hands with the beloved prodigal.
"Really? We must talk it over. I'll see if there can't be a stricter investigation. Swan? Really! We'll certainly go into the whole business. But first I must just skip upstairs and give Mammy a good smack, and Mary and Little Sis."
And that was the last time that Philip mentioned Effingham Swan or any "stricter investigation" of the acts thereof. All afternoon he was relentlessly filial and fraternal, and he smiled like an automobile salesman when Sissy griped at him, "What's the idea of all the tender hand-dusting, Philco?"
Doremus and he were not alone till nearly midnight.
They sat upstairs in the sacred study. Philip lighted one of Doremus's excellent cigars as though he were a cinema actor playing the role of a man lighting an excellent cigar, and breathed amiably:
"Well, sir, this is an excellent cigar! It certainly is excellent!"
"Why not?"
"Oh, I just mean—I was just appreciating it—"
"What is it, Phil? There's something on your mind. Shoot! Not rowing with Merilla, are you?"
"Certainly not! Most certainly not! Oh, I don't approve of everything Merry does—she's a little extravagant—but she's got a heart of gold, and let me tell you, Pater, there isn't a young society woman in Worcester that makes a nicer impression on everybody, especially at nice dinner parties."
"Well then? Let's have it, Phil. Something serious?"
"Ye-es, I'm afraid there is. Look, Dad. . . . Oh, do sit down and be comfortable! . . . I've been awfully perturbed to hear that you've, uh, that you're in slightly bad odor with some of the authorities."
"You mean the Corpos?"
"Naturally! Who else?"
"Maybe I don't recognize 'em as authorities."
"Oh, listen, Pater, please don't joke tonight! I'm serious. As a matter fact, I hear you're more than just 'slightly' in wrong with them."
"And who may your informant be?"
"Oh, just letters—old school friends. Now you aren't really pro-Corpo, are you?"
"How did you ever guess?"
"Well, I've been—I didn't vote for Windrip, personally, but I begin to see where I was wrong. I can see now that he has not only great personal magnetism, but real constructive power—real sure-enough statesmanship. Some say it's Lee Sarason's doing, but don't you believe it for a minute. Look at all Buzz did back in his home state, before he ever teamed up with Sarason! And some say Windrip is crude. Well, so were Lincoln and Jackson. Now what I think of Windrip—"
"The only thing you ought to think of Windrip is that his gangsters murdered your fine brother-in-law! And plenty of other men just as good. Do you condone such murders?"
"No! Certainly not! How can you suggest such a thing, Dad! No one abhors violence more than I do. Still, you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs—"
"Hell and damnation!"
"Why, Pater!"
"Don't call me 'Pater'! If I ever hear that 'can't make an omelet' phrase again, I'll start doing a little murder myself! It's used to justify every atrocity under every despotism, Fascist or Nazi or Communist or American labor war. Omelet! Eggs! By God, sir, men's souls and blood are not eggshells for tyrants to break!"
"Oh, sorry, sir. I guess maybe the phrase is a little shopworn! I just mean to say—I'm just trying to figure this situation out realistically!"
"'Realistically'! That's another buttered bun to excuse murder!"
"But honestly, you know—horrible things do happen, thanks to the imperfection of human nature, but you can forgive the means if the end is a rejuvenated nation that—"
"I can do nothing of the kind! I can never forgive evil and lying and cruel means, and still less can I forgive fanatics that use that for an excuse! If I may imitate Romain Rolland, a country that tolerates evil means—evil manners, standards of ethics—for a generation, will be so poisoned that it never will have any good end. I'm just curious, but do you know how perfectly you're quoting every Bolshevik apologist that sneers at decency and kindness and truthfulness in daily dealings as 'bourgeois morality'? I hadn't understood that you'd gone quite so Marxo-materialistic!"
"I! Marxian! Good God!" Doremus was pleased to see that he had stirred his son out of his if-your-honor-please smugness. "Why, one of the things I most admire about the Corpos is that, as I know, absolutely—I have reliable information from Washington—they have saved us from a simply ghastly invasion by red agents of Moscow—Communists pretending to be decent labor-leaders!"
"Not really!" (Had the fool forgotten that his father was a newspaperman and not likely to be impressed by "reliable information from Washington"?)
"Really! And to be realistic—sorry, sir, if you don't like the word, but to be—to be—"
"In fact, to be realistic!"
"Well, yes, then!"
(Doremus recalled such tempers in Philip from years ago. Had he been wise, after all, to restrain himself from the domestic pleasure of licking the brat?)
"The whole point is that Windrip, or anyway the Corpos, are here to stay, Pater, and we've got to base our future actions not on some desired Utopia but on what we really and truly have. And think of what they've actually done! Just, for example, how they've removed the advertising billboards from the highways, and ended unemployment, and their simply stupendous feat in getting rid of all crime!"
"Good God!"
"Pardon me—what y' say, Dad?"
"Nothing! Nothing! Go on!"
"But I begin to see now that the Corpo gains haven't been just material but spiritual."
"Eh?"
"Really! They've revitalized the whole country. Formerly we had gotten pretty sordid, just thinking about material possessions and comforts—about electric refrigeration and television and air-conditioning. Kind of lost the sturdiness that characterized our pioneer ancestors. Why, ever so many young men were refusing to take military drill, and the discipline and will power and good-fellowship that you only get from military training—Oh, pardon me! I forgot you were a pacifist."
Doremus grimly muttered, "Not any more!"
"Of course there must be any number of things we can't agree on, Dad. But after all, as a publicist you ought to listen to the Voice of Youth."
"You? Youth? You're not youth. You're two thousand years old, mentally. You date just about 100 B.C. in your fine new imperialistic theories!"
"No, but you must listen, Dad! Why do you suppose I came clear up here from Worcester just to see you?"
"God only knows!"
"I want to make myself clear. Before Windrip, we'd been lying down in America, while Europe was throwing off all her bonds—both monarchy and this antiquated parliamentary-democratic-liberal
