“Thanks, it’s not exactly money I need, that’s the hell of it.”
“How’s your wife?... She’s so beautiful.”
“We’re getting a divorce.... She served the papers on me this morning.... That’s all I was waiting in this goddam town for.”
Congo bit his lips. Then he tapped Jimmy gently on the knee with his forefinger. “In a minute we’ll get to the ’ouse.... I give you one very good drink.” ... “Yes wait”, Congo shouted to the chauffeur as he walked with a stately limp, leaning on a goldknobbed cane, into the streaky marble hallway of the apartmenthouse. As they went up in the elevator he said, “Maybe you stay to dinner.” “I’m afraid I cant tonight, Con ... Armand.”
“I have one very good cook.... When I first come to New York maybe twenty years ago, there was a feller on the boat.... This is the door, see A. D., Armand Duval. Him and me ran away togedder an always he say to me, ‘Armand you never make a success, too lazy, run after the leetle girls too much....’ Now he’s my cook ... first class chef, cordon bleu, eh? Life is one funny ting, Meester ’Erf.”
“Gee this is fine,” said Jimmy Herf leaning back in a highbacked Spanish chair in the blackwalnut library with a glass of old Bourbon in his hand. “Congo ... I mean Armand, if I’d been God and had to decide who in this city should make a million dollars and who shouldnt I swear you’re the man I should have picked.”
“Maybe by and by the misses come in. Very pretty I show you.” He made curly motions with his fingers round his head. “Very much blond hair.” Suddenly he frowned. “But Meester ’Erf, if dere is anyting any time I can do for you, money or like dat, you let me know eh? It’s ten years now you and me very good frien.... One more drink?”
On his third glass of Bourbon Herf began to talk. Congo sat listening with his heavy lips a little open, occasionally nodding his head. “The difference between you and me is that you’re going up in the social scale, Armand, and I’m going down.... When you were a messboy on a steamboat I was a horrid little chalkyfaced kid living at the Ritz. My mother and father did all this Vermont marble blackwalnut grand Babylonian stuff ... there’s nothing more for me to do about it.... Women are like rats, you know, they leave a sinking ship. She’s going to marry this man Baldwin
who’s just been appointed District Attorney. They’re said to be grooming him for mayor on a fusion reform ticket.... The delusion of power, that’s what’s biting him. Women fall for it like hell. If I thought it’d be any good to me I swear I’ve got the energy to sit up and make a million dollars. But I get no organic sensation out of that stuff any more. I’ve got to have something new, different.... Your sons’ll be like that Congo.... If I’d had a decent education and started soon enough I might have been a great scientist. If I’d been a little more highly sexed I might have been an artist or gone in for religion.... But here I am by Jesus Christ almost thirty years old and very anxious to live.... If I were sufficiently romantic I suppose I’d have killed myself long ago just to make people talk about me. I havent even got the conviction to make a successful drunkard.”
“Looks like,” said Congo filling the little glasses again with a slow smile, “Meester ’Erf you tink too much.”