“You come over to my office,” the old man said, “and sit out the hour. Haven’t had a talk with you for ten days. I read your reports, of course, and I see by them that—for a man having fits—you’re doing pretty swell. Better than I figured. Much. That blitz training is red-hot! Wish I could send some more of my men abroad for a spell of it!” He chuckled and led the way into the shambles he called his office.
“You destroy my reports, don’t you?”
“I commit ’em to memory and I burn ’em on the floor here and I poke the ashes to dust. Except the ones Ben runs to Washington, naturally.”
“Mmmmm.”
“Jimmie. How goes the battle?”
“Oh, so-so. Dad and Mother haven’t had time to argue with me lately. They’re always thinking up some new fun for Biff, for one thing. For another, I’ve been reading your one-man history of the world every night.”
“Like it?”
“Lots.”
The old man grunted. “Whenever I think about what’s wrong with America, I think about how are the American people going to fix it. I don’t mean I think about that as a problem. I think about it as if I were reading the history of the future. Because they darned well will fix things! They’re that kind of folks—even if they do get mighty reluctant spells!”
“Guess you’re right.”