A Cool Million by Nathanael West Read Free Book Online Page A

this
youth’s heroism to venture a few remarks.
    “There have been heroes before him— Leonidas , Quintus Maximus , Wolfe
Tone, Deaf Smith, to mention only a few—but this should not prevent us from
hailing L. Pitkin as the hero, if not of our time, at least of the immediate
past.
    “One of the most striking things
about his heroism is the dominance of the horse motif, involving, as it does,
not one but two horses. This is important because the depression has made all
us Americans conscious of certain spiritual lacks, not the least of which is
the symbolic horse.
    “Every great nation has its symbolic
horses. The grandeur that was Greece is made immortal by those marvelous
equines, half god, half beast, still to be seen in the
corners of the Parthenon pediment. Rome, the eternal city, how perfectly is her
glory caught in those martial steeds that rear their fearful forms to Titus’s
triumph! And Venice, Queen of the Adriatic, has she not her winged sea horses,
kindred to both air and water?
    “Alas, only we are without. Do not
point to General Sherman’s horse or I will be angry, for that craven hack, that crowbait , is nothing. I repeat, nothing. ‘What I want is for all my hearers to go home and immediately write to
their congressmen demanding that a statue depicting Pitkin’s heroic act be
erected in every public park throughout our great country.”
    Although Sylvanus Snodgrasse kept on in this vein for quite some time,
I will stop reporting his oration to acquaint you, dear reader, with his real
purpose. As you have probably surmised, it was not so innocent as it seemed. The truth is that while he kept the crowd amused, his
confederates circulated freely among its members and picked their pockets.
    They had succeeded in robbing the
whole crowd, including our hero, when a policeman made his appearance. Snodgrasse immediately discontinued his address and hurried
off after his henchmen.
    The officer dispersed the gathering
and everyone moved away except Lem , who was lying on
the ground in a dead faint. The bluecoat, thinking that the poor boy was drunk,
kicked him a few times, but when several hard blows in the groin failed to
budge him, he decided to call an ambulance.

 
13
     
    One wintry morning, several weeks
after the incident in the park, Lem was dismissed
from the hospital minus his right eye. It had been so severely damaged that the
physicians had thought best to remove it.
    He had no money, for, as we have
recounted, Snod . grasse’s henchmen had robbed him. Even the teeth
that. Warden Purdy had given him were gone. They had
been taken from him by the hospital authorities, who claimed that they did not
fit properly and were therefore a menace to his health.
    The poor lad was standing on a windy
corner, not knowing which way to turn, when he saw a man in a coonskin hat. This remarkable headgear made Lem stare ,
and the more he looked the more the man seemed to resemble Shagpoke Whipple.
    It was Mr. Whipple. Lem hastened to call out to him, .and the ex-President
stopped to shake hands with his young friend.
    “About those inventions,” Shagpoke said immediately after they had finished greeting
each other. “It was too bad that you left the penitentiary before I could hand
them over to you. Not knowing your whereabouts, I perfected them myself.
    “But let us repair to a coffee
place,” he added, changing the subject, “where we can talk over your prospects
together. I am still very much interested in your career. In fact, my young
friend, America has never had a greater need for her youth than in these
parlous times.”
    After our hero had thanked him for
his interest and good wishes, Mr. Whipple continued to talk. “Speaking of
coffee,” he said, “did you know that the fate of our country was decided in the
coffee shops of Boston during the hectic days preceding the late rebellion?”
    As they paused at the door of a
restaurant, Mr. Whipple asked Lem still another
question. “By the way,”