Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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“Doubtless he considers me a good deal of a fool,” murmured John Jackson thoughtfully, “because I’ve kept him long after his usefulness was over. It’s a way men have, I suppose, to despise anyone they can impose on.”

Thomas J. MacDowell, a big barn door of a man with huge white hands, came boisterously into the office. If John Jackson had gone in for enemies he must have started with Tom MacDowell. For twenty years they had fought over every question of municipal affairs, and back in 1908 they had once stood facing each other with clenched hands on a public platform, because Jackson had said in print what everyone knew—that MacDowell was the worst political influence that the town had ever known. That was forgotten now; all that was remembered of it went into a peculiar flash of the eye that passed between them when they met.

“Hello, Mr. Jackson,” said MacDowell with full, elaborate cordiality. “We need your help and we need your money.”

“How so?”

“Tomorrow morning, in the ‘Eagle,’ you’ll see the plan for the new Union Station. The only thing that’ll stand in the way is the question of location. We want your land.”