All Saint's Day

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Jake was a man of habits so fixed and precise that if you wanted a casual chat with him it was quite unnecessary to make an appointment. Provided you knew his routine. Then it was easy enough to station yourself at the right time at the place where he normally appeared at that hour. He would be there — perfectly punctual, unhurried, and serene. According to people who had known him much longer than I, it had always been so.

Of course, even in adult life, Jake’s occupations underwent occasional basic changes, with consequent modifications in his daily activities and their geographical locus. Thus, after Jake withdrew from the investment bank founded by his maternal great uncles, where he became a partner shortly after graduating from college, he no longer needed to go down to Wall Street. The center of his daytime activities shifted to a small personal office in the Lever Bros. building, consisting of his own large room, a reception area where his secretary, who had followed him from the bank, had her desk, and another room, a cross between a library and a dining room, where he held occasional meetings. Being in midtown now made it inconvenient for Jake to use the Downtown Association or the services of the old Italian barber on Broad Street. He therefore took to lunching at a French restaurant in the low Fifties, except on Mondays, when it was closed, and, after a wretched period of trial and error, settled on the barbershop in the Waldorf Astoria. He deplored its transformation some years later into a hairdresser’s salon. The manager was more than willing to continue to look after Jake, but Jake discovered that there was no one left in the establishment who cut hair like a barber. Once again, Jake was at loose ends.

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