“You drive? Did you drive to California?”
“And back. We have two alumni in Arizona, who I found out don’t speak to each other. And two in Colorado. Denver and Colorado Springs. So I went out the Southern route and came back the Northern.”
“How much have you got me down for?” said George. “I of course know what my brother has in mind. Don’t count on me for that much.”
“No? Then you’re not going to come anywhere near Bing’s pledge?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Hibbard. He has a son that in ten years will be ready to enter St. Bartholomew’s. That problem is over, for me.”
“Well, there’s the question of your daughter, for instance. When she gets married, she may want to have her sons go to the old school. She may even marry a St. Bartholomew’s boy.”
“She may. She may also marry an Old Etonian or an unfrocked priest. I haven’t considered her offspring.”
“Well, could I put you down—tentatively—for twenty thousand?”
“You may put me down, finally, for ten thousand. Frankly, I don’t see the necessity for this campaign. I’ve been told that it all started because some old Grottie gave his school a big fat sum, and our people are copycatting.”
“That is true, as far as it goes, Mr. Lockwood. It’s contagious. And a lot of our alumni say we don’t need any more money, and that is not true. Costs are going up. For instance, it costs just three times as much to feed a boy as it did when you were there. And we’ve had to start paying our teachers decent salaries. We can’t count on getting teachers who have independent incomes. For our best men we often have to compete with the universities, because of tenure and the prestige involved. We lost, as you know, two of our old reliables, one by death and one by retirement. Judson Heminway died last summer, and we had to look around for a new head of the mathematics department. We got a good one, but he didn’t come cheaply. Man named Vollmer, from Penn Charter, in Philadelphia. We had to pay through the nose, because we were counting on Heminway to last at least another five years. In the case of old Socrates Barbour, he was due for retirement, so we were prepared for that. Excuse me just a moment, please.” He got up from the table and picked up his green felt bag, which was lying on the sideboard.
“Why don’t we move to my study and have our coffee in there?” said George. “Unless you’d like some more lemon meringue.”
“That’s a good idea. Moving to the study, not the lemon meringue. I’ve put on twelve pounds on this trip. I must say the old boys are hospitable. They must remember the rather Spartan diet we have at school, and I like to eat.”
They moved to the study. “See you’ve got your old diploma on display,” said Hibbard. “Lost mine in a fire two years ago.”
“At school?”
“No, I had it in a little flat I keep in Boston. Bachelor digs on Chestnut Street.”
“You’re not married?”
“No self-respecting young lady would have me,” said Hibbard.
“That’s one way of putting it,” said George Lockwood. “I suspect that you’re still enjoying your freedom.”
“Well, that too. Belonging to the administrative staff, I’m not required to stay at school over weekends, so I’m in Boston a great deal, Friday afternoon to Sunday evening or sometimes Monday morning. Someone left a cigarette burning in my flat, and I lost a lot of personal stuff. My St. Bartholomew’s and Harvard College diplomas. A couple of tennis trophies, and all my Spy pictures. An original Beerbohm, that I got the old boy to sign. God damn careless person.”
“She must have been.”
“I didn’t say she, Mr. Lockwood.”
“You didn’t have to,” said George.
“Well, I gave myself away, although I don’t know how.”
“If it had been a man you’d have said so, but you said ‘God damn careless person.’“
“I’ll watch that,” said Hibbard. “This bag contains a lot of data that I compiled that I think has the answer to any questions that I may be asked. For instance, starting with what we intend to do with the money after it’s invested. What we’ll do with the income from one million, if we get it. What we’ll do with the income from a million and a half, if we get that. What we’ll do with the income from two million, and so on, up to five million. If we raise six million, we’ll be slightly embarrassed, but only slightly and only temporarily, I assure you. None of the money, by the way, is going into physical plant. It is all earmarked for salary and pension and various and sundry insurance programs covering life and accident and disability. Would you care to have a look?”
“No thank you. My small donation doesn’t entitle me to a look.”
“Of course it does, but these things can be a bore. However, I brought along some snapshots that I don’t think will be a bore. Have a look at these.” He handed George an envelope. “All taken with a Brownie Number 2, and don’t worry. No views of the Grand Canyon.”
George examined the snapshots, two dozen pictures taken at Bing’s ranch. Bing. His wife. The children. The ranchhouse. The Rolls-Royce. Oil derricks. The men were silent as George studied the photographs, put them back in the envelope and held it out to Hibbard.
“They’re for you,” said Hibbard.
“Oh—thank you. You really know your business, don’t you, Mr. Hibbard?”
“That isn’t why I took them.”
“Then why did you take them?”
“Because in some ways I’m a Christer,” said Hibbard.
“Explain that, please,” said George.
“I have a brother who never sees my father. He’s artistic, as they say in Boston. Henry won’t have anything to do with the rest of us. I can’t talk about him without making him sound like a wet smack, and in some ways he is. But he isn’t, really. He quit Harvard, went to Paris, and is now living in Mexico. He apparently paints pretty well. He was given a show in Boston last year and he came back for it, but he never got in touch with my father or mother, never sent them an invitation to the show, and he borrowed my flat. He had a woman with him he said was Mexican, but she was no more Mexican than Jack Johnson, and they left the place like a pigsty.”
“I would say that your father was well off,” said George.
“He doesn’t think so. Henry was his favorite of all of us, and I never knew why. Got away with stuff we could never get away with. A spoiled brat, and to this day goes out of his way to make my parents unhappy. Wrote a letter to the Transcript over this Sacco and Vanzetti business, and signed his name. Oh, all sorts of things. My father’s had one stroke, and I know the one thing he’d like best is to have Henry come home and behave like a decent human being. None of this resembles the falling-out that you and Bing have had, and yet it does.”
“How?” said George.
“Well, I know that Henry would make it up with my father if he knew how. And from the way Bing spoke of you, there are no hard feelings on his part.”
“It’s possible there may be some on mine.”
“Yes, but I didn’t think so after seeing you look at those pictures. Actually of course I don’t know what the bone of contention was between you.”
“The bone of contention?” said George. “There was no bone of contention. A bone of contention is something two dogs fight over, and that wasn’t the sort of thing we quarreled over. We had a difference of opinion that was irreconcilable at the time, and it seems to have turned out to my son’s advantage. Very well. If he had ever needed my help, he only had to ask for it. But he hasn’t needed it, and now he never will.”