Viewing page 22 of 266

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

24

than I had at first thought, which is not an unusual thing to happen.  Among other things, it seems to me that in college he'd excelled at swimming, tennis and wrestling although the gender of his opponents at the latter sport wasn't entirely clear.  I'm sorry now that I never investigated Arch's background more thoroughly because he was an interesting character.  Arch's right-hand man was [[underlined]]Spike Mulford[[/underlined]], hardly a name to conjure up images of rich and influential foreign clientele knocking at the door, nor did Spike look particularly distinguished, being short, inclined to fat, with somewhat untidy blond hair and moustache, and not too stylishly attired most of the time.  However, he had great charm in a strictly unaffected way.  He was the antithesis of Arch.  And as might be suspected, Spike had very good connections.  For example, when he'd occasionally come to Erie, he'd often wind up the day by being entertained at the Emmets' home, where he apparently was a close friend of the family.  Herman Emmet was our plant manager, his wife was a millionairess, and they were at the peak of Erie society.  I worked with Spike on and off for a number of years and always found him cooperative and helpful.  He wasn't brilliant but he was reliable and you could have confidence in him.  In Arch's case, I never felt that way.  They'd imported [[underlined]]Bill Ingalls[[/underlined]] from Bogota to help in the war crisis.  Bill was president of IGE's Columbian subsidiary later; perhaps he was then.  Bill was another natural guy and he knew the Latin American business scene like the back of his hand.  He was good to work with.  Another of the experienced men in the office was [[underlined]]Jess Jesperson[[/underlined]], younger, aggresive, not always so easy to work with.  And as I've said, there were the IGE girls.  One of them deserted to join the WAVES and when she came back shortly afterward all spiffed up in her uniform, she was simply stunning.  Arch took her in his arms and kissed her fondly (the old goat!) and all the rest of us present wished we could do the same thing--and maybe we could have; who knows?  One thing about the IGE office: it had an exotic atmosphere which was rather pleasant and I usually enjoyed going up there for a change if nothing else.  You could be reasonably sure of finding IGE visitors from overseas in the office as well as overseas customers' representatives quite often which lent it an appealing touch, particularly when there always was a chance you might get in on some of the action. ^[[ ] ]]

Having nothing better to do evenings most of the time, Frank and I sampled a great many of the capital's long array of fine eating and drinking spots, occasionally entertaining WPB people or customers or Washington Office personnel but mostly just on our own.  I'm not going to spend a lot of time on all these spots but a few words on them should be interesting.  Moreover, they appear in many cases in my diaries where there are detailed accounts of memorable occasions at many of them and this will merely serve as an introduction to some o them besides refreshing my memory of them when that becomes necessary.