‘D’you think I’d be so crazy to have THEM make this shop a hangout? It wouldn’t be any very big help to my business to have Reds and Bolsheviks and these new Coheezers of yours making speeches from running boards in the showroom, all day long. No, I’m sorry, but you can’t come in here till you really want to sell cars because you want to sell cars, if I’m making it clear.’

‘You’re not, Dad, but . . . Lookit: course I don’t want to be a fanatic about these revolutionary activities. Fact, I’d just soon chuck Eugene — you know: I mean, not let him have too much of an undue influence on me. How about me quitting school and taking up aviation? You know what a good driver I am . . .’

‘Eh?’

‘ . . . and I’m dead certain I’d be a good aviator — you know, cross the ocean and everything. Or what do you think of starting a silver fox farm?’

‘Or grow frogs’ legs?’

It was Fred’s supposition that he was being bitter, but the Norse god answered with bright gladness:

‘Oh, there’d probably be a lot of money in that, too, but I don’t believe frogs would be as much fun to raise as foxes — OR aviation. How about it? Do something useful.’

A little wearily, a little savagely, altogether patiently, Fred explained, ‘Howard, two years ago you wanted to quit and go to Hollywood. A year ago, when you had that piece about your fraternity dance in your college paper, you were ready to quit and take up your burden as London correspondent for the Associated Press. Listen! I don’t necessarily think so much of college. But you’ve only got a year and a half to go before you get your degree, and if you can’t stick that out, you’ll have to get along on your own. My guess is that you’d make a first-rate coat holder for some posthole digger on a WPA project that ain’t started yet!’

‘Why Dad!’ It was clear that Howard was hurt. Shocked, surprised, wounded in his filial piety. ‘You mean, if I quit college and tried to really make something of myself, say wanted to buy an interest in one of these small broadcasting agencies, you wouldn’t back me up?’

‘Exactly!’

‘Then, gosh, it’s all true what Silga says about the Youth Movement: the older generation is trying to crush our aspirations and throttle us economically . . . Oh say, Dad, this Gene is a grand guy, and awfully hard up. Could you let me have twenty-five bucks to lend him?’

‘I could not!’

‘Well — well — see you again soon.’

Howard departed in complete cheerfulness.

In the heart of Fred, sitting motionless, there was considerably less cheer. He glanced irritably about his office. Yesterday it had been a sparkling gem of efficiency; now it seemed drearily commonplace: merely a desk, a couple of filing cabinets, a tableful of bright catalogues; the inner walls half wood and half clouded glass; the outer windows looking on a cemented yard full of dejected turn-ins with one horrible wreck that confessed a windshield jagged and stained. The only sounds were the rasping screech of valve-grinding, and from the sales floor, just outside, the voice of a salesman: ‘Not a chance of your shimmying with a job like this. You can drive over cobblestones like you were in your cradle.’