Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/174



to Oliver. "Oliver," I said, "you have been shielded by your wife. Now Willys is apologizing for you. Really, you know, this won't do. You will have to come into the open and speak for yourself. When I go home, my friends will expect me to give them some intelligent account of what is going on here beneath the surface of things. We sit out there among the cornfields with our radio sets and listen to Washington uttering austere words about enforcing the law, and the next morning we read in the papers that there has been a party under the shadow of the Capitol, and that there is no one to see that the law is enforced, because all the responsible people are busy putting away their private stocks. Slanderous, no doubt. But in the ethical sense, how—actually—do you get away with it? Janus, explain yourself."

"Oh, very well, Calpurnia," said Oliver, "yours to command, remembering only that, as Judge Black informs me, what a man entrusts to the wife of his bosom 'in the sweet confidences of the