SEIZE THE DAY
317
were his kids, and he took care of them and always would. He had
planned to set up a trust fund. But that was on his former expecta–
tions. Now he had to rethink the future, because of the money prob–
lem. Meanwhile, here were the bills to be paid. When he saw the
two sums punched out so neatly on the cards he cursed the company
and its IBM equipment. His heart and his head were congested with
anger. Everyone was supposed to have money. It was nothing to
the company. It ran pictures of funerals
in
the magazines and
frightpned the suckers, and then punched out little holes, and the
customers would lie awake to think out ways to raise the dough.
They'd be ashamed not to have it. They couldn't let a great company
down, either, and they got the scratch. In the old days they would
put a man in prison for debt, but there were subtler things now.
They made it a shame not to have money and put everybody to work.
Well, and what else had Margaret sent him? He tore the en–
velope open with his thumb swearing that he would send any other
bills back to her. There was, luckily, nothing more. He put the hole–
punched cards in his pocket. Didn't Margaret know that he was
nearly at the end of his rope? Of course. Her instinct told her that
this was her opportunity and she was giving him the works.
He went into the dining room, which was under Austro–
Hungarian management at the Hotel Gloriana. It was run like a
European establishment. The pastries were excellent, especially the
strudel. He often had apple strudel and coffee
in
the afternoon.
As soon as he entered he saw his father's small head in the
sunny bay at the farther end, and heard his neat voice. It was with
an odd sort of perilous expression that Wilhelm crossed the dining
room.
Dr. Adler liked to sit in a comer that looked across Broadway
down to the Hudson and New Jersey. On the other side of the street
was a supermodern cafeteria with gold and purple mosaic columns.
On the second floor a private-eye school, a dental laboratory, a re–
ducing parlor, a veteran's club and a Hebrew school shared the
space. The old man was sprinkling sugar on his strawberries. Small
hoops of brilliance were cast by the water glasses on the white table–
cloth, despite a faint murkiness in the sunshine.
It
was early summer,
and the long window was turned inwardi a moth was on the pane;
