Allegiance Read Online Free Page A

And the man who stays here all his life as well. Philadelphia is not the center of the universe, much though it would like to think so. Drafting wills for the dowagers of Gladwyne is irrelevant. At the Court you would be at the heart of things.” The voice folds over one more time, and now it is like a soft hand on your hair at evening. “We have read history together,” he says. The books line the walls, sleeping in leather. “You know Philadelphia was the capital. For politics, and for finance as well. Washington and New York took those away. And now we have taste. It is what they left us.”
    â€œTaste is something,” I say.
    â€œTaste is a wonderful thing. But some would have you believe it is everything. One need not be a snob to be a gentleman, or an idiot to be an aristocrat. Society left governing to the little men, and that was fine as long as government left society alone. But it hasn’t for the past decade, and it won’t again. If we don’t govern, we will be governed. If society isn’t a part of government now, it’s nothing. Oh, there is a war at the Court if you care to look for it. You need have no worries on that score.” Something stirs in the voice, emerging from its covers, and suddenly it is as if the bustling hen Suzanne described has brushed me with a wing and knocked me clear across the room.
    â€œWeeks on the front line, or years on the Paoli Local. Some nameless patch of foreign ground or the endless rosary of Main Line towns. A moment of death, or a lifetime of dying. Your friends may have no other path. But not you, my boy. Fate has stretched out her hand. You have been chosen.”
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    Owen Roberts is not the man he was, my father says, not since he bent the knee to Roosevelt. But he is still one of us, a Philadelphian on the Court. And his farm is still seven hundred acres, pastures, field, and forest below a wooded hill.
    Justice Black is another story. He has always been Roosevelt’s man, eager to tear down any barriers the Constitution sets before his master. In Washingtonnow they are talking of a system that will take money from your paycheck and give it to the government before you ever see it. They are telling farmers how much wheat to grow and fining anyone who surpasses the quota. There is an agency for everything, a rule, a regulation.
    So says my father, but Black does not ask my views on Karl Marx. He studies me with shrewd hazel eyes and suggests that perhaps I’m not the right sort of guy after all. “I generally hire a Southern fellow,” Black says. “And usually from Yale. I like to get the layman’s perspective.” After a moment I recognize this as a joke.
    â€œSome of us from Columbia can give you that too.”
    â€œI’m sure,” Black says. He gives me that appraising glance again. “And you play tennis. Well, let’s walk.”
    We follow a path from the paddock, turning downhill toward the woods. Flowering honeysuckle sweetens the air. “I had my man picked out this year,” Black continues. He is several inches shorter than me and small-boned, with sandy hair receding above a broad forehead, an open, inquisitive face. “But Uncle Sam’s needs have been outranking mine. Gave him two clerks and two sons.” He shrugs. “I don’t complain. Every generation fights a war.”
    He is doing most of the talking, as Judge Skinner predicted. I try to think of a contribution, but what can I say? That working for him fulfills the duty his sons discharge overseas? I am beginning to doubt that myself. “I want ’em back, of course,” Black says. “All four of ’em.” We walk in silence for a moment. He wears a white shirt open at the neck and dark flannel trousers, flicking idly at bushes with a small stick.
    â€œNice land,” he says eventually. “Pennsylvania.”
    â€œYes, it