“Took me two days,” said Van Camp gloomily. “Then I had an idea.”
“What was that?” McComas’ voice was ironical.
“Well—McTeague had all the good stores.”
“Yes.”
“So I thought the best thing was to buy McTeague’s company over his head.”
“What?”
“Buy his company over his head,” and Van Camp added with seeming irrelevance, “you see, I heard that he’d had a big quarrel with his uncle who owned fifteen per cent of the stock.”
“Yes,” McComas was leaning forward now—the sarcasm gone from his face.
“McTeague only owned twenty-five per cent and the storekeepers themselves owned forty. So if I could bring round the uncle we’d have a majority. First I convinced the uncle that his money would be safer with McTeague as a branch manager in our organization—”
“Wait a minute—wait a minute,” said McComas. “You go too fast for me. You say the uncle had fifteen per cent—how’d you get the other forty?”
“From the owners. I told them the uncle had lost faith in McTeague and I offered them better terms. I had all their proxies on condition that they would be voted in a majority only.”
“Yes,” said McComas eagerly. Then he hesitated. “But it didn’t work, you say. What was the matter with it? Not sound?”
“Oh, it was a sound scheme all right.”
“Sound schemes always work.”
“This one didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“The uncle died.”
McComas laughed. Then he stopped suddenly and considered.
“So you tried to buy McTeague’s company over his head?”
“Yes,” said Max with a shamed look. “And I failed.”
The door flew open suddenly and Honoria rushed into the room.
“Father,” she cried. At the sight of Max she stopped, hesitated, and then carried away by her excitement continued:
“Father—did you ever tell Russel how you proposed to Mother?”
“Why, let me see—yes, I think I did.”
Honoria groaned.
“Well, he tried to use it again on me.”
“What do you mean?”
“All these months I’ve been waiting—” she was almost in tears, “waiting to hear what he’d say. And then—when it came—it sounded familiar—as if I’d heard it before.”
“It’s probably one of my proposals,” suggested Van Camp. “I’ve used so many.”
She turned on him quickly.
“Do you mean to say you’ve ever proposed to any other girl but me?”
“Honoria—would you mind?”
“Mind. Of course I wouldn’t mind. I’d never speak to you again as long as I lived.”
“You say Codman proposed to you in the words I used to your mother?” demanded McComas.
“Exactly,” she wailed. “He knew them by heart.”
“That’s the trouble with him,” said McComas thoughtfully. “He always was my man and not his own. You’d better marry Max, here.”
“Why—” she looked from one to the other, “why—I never knew you liked Max, Father. You never showed it.”
“Well, that’s just the difference,” said her father, “between your way and mine.”
Notes
The story was written in February 1926 at Salies-de-Bearn, a spa in the French Pyrenees where the Fitzgeralds spent two months while Zelda was taking a cure for digestive problems. In his cover letter Fitzgerald informed Harold Ober: «This is one of the lowsiest stories I’ve ever written. Just terrible! I lost interest in the middle (by the way the last part is typed triple space because I thought I could fix it—but I couldn’t). Please—and I mean this—don’t offer it to the Post. I think that as things are now it would be wretched policy. Nor to the Red Book. It hasn’t one redeeming touch of my usual spirit in it. I was desparate to begin a story + invented a business plot—the kind I can’t handle. I’d rather have $1000 for it from some obscure place than twice that + have it seen. I feel very strongly about this!».
