From under my hat (1952)

From under my Hat presence, thinking to stem my wrath. He blurted out that he had loaned five hundred dollars to his friend Tyrone Power, famous stage star and father of the present-day movie star Tyrone Power, and got William Farnum to give him the same amount, because Tyrone was starting a revival of The Servant in the House and had to have it. I gritted out, "Wolfie, your promise." "For heaven's sake, I intend to keep it. This was different. He's my friend; he needed it." "Naturally," I said coldly. "I hope that Bill and I will have friends come along and give us assistance when we need it, because, from the way things look, we're going to need it." "But you don't understand. If I hadn't lent it to him, I would have lost his friendship." "Then you put a price mark of five hundred dollars on friendship?" I said, and dropped the subject. "Do you know what day this is?" "Why, yes— Thursday, isn't it?" "Yes, but what date on the calendar?" "Let's see— June second." "Does that mean anything to you?" I asked icily. "No," said the great man. "No? Well, it does to me. It's my birthday, and you gave away the price of a present. Besides, you broke your promise. So now, if you please, get out your checkbook and make out a check payable to me for five hundred dollars." He was like a small boy let off a licking! You could see every line of his body relax in relief. If he hadn't had the five hundred dollars, he'd have borrowed it from Beth. And with that money I brought mv parents to California. Things were all right between Dad and me by then. Some time before I had written him a frightening letter, pointing out all his shortcomings as a father, including his dash to the Klondike, leaving his wife and family with nothing to support them but a stack of uncollected bills. The letter cleared the air between us. Later he told me he thought it was "kinda cute." In turn, my father had graciously forgotten 68