364
PARTISAN REVIEW
nephew, Seymour threw his legs high in the air, leaning back on the
studio couch and drawing on his socks in the way he had learned
while a member of the armed forces. His mother .went to the closet,
took
his
newly pressed pants from a hanger, and brought them to
him. Seymour drew on his pants with care and examined the shirts
in the dresser. He complained in an offhand way to his mother be–
cause the collars were not starched well by the laundry. J asper
regarded his grandmother. She was
watc~ing
every move made by
Seymour. Seeing his glance, she returned to him and asked him if he
wanted a new and handsome necktie which Seymour had purchased,
decided he did not like, and then refused to bring back to the haber–
dashery. Jasper refused the necktie.
"I have enough," he said to his grandmother, although the truth
was that Seymour's taste in clothes and men's wear was loud, practi–
cally spectacular, so that nothing of his could conceivably be of any
use to Jasper.
Jasper regarded his grandmother's scrutiny of his own attire. She
took pride in Jasper's success, the only success of the family, and she
took much pleasure in his love for her. Yet she felt that he did not
look the success that he was and the reason was that he did not dress
as he should. She thought that Seymour went too far, perhaps, but
Jasper, on the other hand, wore old and unpressed suits.
"He does not look like what he is," she explained once to a
neighbor as she introduced him, and thenceforward Jasper made a
special effort each time he went to see his grandmother, and when
on one such occasion he returned to the apartment of a lady friend
she remarked on the fact that his shoes were shined for once.
"What a character you are," she. said, "the only time you get
your shoes shined is when you go to see your grandmother!"
Jasper had taken the same extraordinary pains on this occasion
and he was amused to see that his grandmother looked at him with
some disappointment, as before.
She recognized his amused look as having to do with her scrutiny
and changed to the 'subject of Jasper's work.
"You must not work so hard," she said, just as ten years before
when he had stayed with her and asked her to wake him in time for
school, she had not done so, explaining that she thought that if he was
sleepy, he ought to sleep.
Jasper explained as he had many times before that he liked his
work.
"Have a good time," she said to him, "there is plenty of time
