Hello, Wilson, old man, said Tom, slapping him jovially on the shoulder. Hows business?
I cant complain, answered Wilson unconvincingly. When are you going to sell me that car?
Next week; Ive got my man working on it now.
Works pretty slow, dont he?
No, he doesnt, said Tom coldly. And if you feel that way about it, maybe Id better sell it somewhere else after all.
I dont mean that, explained Wilson quickly. I just meant
His voice faded off and Tom glanced impatiently around the garage. Then I heard footsteps on a stairs, and in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in the middle thirties[26], and faintly stout[27], but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. She smiled slowly and, walking through her husband as if he were a ghost, shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye. Then she wet her lips, and without turning around spoke to her husband in a soft, coarse voice:
Get some chairs, why dont you, so somebody can sit down.
Oh, sure, agreed Wilson hurriedly, and went toward the little office mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity except his wife, who moved close to Tom.
I want to see you, said Tom intently. Get on the next train.
All right.
Ill meet you by the news-stand on the lower level.
She nodded and moved away from him just as George Wilson emerged with two chairs from his office door.
We waited for her down the road and out of sight. It was a few days before the Fourth of July, and a gray, scrawny Italian child was setting torpedoes in a row along the railroad track.
Terrible place, isnt it, said Tom, exchanging a frown with Doctor Eckleburg.
Awful.
It does her good to get away[28].
Doesnt her husband object?
Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. Hes so dumb he doesnt know hes alive.
So Tom Buchanan and his girl and I went up together to New York or not quite together, for Mrs. Wilson sat discreetly in another car. Tom deferred that much to the sensibilities of those East Eggers who might be on the train.
She had changed her dress to a brown figured muslin, which stretched tight over her rather wide hips as Tom helped her to the platform in New York. At the news-stand she bought a copy of Town Tattle and a moving-picture magazine, and in the station drugstore some cold cream and a small flask of perfume. Up-stairs, in the solemn echoing drive she let four taxicabs drive away before she selected a new one, lavender-colored with gray upholstery, and in this we slid out from the mass of the station into the glowing sunshine. But immediately she turned sharply from the window and, leaning forward, tapped on the front glass.
I want to get one of those dogs, she said earnestly. I want to get one for the apartment. Theyre nice to have a dog.
We backed up to a gray old man who bore an absurd resemblance to John D. Rockefeller. In a basket swung from his neck cowered a dozen very recent puppies of an indeterminate breed.
What kind are they? asked Mrs. Wilson eagerly, as he came to the taxi-window.
All kinds. What kind do you want, lady?
Id like to get one of those police dogs; I dont suppose you got that kind?
The man peered doubtfully into the basket, plunged in his hand and drew one up, wriggling, by the back of the neck.
Thats no police dog, said Tom.
No, its not exactly a police dog, said the man with disappointment in his voice. Its more of an Airedale. He passed his hand over the brown wash-rag of a back. Look at that coat. Some coat. Thats a dog thatll never bother you with catching cold.
I think its cute, said Mrs. Wilson enthusiastically. How much is it?
That dog? He looked at it admiringly. That dog will cost you ten dollars.
The Airedale undoubtedly there was an Airedale concerned in it somewhere, though its feet were startlingly white changed hands and settled down into Mrs. Wilsons lap, where she fondled the weatherproof coat with rapture.
Is it a boy or a girl? she asked delicately.
That dog? That dogs a boy.
Its a bitch, said Tom decisively. Heres your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it.
We drove over to Fifth Avenue, so warm and soft, almost pastoral, on the summer Sunday afternoon that I wouldnt have been surprised to see a great flock of white sheep turn the corner.
Hold on, I said, I have to leave you here.
No, you dont, interposed Tom quickly. Myrtlell be hurt if you dont come up to the apartment. Wont you, Myrtle[29]?
Come on, she urged. Ill telephone my sister Catherine. Shes said to be very beautiful by people who ought to know.
Well, Id like to, but
We went on, cutting back again over the Park toward the West Hundreds. At 158th Street the cab stopped at one slice in a long white cake of apartment-houses. Throwing a regal homecoming glance around the neighborhood, Mrs. Wilson gathered up her dog and her other purchases, and went haughtily in.
Im going to have the McKees come up, she announced as we rose in the elevator. And, of course, I got to call up my sister, too.
The apartment was on the top floor a small living-room, a small dining-room, a small bedroom, and a bath. The living-room was crowded to the doors with a set of tapestried furniture entirely too large for it, so that to move about was to stumble continually over scenes of ladies swinging in the gardens of Versailles. The only picture was an over-enlarged photograph, apparently a hen sitting on a blurred rock. Looked at from a distance, however, the hen resolved itself into a bonnet, and the countenance of a stout old lady beamed down into the room. Several old copies of Town Tattle lay on the table together with a copy of Simon Called Peter, and some of the small scandal magazines of Broad-way. Mrs. Wilson was first concerned with the dog. A reluctant elevator boy went for a box full of straw and some milk, to which he added on his own initiative a tin of large, hard dog-biscuits one of which decomposed apathetically in the saucer of milk all afternoon. Meanwhile Tom brought out a bottle of whiskey from a locked bureau door.
I have been drunk just twice in my life, and the second time was that afternoon; so everything that happened has a dim, hazy cast over it, although until after eight oclock the apartment was full of cheerful sun. Sitting on Toms lap Mrs. Wilson called up several people on the telephone; then there were no cigarettes, and I went out to buy some at the drugstore on the corner. When I came back they had disappeared, so I sat down discreetly in the living-room and read a chapter of Simon Called Peter either it was terrible stuff or the whiskey distorted things, because it didnt make any sense to me.
Just as Tom and Myrtle (after the first drink Mrs. Wilson and I called each other by our first names) reappeared, company commenced to arrive at the apartment-door.