.” Corcoran looked around abstractedly. “I’ve spent most of my life in the Ritz hotels of one city or another. I don’t think they’d believe me upstairs if I told them I was broke. But I’ve got just enough left to pay my bill when I move out tomorrow.”

Bushmill frowned.

“You could have lived a week at a small hotel for what it costs you here by the day,” he remarked.

“I don’t know the names of any other hotels.”

Corcoran smiled apologetically. It was a singularly charming and somehow entirely confident smile, and Julius Bushmill was filled with a mixture of pity and awe. There was something of the snob in him, as there is in all self-made men, and he realized that this young man was telling the defiant truth.

“Any plans?”

“No.”

“Any abilities—or talents?”

Corcoran considered.

“I can speak most languages,” he said. “But talents—I’m afraid the only one I have is for spending money.”

“How do you know you’ve got that?”

“I can’t very well help knowing it.” Again he hesitated. “I’ve just finished running through a matter of half a million dollars.”

Bushmill’s exclamation died on its first syllable as a new voice, impatient, reproachful and cheerfully anxious, shattered the seclusion of the grill.

“Have you seen a man without a vest named Bushmill? A very old man about fifty? We’ve been waiting for him about two or three hours.”

“Hallie,” called Bushmill, with a groan of remorse, “here I am. I’d forgotten you were alive.”

“Don’t flatter yourself it’s you we missed,” said Hallie, coming up. “It’s only your money. Mamma and I want food—and we must look it; two nice French gentlemen wanted to take us to dinner while we were waiting in the hall.”

“This is Mr. Corcoran,” said Bushmill. “My daughter.”

Hallie Bushmill was young and vivid and light, with boy’s hair and a brow that bulged just slightly, like a baby’s brow, and under it small perfect features that danced up and down when she smiled. She was constantly repressing their tendency toward irresponsible gaiety, as if she feared that, once encouraged, they would never come back to kindergarten under that childish brow any more.

“Mr. Corcoran was born here in the Ritz,” announced her father. “I’m sorry I kept you and your mother waiting, but to tell the truth we’ve been fixing up a little surprise.” He looked at Corcoran and winked perceptibly. “As you know, I’ve got to go to England day after tomorrow and do some business in those ugly industrial towns. My plan was that you and your mother should make a month’s tour of Belgium and Holland and end up at Amsterdam, where Hallie’s—where Mr. Nosby will meet you.”

“Yes, I know all that,” said Hallie. “Go on. Let’s have the surprise.”

“I had planned to engage a courier,” continued Mr. Bushmill, “but fortunately I ran into my friend Corcoran this evening and he’s agreed to go instead.”

“I haven’t said a word—” interrupted Corcoran in amazement, but Bushmill continued with a decisive wave of his hand:

“Brought up in Europe, he knows it like a book; bom in the Ritz, he understands hotels; taught by experience’—here he looked significantly at Corcoran—‘taught by experience, he can prevent you and your mother from being extravagant and show you how to observe the happy mean.”

“Great!” Hallie looked at Corcoran with interest. “We’ll have a regular loop, Mr.-”

She broke off. During the last few minutes a strange expression had