That would account for Harry's reluctance to tell the truth. It's no small job having to start your life again at fifty-seven, and when a man's only assets are the brain in his head and the tongue in his mouth, he has to think carefully before he decides to open that mouth and speak. Harry wasn't ashamed of what he had done (he had been caught, that was all, and since when was bad luck considered a crime?), but he certainly had no intention of talking about it. He had worked too hard and too long to fashion the little world he lived in now, and he wasn't about to let anyone know how much he had suffered. Therefore, Tom was kept in the dark about Harry's career in Chicago, which included an ex-wife, a thirty-year-old daughter, and an art-gallery on Michigan Avenue that Harry had run for nineteen years. If Tom had known about the swindle and Harry's arrest, would he still have accepted the job Harry offered him? Possibly. But then again, perhaps not. Harry couldn't be certain, and for that reason he bit his tongue and never said a word.
[The Brooklyn Follies, Auster, P.]
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