Mr. Jack had a story of his own, and he told it so well and so frequently that it went the rounds of all the best dinner-tables in New York.
A few years before, when he was still living in the old brownstone house on the West Side, his wife was giving one of the open-house patties which she gave every year to the members of the “group” theatre for which she worked. At the height of the gaiety, when the party was in full swing and the actors were swarming through the rooms, gorging themselves to their heart’s content on the bountiful food and drink, there was suddenly a great screaming of police sirens in the neighbourhood, and the sound of motors driven to their limit and approaching at top speed. The sirens turned into the street, and to the alarm of Mr. Jack and his guests, who now came crowding to the windows, a high-powered truck flanked by two motor-cycle policemen pulled up before the house and stopped. Immediately, the two policemen, whom Mr. Jack instantly recognised as friends of his maids, sprang to the ground, and in a moment more, with the assistance of several of their fellows who got out of the truck, they had lifted a great barrel from the truck and were solemnly rolling it across the pavement and up the stone steps into the house. This barrel, it turned out, was filled with beer. The police were contributing it to the party, to which they had been invited (for when the Jacks gave a party to their friends, the maids and cooks were also allowed to give a party to the policemen and firemen in the kitchen). Mr. Jack, moved by this act of friendship and generosity on the part of the police, desired to pay them for the trouble and expense the beer had cost them, but one of the policemen said to him:
“Forget about it, boss. It’s O.K. I tell you how it is,” he then said, lowering his voice to a tone of quiet and confidential intimacy. “Dis stuff don’t cost us nuttin’, see? Nah!” he vigorously declared. “It’s given to us. Sure! It’s a commission dey give us,” he added delicately, “for seein’ dat dere stuff goes troo O.K. See?”
Mr. Jack saw, and he told the story many times. For he was really a good and generous man, and an act like this, even when it came from those who had drunk royally at his expense for years and had consumed the value of a hundred barrels of beer, warmed and delighted him.
Thus, while he could not escape sharing the theatrical and false view of life which was prevalent everywhere about him, he had, along with that, as kind and liberal a spirit as one was likely to meet in the course of a day’s journey. Of this there was constant and repeated evidence. He would act instantly to help people in distress, and he did it again and again—for actors down on their luck, for elderly spinsters with schemes for the renovation of the stage that were never profitable, for friends, relatives, and superannuated domestics. In addition to this, he was a loving and indulgent father, lavishing gifts upon his only child with a prodigal hand.
And, strangely, for one who lived among all the constantly shifting visages of a feverish and unstable world, he had always held with tenacious devotion to one of the ancient traditions of his race—a belief in the sacred and inviolable stability of the family. Through this devotion, in spite of the sensational tempo of city life with its menace to every kind of security, he had managed to keep his family together. And this was really the strongest bond which now connected him with his wife. They had long since agreed to live their own individual lives, but they had joined together in a common effort to maintain the unity of their family. And they had succeeded. For this reason and on this ground Mr. Jack respected and had a real affection for his wife.
Such was the well-groomed man who was delivered to his place of business every morning by his speed-drunk and city-hardened chauffeur. And within a hundred yards of the place where he alighted from his car ten thousand other men much like him in dress and style, in their general beliefs, and even, perhaps, in kindness, mercy, and tolerance, were also descending from their thunderbolts and were moving into another day of legend, smoke, and fury.
Having been set down at their doors, they were shot up in swift elevators to offices in the clouds. There they bought, sold, and traded in an atmosphere fraught with frantic madness. This madness was everywhere about them all day long, and they themselves were aware of it. Oh, yes, they sensed it well enough. Yet they said nothing. For it was one of the qualities of this time that men should see and feel the madness all round them and never mention it—never admit it even to themselves.