Few people can hope to go through life without getting too deeply into debt; when our time conies, we too may be fortunate enough to confront a collection lawyer like Mr. Ginzberg—for, as some of us can already testify from personal experience, there are apparently enough Mr. Ginzbergs around to make him a recognizable type. The author of this sketch has concealed her identity under a pseudonym: one cannot be too careful with one’s credit rating.

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Let us call the client, harassed by certain department and fish store bills, X., for of course it is myself. Who else? The scene is an old-fashioned office building in Pemberton Square, Boston.

The building has a marble entrance hall with two gilt elevators you have to ring and ring for, since they huddle down at the bottom of the shaft, in the warmth, while their aging operators doze. As I waited, I remembered I had been here twenty years before, calling on a kind, white-mustached, portly cousin, a court stenographer, whose office was stacked with neat notebooks of immaculate Pitman shorthand: I believe he used a mechanical pencil known as a stylo. The woman waiting with me for the elevator might have been his very amanuensis—a maiden stenographer in her fifties, in a serge dress with a lace collar, with rats under, and a net over, her grizzled hair.

At last the elevator came, and I got off at the fourth floor and entered the offices of George Ginzberg, not knowing at all what to expect, feeling more than ever harassed, and indigent. Also I had a head cold and had not brought enough handkerchiefs. I recalled to myself that I was here because another lawyer I had consulted had said that was the best thing to do, barring paying the bills, of course. “I didn’t know George Ginzberg handled these accounts,” he said, in surprise. “He’s a very fine man. I’d go to see him if I were you.”

I entered what could have been my kind elderly cousin’s offices, twenty years ago—a Boston office of the old school. There was a linoleum-floored reception hall, unoccupied, with an office at either side. The secretary wasn’t there right then—at ten o’clock she had stepped out for a moment, perhaps was out for coffee. One office also was empty, so I entered the other, and met George Ginzberg.

He was a small, rather shabby, rather dusty-looking, gray-haired man, in a tired tweed jacket, and half-moon glasses. His desk was littered and dusty, and beside it, on a dusty table, was an outmoded radio, and a tall, ancient telephone. The room was lined with filing cabinets, with papers and folders of all kinds piled on top of them in dusty disorder. In back of Mr. Ginzberg, through the large, dingy window, filtered the perfect view for the occasion—an overcast day, the back of the courthouse, and pigeons.

“Yes?” said Mr. Ginzberg, and when I told him my name, he nodded, sighed, pulled out two folders that referred to my particular troubles, and put his chin on his hands, and his elbows on the desk before him.

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I began, in a rapid mutter, to explain the situation. My husband was an associate professor, at one of the Harvard graduate schools. Several years before, our outstanding bills could have been met out of current income, but my husband had voluntarily cut that income by nearly two-thirds, in order to do some very special and important work. Even so, we had thought we could pay our bills, and had, indeed, made a few, erratic payments here and there. Mr. Ginzberg opened the files and looked at the record, sighing again. I explained, our income soon was due to increase materially, if we could just prevent legal actions taking place for a month or two—

“When we have money, we pay our bills,” I said.

Mr. Ginzberg said, “You don’t have to tell me all this. What do you want?”

Delay, I said. This document—I took it out and handed it over. “Isn’t there anything I can do? If I had the money I’d pay the bill, naturally—but I can’t. But isn’t there anything I can do?”

Mr. Ginzberg made an involuntary movement. “Don’t ask me! ” he said. “Please!”

“That’s right,” I said, confused by the aura of peaceful legal apathy. “I forgot. You’re the lawyer for the other side, aren’t you?”

“What is your husband’s name?” Mr. Ginzberg asked, and I told him, and mentioned a few of his connections and prospects, to give us substance in Mr. Ginzberg’s eyes. He smoothed the legal document he had caused to be sent to me.

“Why didn’t you come to see me before?” he asked, and I was ashamed, thinking of the series of postcards and letters I had ignored, feeling if it came from a lawyer it was bad news, and it could wait. Mr. Ginzberg looked at me over his low glasses. “We never press our people, if they’re in professions,” he said. “We understand. We know they need time, time—we try to protect them—”

I said eagerly, of course we planned to pay, and in a month or two—

Mr. Ginzberg turned, so that I saw his small, elderly profile against the rain-stained glass of the window. He put his fingers together, tip to tip, and swayed back in his swivel chair. He looked out at the pigeons.

“I don’t know. Maybe I should have been more of a financial success myself,” he said, in a low voice.

The phone rang. The secretary was still out, so Mr. Ginzberg answered it himself, tilting the tall phone forward, and telling some woman in Revere not to worry. “Didn’t I tell you everything would be all right?” he asked, and hung up.

I had meanwhile decided to go on talking and to be perfectly frank, because obviously Mr. Ginzberg was still troubled about one of his own, and the legal document still lay before him. I saw him going home at night, with a green baize bag, and a small felt hat, furled evenly all around the brim, taking others’ troubles with him. I gave him a shabby, biggish house in Chestnut Hill or Brookline—mansard roof, brown or gray paint, thick vines darkening the porch.

He turned back to me. “Professional people,” he said.

I didn’t like his disappointment that we didn’t do better with ourselves and our opportunities, explained that my husband was improving his status, and, besides, I added, “Sometimes I make money, too, and when I do, I pay bills. Last fall—”

Mr. Cinzberg held up his hand. “You needn’t tell me all this,” he said.

“But I want to,” I said. “We work hard, we’re reputable people—”

“What do you do?” Mr. Ginzberg asked.

“Write,” I said. “Sometimes I sell stories.”

Mr. Ginzberg leaned forward, pressing his hands down on the desk. “Do you write good stories?”

“I guess so, sometimes,” I said. “Anyway, sometimes I sell them, and when I do—”

The secretary had come in, by no means my cousin’s transcriber of faultless Pitman. She was a big, handsome blonde Jewish girl. I felt at once she despised, and protected, her elderly employer. He, in his turn, thought nothing much of her. She might be a cousin, getting experience to cite later.

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Mr. Ginzberg had turned away from me again, was looking out at the pigeons.

In a very low voice he said, “Maybe I should have gone in for something like that. I’ve always had an interest—I didn’t know—”

He turned back, and bent over to take something from the deep bottom drawer of his ancient desk, the drawer in which one keeps the towel, the sandwich, the personal belongings. He sat up, holding in each hand a worn volume of Best American Short Stories.

“You know these?” he asked me, carefully.

“Yes,” I said, still worried. “I’ve had a couple of stories in them.”

There was a brief silence. Mr. Ginzberg nodded, and put the books out of sight. He turned back to me.

“Do you know,” he said, “I have a very considerable library? Fifteen hundred volumes! Very valuable.”

I said, “You must read a great deal.”

“I do,” he said. “I’ve always had an interest. Ethel!”

The secretary didn’t answer.

“We have an answer form here, don’t we?” Mr. Ginzberg said.

“No,” said Ethel.

“Is that what I’m supposed to get from the clerk of the court, and file?” I said. “I think someone said—”

“Ethel, find me an answer form. You know where they are,” Mr. Ginzberg said.

“You have children?” he asked, while she opened and closed drawers of files. I said yes, and he nodded, in a somber way.

“You are fortunate,” he said.

“I think so,” I said.

“Find that form, Ethel,” he said.

“She should get it from the court,” Ethel protested. I could tell this was all out of order, and belatedly I remembered I had not come here for legal counsel and comfort, but to face the lawyer for the enemy, the opponent, the—I remembered the word now—creditor. “They’ll type it out for her.”

“Sit down and type,” said Mr. Ginzberg, and rapidly dictated the deathless words the defendant answers in municipal court: “Now comes the defendant in the above entitled action and for answer denies each and every allegation, item and particular . . . .”

I stirred uneasily. “That’s not true,” I said. “I never said I didn’t owe the money. I do.”

Mr. Ginzberg held up his small, well-kept, elderly hand. He went on dictating rapidly, and Ethel typed. “And further answering, the defendant says that if she ever owed the plaintiff anything, the same has been paid in full . . . .”

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I must have looked scandalized as Ethel came over with the narrow slip of cardboard. Mr. Ginzberg looked at me, with pity and understanding, and a faint gleam of a smile, the first I had seen on his face during all the interview.

“Mail it Saturday,” he said, and rapidly explained that it would delay action. “And, as I see it, what you need is time, time,” he said, touching the folders.

I hesitated, taking the slip from Ethel. “It makes me uneasy,” I said. “It isn’t true.”

Mr. Ginzberg very nearly pleaded with me, and Ethel could have slapped him and me. “Please!” he said. “It’s not a lie. You’re not swearing to anything. Please! This is the legal form you should mail in, I assure you—I know. If I give it to you—and Ethel—” he turned to her sharply, “You understand I want no talk about this?” She nodded. “If I give it to you here, it saves you half a day, going to court, all the rest,” he said. “Please.”

As a final convincer, he said, “Ethel, tell her. We don’t usually do this, do we?”

“We never do it,” said Ethel, and stalked out. She came back in with the mail as Mr. Ginzberg and I went on talking, in the curious, relaxed atmosphere of this kind of backhanded legality.

“We won’t press you. Ethel, we’re doing this—you understand, no talking—because this lady’s husband is a professional person, in education—”

“We’ll catch up soon,” I promised, uneasily.

He asked my husband’s age, and I told him.

“What is he thinking of?” he asked, mystified. “He has children!”

Then he remembered we were not really as badly off as it might seem by temporary circumstances.

“But he’s at Harvard!” he said.

I laughed out loud, and Ethel turned, surprised. More soberly, I said, “Mr. Ginzberg, I don’t really believe you understand about Harvard. Do you know, I know people there, associate professors, well known, who get fifty dollars a year salary?”

“What did you say?” Mr. Ginzberg said, leaning forward again. Ethel was struck to stone at her files, a girl who would not long be a secretary here. Either an office with a Picasso on the wall, or a large engagement diamond on her finger.

“Fifty dollars,” I said, rather pleased with the effect of my disclosure. For curiously, though shocked, not only Mr. Ginzberg but even Ethel seemed to regard with respect one of their people who could work for such an honorable institution, where people were paid so little.

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Mr. Ginzberg laid aside our files, touching them almost tenderly. On the backs were notations of payments already made: ten dollars; seven-fifty.

I was almost reluctant to leave these pleasant legal chambers, where I had received shelter and guidance, and where I had learned a great truth: that one legal document can be turned aside with another.

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Ginzberg.

A big, shabby house, I thought. No children. But fifteen hundred volumes in the library. Perhaps he walked around the Reservoir, in the evenings, and heard the dry leaves rustle.

I sneezed, and searched for my handkerchief, preparing to go. Mr. Ginzberg bent, and took from the drawer of his desk a box of Kleenex. He proffered it to me, and I took one.

“I see you have a cold,” he said, courteously. I had been sniffling all through the interview. He shook his head, and continued to hold out the box of Kleenex, until I took another tissue, murmuring I thought I had some of my own about me somewhere, thank you.

“Take some more with you,” he said, and I could see he thought I was ill provided for indeed—not even enough Kleenex. Professional people. Harvard University.

We parted, and as I left, Ethel smiled brightly, but Mr. Ginzberg seemed tired. He hardly looked up from his desk. Maybe he was thinking he should have been writing stories, all these years

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