Michael Malone - Weebly

had particularly wished that somebody would be there
today to register shock at his arrival with a young black
woman, perhaps even to precipitate a scene in which
Bredforet could display his chivalrous disdain of sexual
or racial or generational bigotry. He felt this way even
though he himself was on a membership committee
whose entire principle of selection was bigotry, and
even though he himself had blackballed Carl Marco
(whom Ernie had put up, no doubt because Marco had
at least a half a million in Ransom Bank) on the
unspoken charge that Marco was, in his view, a loudmouthed,
ill-bred, ill-dressed dago. But no one had
come into the billiards room to challenge Bredforet over
Ruth Deeds. Everybody, he told his guest, seemed to
have something else to do.
"Work for a living?" suggested Dr. Deeds.
"I suppose so," her host agreed. "Looks like it's
come to that practically everywhere. Old British war
chum of mine in Kent, Teddie Pratt-Read, last time I
saw him he was slopping rubbish to a herd of giraffes
out behind his family estate. Mary and I went over on
some boring tour for the decrepit, and we escaped and