Reef and the dangers of extravagance (329 words)

[Raphael Saltwood]

The extravagance he’s alluding to would be Archie giving him a bigger share.



Reef receives Archie Dipple’s scheme with his usual savoir-faire. Archie wants Reef to
steer potential customers to him for an easy-money scam that involves selling camels to punters.

Archie will be getting the lion’s share because he is taking the largest risk.

Reef doesn’t bother haggling (knowing that when you enlist in a criminal scheme, your
cohorts aren’t that concerned with fair play) -

so he’s signaling that he’s ok with
a smaller share because

A) for Archie to be extravagant paying him would be perilous for Archie because it would cut into his capital for running the scam

B) and it could be perilous for Reef because it would incentivize eliminating the middleman

And C) there’s a passage right near this where the narrator reminds us how goshawfully hard the potential marks worked for their money and how likely they were to respond murderously to such a sting.

Though he’s willing to take a small role, Reef doesn’t want to be an integral part -


Plausible deniability! “I thought he was on the level, I lost my money too.”

Reef’s “quizzical look” is trying to convey his awareness of unspecified perils of extravagance without giving offense, but these possibilities seem like they would be in
his mind.

Same distancing practiced by Stray, in what the narrator is describing as frequent similar encounters with her “practitioners of obliquity” friends, “...gazing in through the etched-glass paneling of an office door, as if only in girlish curiosity...”


There’s another passage right near here where Reef justifies his occasional acceptance of these ill ventures to Stray (which is interesting because it’s *her* friends that offer them, indicating that he’s bought into her distancing of herself) -

“Give us enough for a couple hours in the dining car, don’t we owe ourselves that much at least?” (Because they are about to move on out of town anyway at that point)







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