The Caine Mutiny Read Online Free PDF Page A

chum.”
    “No harm intended.”
    “How old are you?” May said.
    “Twenty-two. Why?”
    “You seem a lot younger.”
    “My baby face. I probably won’t be allowed into a voting booth till I’m seventy.”
    “No, it’s-it’s you. I think I like it.”
    “How old are you?”
    “I can’t vote.”
    “Are you engaged, May, or do you have a sweetheart, or anything?”
    “Ye gods!” exclaimed May, coughing.
    “Well?”
    “Let’s talk about books. You’re a Princeton man.”
    They did talk about books, between mouthfuls of wine and pizza. Willie started on current best sellers, with which May had a passable acquaintance, and worked back toward his eighteenth- and nineteenth-century favorites, whereupon the girl’s answers grew lamer.
    “Dickens,” said Willie fervidly, riding high on a crest of comparative literature, “if I had any strength of character I’d spend my life doing research and commentary on Dickens. He and Shakespeare will be left when English is dead as Latin. Do you know his works?”
    “All I’ve read is the Christmas Carol .”
    “Oh.”
    “Look, chum, I never got beyond high school. Things were tough at the fruit store when I graduated. There was a little matter of keeping myself in dresses and stockings-and the family in food, every now and then. I’ve worked in dime stores and orange-drink stands. I tackled Dickens a couple of times. He’s hard going after a day on your feet.”
    “You’ll love Dickens someday.”
    “I hope so. I think appreciating Dickens goes with ten thousand in the bank.”
    “I haven’t a dime in the bank.”
    “Your mama has. Same thing.”
    Willie leaned back luxuriously and lit a cigarette. He was at a seminar now. “It’s perfectly true that a love of fine art is a function of leisure, but that in no way vitiates the validity of the art. The ancient Greeks-”
    “Shall we go? I want to work over my numbers tonight, as long as I’ve got a job.”
    It was raining hard outside. Fluorescent signs, blue, green, red, cast blurry pools of color on the wet black street. May extended her gloved hand. “Good-by. Thanks for the pizza.”
    “Good-by? I’ll take you home in a cab.”
    “My boy, a cab to Honeywell Avenue in the Bronx would cost you five dollars.”
    “I have five dollars.”
    “No, thanks. Subway for the likes of me.”
    “Well, let’s take a cab to the station.”
    “Cabs, cabs! Why did God give you feet? Walk me to Fiftieth.”
    Willie recalled some rhapsodies by George Meredith on walks in the rain, and fell in beside the singer. She took his arm. They strolled in silence, droplets hitting their faces and rolling off their clothes. The hand resting on his arm sent a soft glow through the rest of him. “There’s really something rather delicious about walking in the rain,” he remarked.
    May glanced at him sidelong. “You wouldn’t think so if you had to do it, Princeton.”
    “Oh, look,” said Willie, “stop playing the poor little match girl. Is this your first singing job?”
    “First in New York. I’ve only been singing for four months. Worked a lot of dives in New Jersey.”
    “How does Mozart go in a Jersey dive?”
    May shuddered. “Never tried it. Out there they think Stardust is a heavy classic, like a Bach mass.”
    “Who wrote those English words of yours? You?”
    “My agent, Marty Rubin.”
    “They’re terrible.”
    “Write me better ones.”
    “I will,” shouted Willie, as they crossed Broadway through a stalled jam of honking taxis and busses. “Tonight.”
    “I was kidding. I can’t pay you.”
    “You already have. I’ve never in my life enjoyed Mozart as I did this afternoon.”
    May slipped her hand away from his arm. “You don’t have to say such things. I really dislike smooth talk. I’ve been fed it by the yard.”
    “Every now and then,” Willie answered, “say, once in the course of a week, I’m honest.”
    May looked at his face. “I’m sorry.”
    They stopped at the kiosk.