House Party Read Online Free PDF Page B

across the ceiling. Through his monocle, Uncle Ned could see as far as the receptionist's desk—limed teakwood. On it were a gold telephone, an intarsia bowl of brown orchids and the receptionist's knitting. Squinting a bit, Uncle Ned at last made out the receptionist herself, She had one head, two eyes, one mouth and the usual component of limbs. In this room she was somehow out of key, but very reassuring. Uncle Nod cleared his throat sententiously.
    "You wanted somethingue?"
    "Yes, my dear, would you be good enough to tell Mr. Paul Ames that his uncle, Mr. Pruitt, is here?"
    "Cert'ny. Won'tchu be seatid?" She gestured toward a low granite slab.
    "Thank you, no." Uncle Ned twiddled his monocle.
     
    A perfectly plain black telephone rang at Table No. One in the drafting room. Paul Ames jumped slightly, carefully put down his Inking pen and answered. "Oh, golly " he said, "the old goat's early. Tell him I’ll be out in just a second."
    Paul Ames was twenty-seven. He was tall and as delicately boned as his mother. His eyes, once he removed the tortoiseshell glasses he wore for drawing, were as large and black as all the eyes in his family. He bit his nails and wished he didn't.
    Now he returned to his work with frantic speed. It made himguilty to rush through the last strokes of a final drawing. He felt even guiltier to be working on the drawing at all because it was a drawing of just the kind of thing he hated most—something that looked good on paper and was totally impractical. To occupy Table No. One at Vahan Rabadab Associates amounted to being crown prince and junior partner material. Mr. Rabadab himself, as well as Mr. Zuleikian and Mr. Nahigian and even Mr. Kelly, the junior associate, had made that clear to Paul. But being at Table No. One and obviously the sultan's favorite made Paul feel guilty before the other ninety-nine young architects in the drafting room. He wanted to be one of them— except he didn't want to be one of them at all in that he didn't want to be working for Vahan Rabadab Associates.
    Since the war, Rabadab and his jolly helpers had made close to ten million dollars by putting up modern apartment buildings on expensive New York corners. Mr. Rabadab could buy what had once been a brownstone house adequate for one well-heeled family and replace it almost overnight with a monstrous tower of flats ingeniously dovetailed to contain a hundred well-heeled families. Each flat featured a picture window, a hanging terrace, a Rabadab Electronuclear Demi-Kitchenette and a monthly rental that would curl your hair. All Rabadab buildings looked like banks of file cabinets with the drawers open. Lewis Mumford deplored them; the International Institute for the Furtherance of Good Design despised them; Paul detested them. But the public loved them. The rich and the new rich battled for leases. A mink coat and two Rabadab rooms on Park Avenue was the dream of every stenographer.
    "I'd better call Claire and tell her to get ready right now," Paul said to himself. He picked up the telephone. "Plaza three, seven three hundred, please . . . No, it's not a business call . . . Yes, I know he's waiting out there. Tell him I'll be along in a second . . . I can't help that. I don't like the reception room, either. Tell him I’ll be right out . . . No, I said Plaza three, seven three hundred."
    Paul was in a sweat. The only thing that calmed him down was that in a matter of seconds he'd be talking to Claire and whenever he talked to Claire visions of spacious modern country houses, trees and dogs and babies, peace and quiet and love washed over him. "Miss Devine, please," Paul said. "Miss Claire Devine."
    But just then the door of the drafting room burst open and Uncle Ned surged in, his lilac moire waistcoat gleaming like neon. "See here, young man," he squeaked, "it is not my custom to be kept waiting like a tradesman in . . ."
    One hundred and ninety-eight eyes looked up from ninety-nine drafting tables. Ninety-nine