THE EINHORNS
623
Kindled enough, he made it suggestive, his black voice cracking, and
his little roosterish flame licked up, clear, queer and crabbed. His old
sire, gruff and mocking, deeply tickled, lay like the Buffalo Bill of
the Etruscans in the beach-chair with the bath towel drawn up
burnoose-wise to keep the dazzle from his eyes-additionally shaded
by
his soft, flesh-heavy arm-his bushy mouth open with laughter.
"Ee-dyot!"
he cried to his son.
If
the party began after the main heat of the day, William
Einhorn might come down too, wheel-chair brought on the baggage
rack of the Stutz, and his wife carrying an umbrella to shade them
both. He was taken pick-a-back by his brother, or by me, from the
office into the car, from the car to the right site of the lakeshore; all
as distinguished, observing, white, untouched and nobiliare as a
margrave. Quickeyes. Originally a big man, of the Commissioner's
stature, well-formed, well-favored, he had more delicacy of spirit
than the Commissioner, and of course Dingbat wasn't a patch on
him. Einhorn was very pale, a little flabby in the face; he had
considerable curvature of the nose, small lips, and graying hair let
grow thickly so that it touched on the ears, and he was continually
watchful, his look going forward uninterruptedly to fasten on sub–
ject matters. His heavy, attractive wife sat by him with the parasol,
languorous, partly in smiles, with her free soft brown fist on her
lap and strong hair bobbed with that declivity that you see in pic–
tures of the Egyptian coif, the flat base forming a black brush about
the back of the neck. Entertained by the summer breeziness, the
little boats on the waves and the cavorting and minstrelsy.
If
you want to know what she thought, it was that back home
was locked, there were two pounds of hot dogs on the shelf of the
gas range, two pounds of cold potatoes for salad, mustard, a rye
bread already sliced.
If
she ran out, she could send me for more.
Mrs. Einhorn liked to feel that things were ready. The old man
would want tea. He needed to be pleased, and she was willing, asking
only in return that he stop spitting on the floor, and that not of
him directly, being too shy, but through her husband, to whom it was
merely a joking matter. The rest of us would have coca cola, Ein–
horn's favorite drink. One of my daily chores was to fetch him cokes,
in bottles from the poolroom or glasses from the drugstore, depend–
ing on which he judged to have the better mixture that day.
