Paris was better than Wilmington but Ward didn’t like it. So much leisure and the sight of so many people sitting round eating and drinking got on his nerves. He felt very homesick the day the Ocean City booklet arrived inclosed with an enthusiastic letter from Colonel Wedgewood. Things were moving at last, the Colonel said; as for himself he was putting every cent he could scrape up, beg or borrow, into options. He even suggested that Ward send him a little money to invest for him, now that he was in a position to risk a stake on the surety of a big turnover; risk wasn’t the word because the whole situation was sewed up in a bag; nothing to do but shake the tree and let the fruit fall into their mouths. Ward went down the steps from the office of Morgan Harjes where he got his mail and out onto Boulevard Haussmann. The heavy coated paper felt good to his fingers. He put the letter in his pocket and walked down the boulevard with the honk of horns and the ring of horse’s hoofs and the shuffle of steps in his ears, now and then reading a phrase. Why, it almost made him want to go back to Ocean City (Maryland) himself. A little ruddy sunlight was warming the winter gray of the streets. A smell of roasting coffee came from somewhere; Ward thought of the white crackling sunlight of windswept days at home; days that lashed you full of energy and hope; the Strenuous Life. He had a date to lunch with Mr. Oppenheimer at a very select little restaurant down in the slums somewhere called the Tour d’Argent. When he got into a red-wheeled taximeter cab it made him feel good again that the driver understood his directions. After all it was educational, made up for those years of college he had missed. He had read through the booklet for the third time when he reached the restaurant.
He got out at the restaurant and was just paying the taxi when he saw Mr. Oppenheimer and another man arriving down the quai on foot. Mr. Oppenheimer wore a gray overcoat and a gray derby of the same pearly color as his moustaches; the other man was a steelgray individual with a thin nose and chin. When he saw them Ward decided that he must be more careful about his clothes in the future.
They ate lunch for a long time and a great many courses, although the steelgray man, whose name was McGill — he was manager of one of Jones and Laughlin’s steel plants in Pittsburgh — said his stomach wouldn’t stand anything but a chop and a baked potato and drank whisky and soda instead of wine. Mr. Oppenheimer enjoyed his food enormously and kept having long consultations about it with the head waiter. “Gentlemen, you must indulge me a little… this for me is a debauch,” he said. “Then, not being under the watchful eye of my wife, I can take certain liberties with my digestion… My wife has entered the sacred precincts of a fitting at her corsetière’s and is not to be disturbed… You, Ward, are not old enough to realize the possibilities of food.” Ward looked embarrassed and boyish and said he was enjoying the duck very much. “Food,” went on Mr. Oppenheimer, “is the last pleasure of an old man.”
When they were sitting over Napoleon brandy in big bowlshaped glasses and cigars, Ward got up his nerve to bring out the Ocean City (Maryland) booklet that had been burning a hole in his pocket all through lunch. He laid it on the table modestly. “I thought maybe you might like to glance at it, Mr. Oppenheimer, as… as something a bit novel in the advertising line.” Mr. Oppenheimer took out his glasses and adjusted them on his nose, took a sip of brandy and looked through the book with a bland smile. He closed it, let a little curling blue cigarsmoke out through his nostrils and said, “Why, Ocean City must be an earthly paradise indeed… Don’t you lay it on… er… a bit thick?” “But you see, sir, we’ve got to make the man on the street just crazy to go there… There’s got to be a word to catch your eye the minute you pick it up.”
Mr. McGill, who up to that time hadn’t looked at Ward, turned a pair of hawkgray eyes on him in a hard stare. With a heavy red hand he reached for the booklet. He read it intently right through while Mr. Oppenheimer went on to talk about the bouquet of the brandy and how you should warm the glass a little in your hand and take it in tiny sips, rather inhaling it than drinking it. Suddenly Mr. McGill brought his fist down on the table and laughed a dry quick laugh that didn’t move a muscle of his face. “By gorry, that’ll get ’em, too,” he said. “I reckon it was Mark Twain said there was a sucker born every minute…” He turned to Ward and said, “I’m sorry I didn’t ketch your name, young feller; do you mind repeating it?” “With pleasure… It’s Moorehouse, J. Ward Moorehouse.” “Where do you work?” “I’m on The Paris Herald for the time being,” said Ward, blushing. “Where do you live when you’re in the States?” “My home’s in Wilmington, Delaware, but I don’t guess I’ll go back there when we go home. I’ve been offered some editorial work on The Public Ledger in Philly.” Mr. McGill took out a visiting card and wrote an address on it. “Well, if you ever think of coming to Pittsburgh, look me up.” “I’d be delighted to see you.”
“His wife,” put in Mr. Oppenheimer, “is the daughter of Dr. Strang, the Philadelphia nose and throat specialist… By the way, Ward, how is the dear girl? I hope Nice has cured her of her tonsilitis.” “Yes, sir,” said Ward, “she writes that she’s much better.” “She’s a lovely creature… charming…” said Mr. Oppenheimer, draining the last sip out of his brandyglass with upcast eyes.
Next day Ward got a wire from Annabelle that she was coming up to Paris. He met her at the train. She introduced a tall Frenchman with a black vandyke beard, who was helping her off with her bags when Ward came up, as “Monsieur Forelle, my traveling companion.” They didn’t get a chance to talk until they got into the cab together. The cab smelt musty as they had to keep the windows closed on account of the driving rain. “Well, my dear,” Annabelle said, “have you got over the pet you were in when I left?… I hope you have because I have bad news for you.” “What’s the trouble?” “Dad’s gotten himself in a mess financially… I knew it’d happen. He has no more idea of business than a cat… Well, that fine Ocean City boom of yours collapsed before it had started and Dad got scared and tried to unload his sandlots and naturally nobody’d buy them… Then the Improvement and Realty Company went bankrupt and that precious Colonel of yours has disappeared and Dad has got himself somehow personally liable for a lot of the concern’s debts…. And there you are. I wired him we were coming home as soon as we could get a sailing. I’ll have to see what I can do… He’s helpless as a child about business.”