The Child Buyer Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mr. Jones, you think very highly of Miss Perrin, the Rudd boy's teacher, don't you?
    Mr. JONES. She's a perfectly adequate old-fashioned teacher; she has the knack to a fair degree. I'd say that.
    Mr. BROADBENT. You're sure you wouldn't go farther?
    Mr. JONES. Not much. Miss Perrin teaches not by the book but by an instinctive anecdotal method. She's warm and loving, and mostly she's loved by the children, though dark and dangerous images keep creeping into her stories in class. She tends to buck at newfangled pedagoguery, but she's always mild and never sure. She seems to have a lot of the vagueness, the uncertainty as to exactly what's going on around her, of Nikolai Dmitrievitch Levin in Anna Karenina. Do you have time to read, Mr. Counsel?
    Mr. BROADBENT. In college—
    Mr. JONES. She's not hideously ugly, but she's not very good-looking, either. During my visits I noted a number of mistakes, slips, some absent-mindedness. I must say she treats her pupils as adults, though she speaks in a sing-song syllabic voice, as if she's reading out of a primer.
    Mr. BROADBENT. You speak of her pretty coolly, sir, but I put it to you, sir, did you not buy her an expensive gift last week?
    Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, is this sort of question—
    Senator MANSFIELD. It may be. It may not be. What are you developing, Mr. Broadbent?
    Mr. BROADBENT. I am going to step over there by you, Mr. Jones, and I am going to ask you to identify this booklet. I lay before you now this notebook, or booklet, and ask you to identify it. What is it?
    Mr. JONES. Where did you get that?
    Mr. BROADBENT. It is a small notebook, of thin blue paper, navy-blue leatherette cover with gold impressed markings. Please simply identify it.
    THE CHILD BUYER
    Mr. JONES. You know perfectly well what that is: It's my expense-account book. It says Expense Account right there on the front, with my initials. When did you steal that off me?
    Mr. BROADBENT. I would point out, Mr. Jones, that there is an item entered here—'Gift, Miss Perrin, $125.' That's a substantial gift, sir.
    Senator MANSFIELD. What are you trying to suggest, Mr. Counsel? Miss Perrin's getting on. Mr. Wairy pointed that out. She's a gray-haired lady.
    Mr. BROADBENT. I'm suggesting that that's a rather large gift, Mr. Jones.
    Mr. JONES. I needed her on my side.
    Mr. BROADBENT. I see here that on last Friday's date you entered in your expense account an item of six dollars for an office visit to a doctor.
    Mr. JONES. I had a headache after my conversation with the Guidance Director. I think you would have, too.
    Mr. BROADBENT. What doctor did you visit?
    Mr. JONES. I didn't actually see a doctor.
    Mr. BROADBENT. But you entered an item in your expense account.
    Mr. JONES. As a lawyer, sir, and a rather young one, if I may be forgiven for saying so, you might not realize that with tax laws the way they are, the corporation executive—
    Mr. BROADBENT. I get it. Did your headache clear up all right?
    Mr. JONES. Thank you, it did. Immediately after making the entry in my expense-account book.
    Mr. BROADBENT. Fiscal therapy?
    Mr. JONES. Never knew it to do any harm.
    Mr. BROADBENT. I jfee here another item. 'Entertaining parents —$78.93.' Can you spend that much out on the town in Pequot, sir?
    Mr. JONES. Again, it was a matter of wanting—
    Friday, October 25
    Mr. BROADBENT. Of bribery, sir?
    Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, I submit to you that this young gentleman—
    Senator SKYPACK. Is no gentleman? No, sir, nor is this a tea-and-ladyfingers party, sir. Just what was to be the purpose of your buying this boy, Mr. Jones? I think it's time you came clean.
    Mr. BROADBENT. Excuse me, Senator Skypack, before you get into that. I respectfully suggest to the Chairman that this document, or book, which I have laid before Mr. Jones, which he has identified, be admitted into the record.
    Senator MANSFIELD. It will be entered into the record.
    (The document referred to was marked 'Jones Exhibit No. i* and filed.)
    Senator