‘And you still don’t know what all those funny tubes under the hood are for! Before you can sell, you’ve got to be able to take down a motor. I’m going to put you in the repair shop. I’m going to have Bill Merman teach you how to use a lathe and a hammer and a cold chisel . . .’

‘Me work for that greasy, tobacco-spitting roughneck?’

‘Maybe chewing tobacco is what makes a good machinist. Maybe you better learn . . . Wait! Excuse me. I didn’t mean to get flip. I called you in here so we could get right down to brass tacks and cut out this fencing and covering up that we’ve always done, all our lives, doggone it! You’re no longer a nice kid that I’m responsible for. You’re a grown, married man — theoretically — and you’re responsible for yourself and for Annabel. So you’ll either put on overalls, and really go to work, and maybe some day I may put you to selling again, or else you’ll get out and find work somewhere else.’

‘And if I can’t? With the raw deal Youth is getting . . .’

‘Then you’ll probably starve.’

Howard struck attitudes by the dozen, heroic ones: ‘Oh, I can take it! I can live on handouts! I can sleep in the hay! But what about Annabel? Her father won’t speak to her.’

‘Your mother and I would be very pleased to have Annabel stay with us while you’re sleeping in the hay, but if you come to our house to call on her, please brush off the hayseed . . . Howard! Damn it! Have I got to wake up and find I have a fool for a son? You can get to work or get out, and I’ve got so now’s I don’t care which . . . Oh, son, son, don’t make me angry! I want to help you. Can’t you see that?’

‘Oh, all right, Dad. I’ll try. I’ll spit tobacco juice, if you say so, and pinch every penny . . . Want to drive out with me and meet Bell? I’ll buy you a dry martini.’

While Howard and Annabel had been on their honeymoon of a week (which Fred had felt was all he ought, for their own sakes, to give them), he had found for them a three-room flat with appreciable light and air. Three months’ rent he paid, and Hazel and he, somewhat timidly, provided electric stove and refrigerator, beds and a few chairs, and painted dining furniture. They called in Sara to approve and were flattered when she found these intrusions tolerable.

When Annabel returned, Fred called her to his office and ventured:

‘It’ll be a long time before Howard is able to do much more. I want to lend you, uh, lend you personally, Annabel, a thousand dollars, so you can finish the furnishing. I want you to give me your personal note for it — thousand bucks to be paid back in, uh, say ten years, at, uh, shall we say two per cent interest? Oh, it’ll be a good investment for me, the way things are!’