More Tales of the Black Widowers by Isaac Asimov Read Free Book Online Page B

quarrel, “why is he waiting on table?”
    “Personal choice, sir,” said Henry quickly, and Rubin's opening mouth shut again.
    Avalon said, “Let's get on with it. Tom Trumbull isn't with us this time so, as host, I appoint you, Mario, as griller in chief.”
    Mario Gonzalo, a not inconsiderable artist, was placing the final touches on the caricature he was making of Reed, one that was intended to be added to the already long line that decorated the private room of the Fifth Avenue restaurant at which the dinners of the Black Widowers were held.
    Gonzalo had, perhaps, overdrawn the bald dome of Reed's head and the solemn length of his bare upper lip, and made over-apparent the slight tendency to jowl. There was indeed something more than a trace of the bloodhound about the caricature, but Reed smiled when he saw the result, and did not seem offended.
    Gonzalo smoothed the perfect Windsor knot of his pink and white tie and let his blue jacket fall open with careful negligence as he leaned back and said, “How do you justify your existence, Mr. Reed?”
    “Sir?” said Reed in a slightly metallic voice.
    Gonzalo said, without varying pitch or stress, “How do you justify your existence, Mr. Reed?”
    Reed looked about the table at the five grave faces and smiled—a smile that did not, somehow, seriously diminish the essential sadness of his own expression.
    “Jeff warned me,” he said, “that I would be questioned after the dinner, but he did not tell me I would be challenged to justify myself.”
    “Always best,” said Avalon sententiously, “to catch a man by surprise.”
    Reed said, “What can serve to justify any of us? But if I must say something, I would say that I help bring beauty into lives.”
    “What kind of beauty?” asked Gonzalo. “Artistic beauty?” And he held up the caricature.
    Reed laughed. “Less controversial forms of beauty, I should hope.” He pulled a handkerchief out of his inner jacket pocket and, carefully unfolding it on the table, exposed a dozen or so gleaming, deeply colored bits of mineral.
    “All men agree on the beauty of gems,” he said. “That is independent of subjective taste.” He held up a small deep red stone and the lights glanced off it.
    James Drake cleared his throat and said with his usual mild hoarseness just the same, “Do you always carry those things around with you?”
    “No, of course not,” said Reed. “Only when I wish to entertain or demonstrate.”
    “In a handkerchief?” said Drake.
    Rubin burst in at once. “Sure, what's the difference? If he's held up, keeping them in a locked casket won't do him any good. He'd just be out the price of a casket as well.”
    “Have you ever been held up?” asked Gonzalo.
    “No,” said Reed. “My best defense is that I am known never to carry much of value with me. I strive to make that as widely known as possible, and to live up to it, too.”
    “That doesn't look it,” said Drake.
    “I am demonstrating beauty, not value,” said Reed. “Would you care to pass these around among yourselves, gentlemen?”
    There was no immediate move and then Drake said, “Henry, would you be in a position to lock the door?”
    “Certainly, sir,” said Henry, and did so.
    Reed looked surprised. “Why lock the door?”
    Drake cleared his throat again and stubbed out the pitiful remnant of his cigarette with a stained thumb and forefinger. “I'm afraid that, with the kind of record we now have at our monthly dinners, those things will be passed around and one will disappear.”
    “That's a tasteless remark, Jim,” said Avalon, frowning.
    Reed said, “Gentlemen, there is no need to worry. These stones may all disappear with little loss to me or gain to anyone else. I said I was demonstrating beauty and not value. This one I am holding is a ruby—quite so—but synthetic. There are a few other synthetics and here we have an irreparably cracked opal. Others are riddled with flaws. These will do no one any good