272
PARTISAN
REVIEW
played poker for nothing with them and he took Jasper to
the
ball
game once, in a brief week of affluence. Nancy had already begun
to go to high school and Jasper was old enough to have long and
serious discussions with his uncle, whenever they were on
good
terms.
The one occasion on which Jasper had been taken by Seymour to
the Polo Grounds served to make Jasper hope for years that he would
):>e taken again, a hope that Seymour used to secure personal services
from Jasper, such as getting him newspapers and cigars downstairs
at the stationery store.
"Some day I will take you again," said Seymour.
"What day?" said Jasper hopefully, for he had become as pas–
sionate a baseball fan as his uncle.
"I don't know what day," said Seymour. "On the day that I
make a lot of money which I never will."
"Yes, you will," said Jasper who at this moment of early adoles-–
cence did not like to think that anyone was not going to be successful
and rich.
"Don't you think you're going to be rich some day?" Jasper
asked his uncle.
"Maybe I will," said Seymour, "but probably I won't. It's just
one of those things : I am not the successful
type.
I've been a failure
all my life"-Seymour was now twenty-eight-"and that's the kind
of thing that does not change."
Jasper was shocked. At the age of thirteen he was appalled to
hear anyone speak of himself as a failure. He was unable to under–
stand the indifference with which Seymour spoke of being a failure.
At this time too Seymour discussed with Jasper Sarah's harshness
of nature.
"When you get older," said Seymour, "you will understand that
a woman without a man gets that way. She can't help it. Of course,
Sarah never had a good heart. But if your father had not left her,
you and Nancy would not be nagged all the time."
And then at last Rebecca had a suitor whom she was able to
take seriously. Her mother was delighted and impatient. Rebecca too
bloomed freshly, although she was no longer the thirty-five years of
age she admitted. Her suitor was J ames Mannheim, a middle-aged
dentist who had been married before and who seemed to all a very
well-educated man. Seymour did not like James and he said that
James was always making speeches. But Jasper was delighted that
such a well-educated man might become a member of the family, and
Sarah, though she was critical of J ames, was also impressed. Sarah
