The Last Gentleman

you and Jamie would like to take a trip around the world,” said Mr. Vaught without changing his expression. He was fumbling in the back pocket of his seersucker pants and now took out a wallet as rounded off and polished as a buckeye. From it he plucked two checks and handed them to the engineer, watching him the while with a brimming expectation. They were stiff new checks, as rough as a cheese grater, bristling with red and black bank marks and punch-holes and machine printing. A row of odd Q-shaped zeros marched to the east.
    â€œThis one must be for Kitty,” he said, reading the word Katherine. “One hundred thousand dollars.” It seemed to be what the old man expected, for he nodded.
    â€œYou give it to one, you got to give it to all. I hope she dudn’t mess me up too.”
    â€œDid Val mess you up?”
    â€œVal? She was the worst. And yet she was my girlie. I used to call her that, girlie. When she was little, she used to have growing pains. I would hold her in my lap and rock her in the rocking chair, for hours.”
    â€œWhat did she do?”
    â€œWith the money? Gave it to the niggers.”
    â€œSir?”
    â€œThat’s what I’m telling you. She gave it to the niggers.”
    â€œBut—” began the engineer, who had formed a picture of a girl standing on the front porch handing out bills to passing Negroes. “I thought Kitty told me she went into a, ah, convent.”
    â€œShe did,” cried the old man, peering back through the smoke.
    â€œThen how—”
    â€œNow she’s begging from niggers. Do you think that is right?”
    â€œI don’t know, sir.”
    â€œLet me ask you something. Do you think the good Lord wants us to do anything unnatural?”
    â€œI don’t know, sir,” said the engineer warily. He perceived it was an old argument and a sore subject.
    â€œOr leave your own kind?”
    â€œSir?”
    â€œI mean to go spend the rest of your life not just with niggers but with Tyree niggers—do you think that is natural?”
    â€œI don’t know, sir.”
    â€œYou’ve heard your daddy talk about Tyree niggers?”
    â€œI don’t remember.”
    â€œNot even niggers have anything to do with Tyree niggers. Down there in Tyree County they’ve got three different kinds of schools, one for the white folks, one for niggers, and a third for Tyree niggers. They’re speckled-like in the face and all up in the head. Some say they eat clay. So where do you think Val goes?”
    â€œYes sir,” said the engineer.
    â€œShe went to Agnes Scott, then to Columbia and was just about to get her master’s.”
    The engineer perceived that here was one of those families, more common in the upper South, who set great store by education and degrees.
    â€œSo what do I do? Two weeks before graduation I give her her money. So what does she do?”
    â€œGave it to the Tyree niggers?”
    â€œMan, I’m telling you.”
    An easy silence fell between them. Mr. Vaught crossed his legs and pulled one ankle above the other with both hands. The little lobby, now swirling with cigar smoke, was something like an old-style Pullman smoker where men used to sit talking by night, pulling their ankles above their knees, and leaning out to spit in the great sloshing cuspidor.
    â€œLet’s get us another Coke, Bill.”
    â€œI’ll get them, sir.”
    Mr. Vaught drank his Coke in country style, sticking out a little finger and swigging it off in two swallows. “Now. Here’s what we’ll do. The doctors say Jamie can travel in a week or so. I aim to start home about Thursday week or Friday. Mama wants to go by Williamsburg and Charleston. Now you going to quit all this foolishness up here and come on home with us. What I’m going to do is get you and Jamie a little bitty car—you know I’m in the car business. Do you play golf?”
    â€œYes sir.”
    â€œHell, man, we live on the golf links. Our patio is twenty feet from number 6 fairway. You like to sail? The Lil’ Doll is tied up out at the yacht club and nobody will sail her. You’d be doing me a great favor.”
    The engineer wished he would mention a salary.
    â€œYou and Jamie can go to college—or go round the world! Now isn’t that better than being a janitor?”
    â€œYes sir.”
    â€œYou think about it.”
    â€œI will.