II

Unknown man found in the river—nothing to identify him but a scrap of paper in his pocket, on which was written “Graves drove me to this.”

[Pg 82]

These fictitious papers varied. Sometimes they said:

And after Graves had turned me down,What could I do but go and drown?Graves told me all I didn’t oughter,Despair then drove me to the water.

We kept up a fiction that twelve desperate men were banded together to take vengeance on him, and that their motto was “Give Graves the final discharge.” I dare say we were pretty tiresome about it, and sometimes I am afraid we hurt the poor devil more than we intended.

Of course “firing” was not all that Graves had to do. There was also the hiring, but he wasn’t nearly so enthusiastic about that—or at least he was warier, for his mistakes in character analysis could be too readily checked up. He pretended that he took every one on trial, and withheld even mental opinions until he had observed the applicant.

That, however, wasn’t true. Many and many a time he was tremendously hopeful about some fellow who turned out to be quite worthless. I say “fellow,” because he was notably reticent about the girls, and never hopeful.

He objected to girls in an office. He said that the principle of the thing was wrong, and so on; but the real reason was that he was afraid of them. They knew this very well. Once he had had a booklet of “Suggestions” printed and circulated among them. He wrote it in a chatty and reasonable style, as for instance:

It isn’t a question of morals, but one of tone. We can’t have quite the tone I’m sure we should all like to have in this office while some of our young ladies wear peekaboo waists and openwork stockings, and put paint and powder on their faces. In a ballroom these things are all well enough, but—

The next morning he received a visit from the severe and efficient Miss Kelly.

“Mr. Graves,” said she, “about your ‘Suggestions’—I have been in this office six years, and have never seen a peekaboo waist. I have not observed that openwork hosiery has been worn. My department has asked me to mention this to you, as we feel it an unmerited slight. Incidentally, Mr. Graves,” she added, “girls don’t as a rule wear waists in a ballroom.Evenstenographers havesomeknowledge of etiquette!”

The conscientious Graves bought a household periodical, and found no mention of peekaboo blouses and openwork stockings. Unfortunately he was discovered reading this magazine, and he had to explain. He became a little annoyed at hearing so much laughter.

“Oh, shut up!” he exclaimed. “I know I’ve heard of those things. Read articles about ’em in the newspapers.”

“But when?” somebody wished to know. “When did you last cast a glance at a girl, oh, innocent and artless Graves?”

“Well,” he said, scowling, “the difference is so small that no one but an idiot would laugh. I might have said ‘sheer hosiery’ and ‘chiffon blouses.’”

Graves talking about chiffon blouses was too much. He regretted those “Suggestions,” and made no more. We subscribed to a fashion magazine for him, and by a most pleasing error it came addressed to “Miss F. Graves.” This was even better than we had planned.

One day Graves came to me with a beaming face.

“You know I don’t often express an opinion on an untried worker,” he said; “but this time I’ve made a find. I’ve got just the sort of girl I want in the office. She’s a college graduate; comes of an old Southern family—”

“And her father died, and she was obliged to go out into the world and earn a living,” I said.

He was amazed.

“How did you find out about that?” he demanded.

“She hasn’t had any experience,” I continued; “but ah, what class!”

“Now see here,” said Graves. “You’ve been talking to Miss Clare!”

“I know Miss Clare like my own sister,” I told him. “I’ve met her a thousand times. I’ve read her in books and seen her in movies—”

“Oh, that!” said Graves. “Well, you’re entirely wrong, you chump. She’s absolutely original.”

“I knew that,” said I. “She makes the most wonderful clothes for herself out of old quilts, and she can get up the most delicious little suppers for two for thirty cents—”

He laughed, with that disarming good humor of his.

“Well, I haven’t got as far as that yet,” he said. “I don’t know what she eats or[Pg 83]makes her clothes out of, but I can tell you this—she’s the neatest, most sensible-looking girl in the place!”

When I saw Miss Clare, I had to admit that in some ways she deviated from the usual type. She was what you might call a tall, willowy blonde. She had fine eyes, and knew it; but she was not kittenish, or pathetic, or appealing. She was doggedly in earnest. I liked her for that.

When I knew her better, I liked her for many other things, too. She was as honest and candid as daylight, and she left her fine old Southern family and her college and all her past glories where they belonged. She was there to work.

I was really sorry when the efficient Miss Kelly spoke about her.

“She’sstupid!” she told me, with fierce exasperation. “I’ve told Mr. Graves several times that she doesn’t measure up to our standard of efficiency. I don’t see why he keeps her on!”

“Beauty in daily life,” said I. “It’s what Morris recommended. She’s an ornament to the office, Miss Kelly. She has artistic value.”

“Superfluous ornaments have no value anywhere,” said Miss Kelly. “I worked once for an interior decorator, and I learned that. A thing must not only be beautiful in itself, but in harmony with its surroundings, and serving some definite purpose. She isn’t and doesn’t, and she ought to be scrapped!”

Now not only was Miss Kelly a notably good-looking young woman, and intelligent and alert and sensible, but she was infallible. Graves knew it. He had had other disagreements with her, and had always been worsted. Still, for a time, he defied her in regard to Miss Clare.

“D’you know,” he said to me, “I hate like poison to discharge that poor girl! You see, this is her first job, and it’ll be hard for her to get another, with only a four weeks’ record here.”

“Oh, no, Graves,” said I. “Not at all! After you’ve talked to her and pointed out her faults, she—well, she’ll get rid of her faults, don’t you see? And after that—”

Then Graves declared, with a sort of magnificence:

“She hasn’t anyfaults, exactly. It’s lack of training that’s the trouble. If she could stay on here a little longer, she’d do as well as the others—and better. She has brains!”

“Why can’t she stay?” I asked.

“Her output’s below the average,” he said dismally. “Miss Kelly keeps charts and so on.” He scowled. “Miss Kelly’s worth her weight in gold, and all that,” he said, “but she’s pig-headed. I’ve tried to explain to her that it’s actually more efficient to keep and train an employee, even if you have to shift him to another department, than to break in a new one. I’ve shown her in black and white what the actual cost of this eternal hiring and firing is; but no! She jumps down my throat with a lot of her own figures about what this Miss Clare costs the department every day. Hair-splitting, that’s all it is!”

Graves should have been warned, each time he opened his mouth, that what he said would be used against him. Of course this was. Each time he dealt the death blow, we reminded him of the cost of this eternal hiring and firing, and how much more efficient it was, and so on.

Miss Clare was shifted out of Miss Kelly’s department into another, which had a human man, young Allen, at its head; but he, too, rebelled.

“She won’t do,” he said to Graves. “She tries, but she’s—well, I don’t know just what the trouble is. She’s simply not on the job.”

“I’ll have a talk with her,” said Graves. “I’ll see if I can find out what’s wrong.”

I saw Miss Clare going into Graves’s office, and I felt sorry for him. I shouldn’t have enjoyed pointing out her faults to her. She was very young and quite without affectation, but she had a natural and altogether charming dignity about her. You couldn’t think of her as an office worker; you were obliged to remember all the time that she was a woman.

She came out after half an hour, looking downcast and grave. She smiled at me, as she passed, with the air of a lady who never neglects her social obligations, but I fancied her lips quivered a trifle.

“Poor girl!” I thought. “She’s out of place here. She hasn’t the stuff in her for a competitive worker. She’ll never get on!”

I was so sympathetic to Graves that he told me the story of the interview.

“The poor girl’s worried sick,” he said. “It seems she’s trying to support her mother, and she’s so desperately afraid she won’t make good that she can’t do her[Pg 84]work. She does try, you know, and she’s fairly accurate, but she’s slow, and she knows it. She said she’d never tried to hurry before, and when she does, she gets nervous.” He paused, and frowned a little. “Well,” he said, “it’s irregular, but I think it’ll work. I’m going to let her come half an hour earlier than the other girls and stay an hour later, so that she can finish her share of the work.”

“That’s hard on her, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Not so hard as getting fired,” he answered. “She’s got a queer point of view about that. She says that if she were discharged, she’d be so discouraged that she’d—I think she said she’d go to pieces.”

“Lacks stamina,” I observed.

“Well,” said Graves, “there’s more than one sort of stamina. It takes some grit for a girl brought up as she’s been to tackle the job of supporting herself and her mother, I can tell you!”

I agreed with him, and said so, and he was delighted; but he paid heavily for his kind-heartedness. Miss Kelly let the thing go on for one week. Then, on Saturday morning, she appeared before him.

“Mr. Graves,” she said, “after due consideration, I have decided that the only course for me is to leave this office. I shall remain, of course, until you have filled my position to your satisfaction.”

She knew perfectly well how invaluable, how irreplaceable she was.

“Now, see here, Miss Kelly,” said Graves, as man to man. “This wants talking about. Sit down and let’s discuss it frankly.”

She did sit down, and I thought she looked alarmingly frank.

“Certainly, Mr. Graves,” she said very pleasantly.

“Now, then, what’s the trouble? Not enough salary?”

“My salary is quite as much as the overhead permits,” said she. “In proportion to the calculated profits, it is perfectly fair and adequate. No, Mr. Graves—it’s a question of prestige and morale.”

Graves looked serious.

“My girls are constantly coming to me now with requests to be allowed to finish their work at irregular and unauthorized hours, instead of keeping up to the standard output required by my department. They assert that a girl in Mr. Allen’s department was allowed to do this, and they had never understood that employment in his department carried any special privileges. I went to Mr. Allen about this. I pointed out to him that it affected the morale of my girls to see one of his people favored, but he told me he could do nothing. He said it was not his idea, and—”

“All right!” said Graves, suddenly getting up, with a flushed face and a constrained smile. “I—very likely you’re right, Miss Kelly. I’ll—I’ll make some adjustment that’ll suit you.”

“Please don’t consider suitingme,” said Miss Kelly. “It’s the morale of the office, Mr. Graves.”

And she went away like Pallas Athene from a battleground.

I honestly pitied Graves, he was so wretched.

“Well, you know,” he said, “she’s right. It does upset the routine, and so on; but, hang it all, that girl simply couldn’t stand being discharged! She has pluck enough, and all that, but she’s sensitive. She’s too darned sensitive entirely. I wish to Heaven she’d picked out some other office to start in! She’s got some fool idea in her head that it’s the first job that makes or breaks you. It’s no use pointing out her faults to her; she knows ’em. She’s trying to overcome them; but she’s just naturally slow.”

He tried her at filing. Not for long, though; the tumult was too great. He tried her at bookkeeping; but she herself admitted that figures were not her forte.

“There must besomethingthat girl can do, or can be taught to do!” he cried in despair. “Everybody has some aptitude, and she’s not stupid. She can talk well about books and so on.”

“Do you talk to her, Graves?” I asked. “Much?”

“Oh, yes,” he answered innocently. “I talk to her a lot. I try to find out what she’s adapted for; but I can’t, for the life of me. And yet I can’t fire her. I simply can’t do it. She says no one else would give her the same chance I do; and that’s no lie. She wouldn’t last a week in any other office!”

“Unless—” said I, and hesitated.

“Unless what?” asked Graves.

“Unless there were another personnel manager as—as conscientious as you.”

“Well,” said Graves, “it’s this way—there’s a big responsibility attached to my job. I shouldn’t like to think I’d destroyed the self-confidence of a girl like Miss Clare.[Pg 85]”

“Anything would be better than that,” I said.

Graves looked at me with dawning suspicion.

“Well, you’re all wrong,” he said severely, “if you think there’s any—any personal element in this. It’s simply that I’ve got a heavy responsibility—”

“You bet you have!” said I, and left him with that.

The thing began to assume a dramatic aspect. Graves was a haunted man. He was obliged, or he felt himself obliged, to find a place for Miss Clare in our organization, and the task was a hideous one.

He changed. His brisk self-assurance gave place to a harassed air, and he acquired a new and rather touching way of appealing to the rest of us. In fact, we were all deeply concerned about Miss Clare. We would go joyously to Graves, to tell him we thought something had turned up that would suit her. We always phrased it that way; but it never did suit her.

In the final analysis this was Graves’s fault, because it was he who had made the office so brutally efficient. To be more frank than modest, it was not so much that Miss Clare was very bad as that the rest of us were so good. She failed to come up to our standard. Graves was theFrankensteinwho had created this monster, and now he had to suffer for it.

One morning he arrived with a grim and desperate expression.

“An execution?” I asked.

I had become very friendly with Graves during this little complication. He seemed to me less amusing than before, and much more human and engaging.

“Yes,” said he. “She’s got to go. I’ve been thinking it over pretty seriously. I’m afraid I’ve wasted the firm’s time and money in this instance; but you don’t know how hard—”

“Graves,” I said, “you’re inconsistent. You’ll destroy any number of harmless lives, and boast of it, and then you’ll apologize for having been kindly and generous and altogether admirable.”

He turned red.

“Oh, get out!” he said, like a small boy, but the sympathy pleased him. “Well, you see, it’s—well, she tries hard.”

No one denied that. Indeed, the unfortunate Miss Clare looked exhausted and wan from her terrific efforts. She came early in the morning, before there was any work given out, and she was always contriving plans for working through her lunch hour. She was always thwarted in this, however. We were too efficient to allow people not to eat; neither was she allowed to stay after five o’clock.

This day, as on so many others, she was still typing frantically at half past twelve, hoping to escape detection; but Miss Kelly espied her.

“You ought to be out for lunch, Miss Clare,” she said, in a human, decent, kindly way. “Run along now. You’ll do all the better when you come back.”

This was painful to me, because I knew that the poor girl was going to be fired when she came back; but she didn’t suspect. She raised her weary, anxious eyes to Miss Kelly’s face.

“Please let me stay!” she entreated. “I’ve fallen behind, and this hour will help me to catch up.”

“No, Miss Clare, it won’t. You’ll be ill, and—” Miss Kelly began.

She was interrupted by the suave and mellow voice of Mr. Reddiman, our great president.

“What’s this?” said he. “What’s this? One of our young women making herself ill, eh? Working too hard?”

Every newcomer in our office marveled at Mr. Reddiman, and resented him, and was convinced that he had no ability, no force, no possible qualifications for being president of the company; but that never lasted. Mr. Reddiman grew on you little by little until, after a few months, you were willing to admit that you could scarcely have done better yourself.

He had a mild, slow way. He put me in mind of an old gardener pottering about in a greenhouse, when, with his hands clasped behind him, he walked through the various rooms, stopping here and there. He was a notably successful gardener, however. He made the business grow; and—he got things done.

“I’m not working too hard!” said Miss Clare, perilously close to tears. “I don’twantany lunch. I want to finish these letters.”

“No, no, no, no!” said he pleasantly. “That won’t do. We can’t have that!”

The poor creature was blandly hustled out of the office, well knowing that Miss[Pg 86]Kelly would be questioned about her, and that Miss Kelly would answer with complete frankness.

But neither Miss Clare nor any other person could have imagined what actually took place. Personally, while giving due credit to Mr. Reddiman’s kind heart, acumen, and wisdom, I am inclined to give still more credit to Miss Clare’s eyes; for I assure you that those eyes, when filled with tears and raised to your face, were terribly potent. As I said before, they were blue, but only the advertising department could adequately describe the sort of blue.

Listen to the sequel, and bear in mind that I saw her look up at Mr. Reddiman. I know that if I had been Mr. Reddiman, I, too—

Well, he went in to see Mr. Graves, whom he greatly admired and valued.

“In regard to this—er—Miss Clare,” he said. “I hear from Miss Kelly—”

“Yes, I know,” Graves answered miserably. “I’m going to discharge her this afternoon.”

“You would be doing very wrong,” said Mr. Reddiman severely.

Graves was naturally astounded.

“I’ve done all I can to place her—” he began, but Mr. Reddiman interrupted.

“Graves,” said he, “I’m afraid you are just a little inclined to overlook the human element. After all, Graves, what is more valuable in an employee than zeal? A—er—person who works with zeal and loyalty is, to my mind, very much more desirable than one of your efficient, soulless machines. The human element, Graves, the human element! This—er—Miss Clare seems to be most earnest. I learn that she comes early and remains late. To my personal knowledge, she wished to-day to forego her lunch in order to complete her work. I shall not interfere in your province, of course, but I hope—I hope strongly—that you will reconsider your decision.”

It was Graves himself who told me about the interview.

“Well,” he said, “what could I do? Heaven knows I didn’t want to say a word against the poor girl; but in duty to the company I had to tell him what I’d done. He listened, and then he said again that I overlooked the human element. He said that what she needed was encouragement, and that she could start to-morrow morning ashis secretary!”

“Aren’t you pleased?” I asked.

“Pleased?” he exclaimed. “I’m—I’m horrified! I’m—it’s outrageous! It’s cruel! I can’t bear to think of it!” He paused. “It’s the end of her,” he said tragically. “She’s about as well fitted to be his secretary as she is to be president of the Chamber of Commerce. It’s bound to end in a big row!”

I didn’t agree with him.

Miss Clare arrived the next morning a little pale and nervous, but wonderfully happy. She was always neat and dainty, but this morning she had a sort of festive air, produced, as well as I can tell you, by little extra ruffles and by magic.

Looking into Mr. Reddiman’s private room, and seeing her there, with her fair head bent and her fragile hands so busy, in all her gallant and touching youth, I entertained serious thoughts about the human element. I understood the ancient institution of chivalry. I fancied I knew exactly how knights used to feel about forlorn damosels. It seemed idiotic to estimate a creature as valiant and sweet as she by the number of words she could turn out per minute. Indeed, I forgot all about the economic system for a time, in a long meditation upon a system considerably older.

I rejoiced in her innocent and happy triumph. I delighted in seeing her walk past Miss Kelly and smile at her before entering the august private room.

Graves was decidedly under a cloud now. We were all a little hard on him. We forgot his kindly efforts on her behalf, and remembered only that he had been on the point of discharging one who now worthily occupied an important post.

“You see, Graves, I was right,” said Mr. Reddiman.

The rest of us agreed in condemning Graves for a sort of inhuman severity.

Three days passed. Then Graves heard from Mr. Reddiman once more.

“It was naturally a—a tentative arrangement—something in the nature of an experiment,” the president said. “I am well satisfied with Miss Clare’s zeal and industry, but she lacks experience. I have no doubt she can work up to some superior position; but in the meantime, Graves, wouldn’t it be possible to find her some work that carries less responsibility? She’s very young, you know.[Pg 87]”

The implication was that Graves had thrust monstrous responsibilities upon her young shoulders, that he was a sort ofSimon Legree.

“She’s a young woman of education and refinement,” Mr. Reddiman continued. “I should imagine it would not be difficult to find a place for her in an organization of this size and scope. I don’t mind saying, Graves, that I am very favorably impressed with Miss Clare. Of course, if you’re convinced that she’s not useful—”

“Very well!” said Graves brusquely. “I’ll try.”

And there he was, with the whole thing to begin over again, and with the wind of public opinion dead against him. I observed him sitting at his desk, with his stubby hair ruffled, his sturdy shoulders hunched, and a look of unassuageable despair upon his not very mobile face. He looked up as I approached.

“Go on!” said he. “Tell me I’m a brute! Of course, I know that what I’m really paid a good salary for is to run a charitable institution here. I know—”

“Look here. Graves!” said I. “I’ll try your Miss Clare in my department—”

“She’s not my Miss Clare,” he returned, with vigor. “She’s—” He got up. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “She’s an albatross! You know the story about the fellow who had one tied round his neck, and couldn’t get rid of it.”

“That’s not very chivalrous,” said I.

“Well, I’m not paid to be chivalrous,” he said. “I know she’s a fine girl—a—a lovely girl; but she’s out of place here. She can’t do one darned thing well enough to deserve a salary for it. If old Reddiman wants me to start a training school, very well, I’ll do it; but if he wants me to keep up the standard of efficiency I’ve set, then he’s got to give me a free hand—that’s all!”

“She can start in with me to-morrow,” I said rather stiffly.

I had my own ideas about office management. No private room for me! I sat out with all the others, in a little railed off pen. I contended that the moral effect of my being always visible, and always busy, was admirable. Graves, on the contrary, upheld the principle of remaining invisible and popping out suddenly.

I said that my department was a little democracy.

“And you were elected the head of it by popular vote, weren’t you?” inquired Graves, with irony. “Bet you wouldn’t be willing to put it to the vote now. All bunk! Humbug! You’re an autocrat, and so am I!”

I remembered this the next morning, when Miss Clare started to work for me, and I resolved to be a benevolent autocrat. The poor girl had lost her triumphant air. She was crestfallen, anxious, apprehensive.

“I’ll let her see that I have confidence in her,” I thought.

I gave her some letters to answer herself, without my dictating. They certainly were not letters of importance. In fact, it would make small difference to the business whether they were ever answered or not.

Hypocritically, I told myself I ought to keep an eye on her. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t have helped it, because she was the most incredibly lovely creature.

Her concentration was distressing. I felt inclined to tell her that the letters weren’t worth all her trouble—that no letters could be. She was very nervous. I saw her put sheet after sheet into the typewriter, only to take it out and crumple it up.

Naturally, she knew our excessive dislike for paper being wasted; and after a while I saw her stealthily stuffing those crumpled sheets into a drawer, where they wouldn’t be noticed. Then, suddenly, she straightened her shoulders, gave a despairing glance round the office, pulled all the paper out of the drawer, and put it into the wastebasket. It was a small thing, but it touched me. Whenever I looked at her, and saw that incriminating mass in the basket beside her, in full light of day, I mentally saluted her as an honorable soul.

There had come in the morning mail a letter from a rather doubtful customer, inclosing a check for his last bill and a new order. I felt pretty sure he was ordering a bit more than the traffic would stand, yet he seemed to have substantial backing, and it wouldn’t do to risk offending him. It was Saturday, and I had meant to talk the thing over with Mr. Reddiman before putting through the order on Monday, when a telegram came:

Ship goods to-day. Wire, if impossible, and cancel order.

This was very awkward. We were somewhat overstocked just then, and not par[Pg 88]ticularly busy, so that it would have been easy enough to ship the stuff; but I was reluctant to take the responsibility. At the same time I didn’t want to cancel an order of that size.

There wasn’t much time for thought. I sent for my assistant. I told him to take the check down to the bank it was drawn on and get it cashed. I also suggested his seeing the manager.

“What bank is it?” he asked.

“I don’t remember,” said I; “but you’ll see by the check.”

And then I couldn’t find the check. It was nearly eleven already, and there wasn’t a minute to waste. I turned over every paper on my desk; I made every one else do the same. Check and letter were absolutely gone.

Nothing like this had ever happened before during my régime. I couldn’t believe it. Now that it’s well in the past, I will admit that perhaps I didn’t take it very tranquilly; but, after all, it was not soothing, when I knew some one must be to blame, to have people make idiotic suggestions about my looking in my pocket. Was I in the habit of putting the mail into my pocket?

“The thing’s going to be found,” said I, “and found now. Empty the wastebaskets, and see if it’s been thrown away by mistake.”

The office boy appeared to enjoy doing this, but the rest of them failed in loyalty. No one looked worried or distressed.

“It’s sure to turn up,” said one.

Another almost suggested that such a letter had never existed.

Attracted by the excitement, Miss Kelly appeared, followed by others who had no business to come. How cool and reasonable they all were!

“Mercy!” observed Miss Kelly. “What a quantity of paper thrown away!”

She spoke, of course, of the contents of poor Miss Clare’s basket, now turned out upon a newspaper. She approached it, and picked up one or two sheets.

“It seems to me scarcely justifiable to waste a sheet merely for writing ‘Dear Bir,’”said she, “or a wrong figure in the date. Errors like that can easily be—is this the missing letter, by any chance?”

It was the letter, and the check as well, torn into fragments.

“Oh, I didn’t know!” cried Miss Clare. “I’m so awfully sorry! I must have taken it by accident and torn it up with—with some other things. I’m so sorry!”

But my exasperation was too great to be melted even by tears in those incomparable eyes.

“You ought to be sorry!” I said, and so on.

No use recounting the rest of my bad-tempered outburst. I paid for it later in very genuine regret.

It was probably due to ill temper, but it was attributed to my wonderful business foresight that I did not ship those goods. Mr. Reddiman sent for me on Monday morning and praised my wisdom, good sense, and judgment. That customer was to be dropped.

This praise did not make me happy, but quite the contrary. I knew I didn’t deserve it—in this instance, that is. I was already very remorseful on the score of Miss Clare. I remembered things of which I hadn’t been aware at the time—her white face, her quivering lip, her wide, tearful eyes. She had gone away, after listening to every word I said, and she had not returned.

It would be hard to describe how startling, how conspicuous, was her absence. I missed her from rooms, from desks, where she had certainly never been. The wan sunshine made phantoms of her bright head in dim corners. Other and very different voices took on fleeting resemblances to hers. Once I saw the neat, spare form of Miss Kelly taking a drink at the water cooler, and she seemed to melt into the gracious outlines of that lost one.

My conscience troubled me. My heart was heavy. Very long was the day; and at the end of it I secured her address and went off to see her.

Never mind the eloquent speech I had prepared, for I never uttered one word of it. Suffice it to say that I intended to offer Miss Clare a permanent position, with no possibility of being fired.

She lived in an apartment house on a side street uptown on the West Side—a street that was just on the border of a slum—a street of woeful and dismal gentility. I rang the bell, blundered down a black, narrow hall, and would have gone upstairs if a voice behind me hadn’t murmured:

“Clare?”

Turning, I asserted that a Clare was what I sought, and I was bidden to step[Pg 89]through an open door and into a prim little sitting room. It was dismal there, too, but light enough for me to see that I was confronted by a mother out of a book—a gray-haired, delicate little creature with a smile of invincible innocence and good will.

I said that I came from the office to see Miss Clare. Strictly speaking, this was true; but the implication was not, for my business had nothing to do with the office.

“Am sorry ma daughter’s not in,” said Mrs. Clare, in her slurred Southern accent. “If you’d care to wait, Ah don’t think she’ll be long.”

So I sat down, and was instantly fed with tea and cake.

“Rosemary made the cake,” Mrs. Clare explained. “She’s wonderful at baking!”

She was; nothing could have been more delectable. Naturally I praised it, and naturally Mrs. Clare rose to the praise like a trout to a fly. There was something very touching in her artless talk about her child, and something still more touching in the picture she created for me of their gracious and gentle life together.

“Ah’ve never heard a sharp word from Rosemary,” she assured me. “Ah don’t think you could say the same of many other girls in the same circumstances. There’s not only her business career that she’s so interested in, but she does almost all of the housekeeping as well. She’s a wonderful manager, and so clever with her needle! Ah never saw a girl so handy in the house. Of co’se Ah know a girl with her brains and education is just naturally adapted for business, but—” She stopped, with a smile. “Ah’m an old-fashioned woman, Ah reckon. Ah’m glad Rosemary’s going to give it up.”

“Going to give up business?” said I, astounded.

“She’s been engaged for two years,” said she. “That’s long enough. Of co’se, dear Denby understood how she felt about proving her ability befo’ she settled down, but Ah’m glad it’s over. He came up from No’folk yesterday, and he persuaded her to give up her position.”

I was suddenly aware that it was late, and that I couldn’t wait another minute.

“Ah’m sorry,” said she. “Rosemary’ll be back sho’tly. She just took Denby to see the Woolworth Building. Ah wish you could have stayed to see Denby.”

I said how remarkably sorry I was not to see this Denby, but go I would and did.

As I left the house, I ran into Graves, about to enter.

“Old man,” said I, “come along with me. I want to talk to you.”

I believe I took his arm. Anyhow, I felt like doing so.

“Graves,” I said, “I hope you won’t thing I’ve been underhand or treacherous about this. I’d have told you, only that it came on pretty suddenly. I didn’t really know until this morning, and then it put everything else out of my head. I acted upon impulse, Graves—upon my word I did! I missed her so much in the office to-day—”

“Yes,” said he, with a sigh. “It was pretty bad, wasn’t it?”

“And I just hurried off, you know—to call upon her. Graves, old man, it’s—in fact, there’s nothing doing. She’s engaged—she’s been engaged for two years to some young—”

“Oh, I knew that,” said Graves.

“What?” I cried.

“She told me in the very beginning,” said Graves. “Naturally she didn’t want it talked about, but she explained it to me. It seems this fellow didn’t take her seriously enough. He had plenty of money, but he expected her to settle down there in Norfolk and just be his wife. She didn’t say so, but I gathered that he’s a domineering sort of young chap. She said that if they started in that way, they’d never be happy. She had to show him that she amounted to something on her own account; and he was impressed when she got a job here with us. She showed me a letter, or a part of a letter, from him about it. He got down from his high horse, I can tell you—said he knew she’d be making a sacrifice to give up her career and marry him, but he’d do his best to make it up to her, and so on.”

He paused.

“So you see,” he said, “it would have been a very bad thing for her—a very serious thing—if she’d been fired. Might have spoiled her whole future life. After she told me that, and appealed to me, why, I had to—don’t you see?”

“But, Graves,” said I, “didn’t you—weren’t you—personally—”

“Pshaw!” said Graves, turning red. “D’you know, my boy, I read a story once about a hangman who was a pretty good sort of fellow when he was at home. Ever occur to you that even the matador mayn’t be as black as he’s painted?[Pg 90]”

MUNSEY’SMAGAZINE

JULY, 1923Vol. LXXIXNUMBER 2

[Pg 91]

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“I’M no jazz baby,” Madeline declared indignantly.

“Well, I never said you were, did I?” demanded Mr. Ritchie.

“Well, you think so,” she replied.

“Well, if you can read my mind, it’s no use me trying to talk,” said he.

“I never asked you to talk!”

They were both aware that their badinage had lost its fine edge.

“Well, I never asked you to listen,” Mr. Ritchie said valiantly, but he knew very well that this was not a clever retort.

At that moment he was greatly dissatisfied both with his wit and his person. He thought it brutal on the part of fate that a young man as passionate and resolute as himself should have so frail a form, and that after having taken a correspondence course in rhetoric and oratory he should still be so tongue-tied—especially with Madeline.

He could see himself in the mirror opposite. He sat so straight that he leaned over backward a little, but this did not disguise the fact that his shoulders were narrow and not quite even, and his chest somewhat hollow. Neither had his studies or his burning thoughts left any visible impress on his sallow, rather ratlike face; and all this hurt his terribly sensitive soul.

“I never said you were a jazz baby,” he insisted. “I only said lots of girls were—and that’s a fact. Why, a lot of those girls wouldn’t spend a cent to get a decent, well balanced meal! All they care about is clothes and—”

“I don’t guess you know such a lot about girls,” Madeline interrupted.

Her tone was scornful, and the outrageously sensitive Mr. Ritchie at once saw all sorts of implications. She meant that girls wouldn’t bother with him. She meant that he was nothing but a mechanic. She meant that his clothes were shabby, and that he was small and slight. She meant everything that could affront his manly pride.

His face grew crimson.

“All right!” he said loftily. “Have it your own way!”

He turned away his head, though he was a little alarmed as he did so. He had always felt that chivalry required him to keep his head turned rigidly toward Madeline, to atone for the fact that she stood while he sat. Of course, that was not his fault. Madeline being a waitress, and he a customer, anything more gallant was impossible.

He certainly did not enjoy being waited on by this splendid girl. In fact, he so bitterly disliked it that he would have ceased coming to Compson’s Chophouse, if he had not realized that in his absence she would very likely be waiting on some other man, possibly not so chivalrous.

It was altogether a sacrifice on his part, because the food did not conform to his standards. He could not get here the well balanced rations necessary for building up his physique. Of what use to work night and morning with a patent exerciser, if he did not get the proper muscle-building foods? This worried him very much, for he desired a fine physique as greatly as he desired a master mind.

Then, too, he often had to wait a long while for Madeline to be free to attend to him, and he fretted at the waste of time. He couldn’t light a cigarette to beguile his tedium, for he knew that the smoker cannot have a fine physique. If he saw a smoker who looked as if he had one, Ritchie knew him to be a whited sepulcher, with a failing heart, exhausted lungs, and no will power.[Pg 92]

To be sure, he might have passed the time with some improving book. He always carried in his pocket a volume of a set he had bought—a set guaranteed to broaden his mind, and to contain all that he ought to read; but he couldn’t keep his mind on a book when Madeline was about.

“Have it your own way,” he repeated.

This time he said it with a new significance. He meant that, as far as he was concerned, Madeline might have everything her own way forever.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t there to hear him. She was waiting on a man at another table. She never so much as glanced at Ritchie. He knew she wouldn’t look at him, and he took a gloomy pleasure in staring at her.

She was worth looking at, was Madeline. Tall, spare, straight, in an austere white uniform and a sleek coiffure, she was a miracle to irradiate any chophouse. Her features were subtle—a delicate nose, a rounded chin, a mouth very red in her pale face. Her black brows made an incomparable line above her dark, steady eyes.

In spite of her thinness and her pallor, in spite of twenty years of bad air and wretched food, she was strong and tireless, with muscles like steel—a heritage from ancestors of Slavic peasant stock. She had a cool, careless manner, inclined to sudden hauteur when she thought it necessary, but she could also chat with the greatest affability—as she was doing now.

“Trying to make me jealous!” thought Ritchie. “What do I care?”

He had merely invited her, very politely, to a dance to be given by the Coyote Club that evening. He worked very hard all day as a mechanic in a garage. In addition to building up a fine physique and broadening his mind by reading, he was taking a correspondence course in mechanical draftsmanship; and the Coyote Club, of which he was treasurer, was his one frivolity.

Every week they engaged a pianist, a saxophonist, and a drummer, and had a dance in a hall over a restaurant on Eighth Avenue. There was no “rough stuff.” It was a seemly and refined entertainment—Madeline ought to have known that. Ritchie only meant that some of the girls brought by some of the Coyotes were jazz babies. The remark was not intended as personal, and she shouldn’t have taken it as such.

“Don’t know much about girls, don’t I?” he reflected angrily.

Nothing could have been more galling, especially as it was true. Ritchie had noble ideas about girls, though. He was not exactly in a position to marry at the present moment; but later on, when his heroic efforts began to show results, he intended to have a home, a garden, and a wife whom he would venerate and take to lectures and concerts.

He did not care to admit that that wife must be Madeline or no one. He was far too proud to acknowledge how much he cared for a girl with her silly ideas; but unhappily he was not clever enough to conceal it, and Madeline knew only too well.

These were her silly ideas. Knowing herself to be rare and seductive, she intended to marry a millionaire. She was weary and disgusted with her present condition. She wanted a life of exquisite refinement and languor. She hated the restaurant, she hated her home, her uniform. She turned up her delicate nose at everything about her, including Ritchie. Not that he wasn’t “refined,” for he surely was, and she secretly admired him; but it was not the right, the princely, sort of “refinement,” and she would have none of him.

Still, she felt a pang of regret when he went out. A girl as attractive as she, alone in the world, could not well help learning to appreciate the chivalry and restraint of Mr. Ritchie. He never “said anything,” and never would, until encouraged. He came every night to Compson’s for his dinner, and of late he had fallen into the habit of being on the corner when she came out, at ten o’clock. He never said that he was waiting for her, and she had manners enough to be surprised every time. He walked home with her, both of them conversing with the utmost formality.

He had never invited her anywhere, except to this dance at the Coyote Club. He had never so much as shaken hands with her. She knew very well that the reason for this was his severe sense of respect for her. While she admired this, she would have been better pleased with a little more impetuosity.

Still, it was no use denying that he left a gap. Madeline missed him. Even when she was busy, she had found comfort in the sight of his head bent over one of his little books.

“Now he’s mad,” she reflected. “He[Pg 93]won’t come back. All right! I don’t care! Let him go to his old dance and have a good time with the jazz babies!”

She consoled herself by imagining the balls she would go to in the future, when the millionaire arrived—balls like those she saw in the movies. She herself would wear a long, swathed dress and carry a feathered fan. She would be languid and scornful, and would flirt in a refined manner impossible to one who was at present a waitress in Compson’s Chophouse.

By eight o’clock the room was growing empty. As a hint to possible intruders, each time a table was left vacant the lights near it were turned out. A few solitary men still ate, in bright oases, but they had a hasty and guilty air; they knew that their tardiness was resented.

One by one the waitresses disappeared into the little back room where they changed into their street clothes, and returned, crossing the restaurant with eager steps, until there remained only Madeline and Miss Sullivan. Miss Sullivan remained because her customer was a pig-headed old gentleman and refused to hurry; but Madeline was there because Mr. Compson had great confidence in her, and allowed her the privilege of turning out the lights and locking the door.

The proprietor himself had gone, with the cash box. Madeline would have the responsibility of guarding, until morning, whatever sum the pig-headed old gentleman might pay.

“Gosh, I could stick a pin in him!” murmured Miss Sullivan. “Twenty past! There goes that dishwasher, even!”

“I’ll look after him,” said Madeline. “You can go, if you like.”

Toward her own sex Madeline was not haughty, but quite good-natured.

“I’ll do as much for you some day,” declared Miss Sullivan, like a creature in a fable, and off she went.

The room was very still. At intervals the elevated trains went by with a thundering roar, leaving behind a sort of vacuum of quietness. The old gentleman looked up.

“Piece lemon meringue pie,” he said briefly.

“Kitchen’s closed,” Madeline replied, with equal brevity.

This annoyed him very much; but in view of the fact that he was known never to leave more than a nickel for a tip, his annoyance never caused much concern in Compson’s. He got up, folded his newspaper, felt in all his pockets, and very slowly took down his overcoat.

Madeline, leaning against the wall in a careless attitude, refused to show signs of impatience. Indeed, when she saw him struggling into the tight sleeves of his shabby old coat, she felt an impulse of scornful pity, and came to his aid. He didn’t thank her. Apparently he preferred to consider it her fault that he was old and slow and stiff, and couldn’t enjoy his dinner.

After he had gone, she began turning off the few remaining lights. The place was nearly in darkness when the door opened and two men came in.

“Closed!” said Madeline.

But the taller of the two led his companion to a table and pushed him into a chair.

“Can’t you manage a cup of coffee?” he entreated. “My friend’s ill.”

Madeline was not very credulous. She snapped on the nearest light, so that she might look at the alleged invalid.

One look was enough. She hadn’t lived twenty years without learning something, and she knew at once what ailed the fellow; but she didn’t care. She felt instinctively that he was a victim. He had been led astray, very likely by this burly ruffian with him.

“Poor feller!” she said softly.

His curly head was thrown back, his eyes were closed, and he seemed sunk in innocent slumber. Not only was he singularly handsome and engaging, but he wore a dinner jacket. Never had Madeline seen one so close at hand before. It invested the suffering hero with a high, romantic interest. It thrilled her. He was a creature strayed from another world. He was helpless and abandoned, and not for anything on earth would she have forsaken him.

“I’ll get him some coffee,” she said.

She said it rudely, because she hated the other man, and knew it was all his fault.

There was a little left in the coffee urn, and it was still warm. She brought it promptly, but the sufferer could not be roused to drink.

“Good Lord!” said the other impatiently. “I don’t know what to do with the young idiot! Pour water on him.”

“I never!” cried Madeline, with passion[Pg 94]ate indignation. “And get his nice clothes all wet?”

“Well, do something with him,” said the other. He showed an alarming tendency to shift the responsibility for his unconscious companion to Madeline’s shoulders. “I can’t take him home with me. Lock him in here till the morning, and let him sleep it off!”

“I never!” she said again. “Just suppose he waked up all alone in the dark, and couldn’t get out! Don’t you know where he lives?”

“Of course I know, but he wouldn’t thank any one for sending him home in this state. He’s the only son of wealthy and respectable parents,” the other answered, in a flippant tone that was obnoxious to Madeline. “It would bring their gray—or dyed—hair to the grave in one swoop. This fellow, my dear girl, is young Benny Bradley!”

“I don’t care who he is, he’d ought to be took care of. He’s got to be!” Madeline said sternly.

“Not by me,” returned the other. He rose, and looked at Madeline with a smile. “It’s time for me to clear out.”

“You can’t!” the girl protested.

“I shall,” said the man. “I make you a present of Benny Bradley.”

He was actually going, but she caught him by the sleeve.

“Oh!” she cried. “You ought to be ashamed! What ever can I do?”

“I don’t know. Why not call the police?” said he.

He unclasped her fingers, and, raising his hat gallantly, went out.

“Oh, my!” cried Madeline, in despair. “Oh, my! What ever will I do with the poor feller?”

She dipped a folded napkin in water, and laid it on his forehead. A glance in the mirror startled her. In her white uniform, wasn’t she just like a trained nurse with a wounded hero? The vision inspired her. She felt that she must be calm, brave, resourceful.

Somewhat timidly she lifted his limp, white hand, to feel his pulse; but, having little idea how a pulse should behave, she gained no reassurance.

“Poor feller!” she repeated. “Anyway, I’m not going to leave you, if I have to sit here the whole night!”

She would have done that, and would have faced Mr. Compson and her sister workers the next morning undaunted, if she had not been saved by the entrance of Mr. Ritchie.

To the casual observer there was nothing heroic in Ritchie’s coming, but truly it was heroic. It had cost him a horrible effort to subdue his outrageous pride, to forego the Coyotes’ dance, and to return here for the ungracious Madeline. And how did he find her? Bending over a strange man in evening dress, all alone, long after the place should have been closed!

“Well!” he said. “What’s all this?”

With vehement indignation Madeline told him the story of the base desertion of the helpless sufferer.

“And what am I going to do with him?” she ended. “It’s the worst I ever heard—going off and leaving him like this!”

“Well, send for the police,” said Mr. Ritchie, but he regretted his words when he saw her eyes blaze.

“Shame on you!” she cried. “The state he’s in!”

“Well, now, see here,” said Ritchie. “I guess you don’t know what’s the matter with him. He’s not sick; he’s just—”

“Hush up!” she interrupted fiercely. “I guess I do know! It isn’t his fault—he got in with bad comp’ny.”

“How do you know?” he inquired.

“Idoknow,” she replied firmly. “Never you mind how! And I’m going to see he gets taken care of till he’s all well again.”

All this did not contribute to Mr. Ritchie’s happiness. Wasn’t it just like a woman, he thought, to be captious and haughty to a devoted young man of blameless life, and an angel of compassion to this unknown profligate?

Nevertheless, in spite of his jealous alarm and his pain and his distrust, it was Ritchie’s sure instinct to behave generously. Heaven knows where he got his magnanimity. He hadn’t learned it in the mean and sordid little home of his childhood. He hadn’t been taught it in school, and it had been a part of his nature long before he had read a line of those improving little books.

His sallow face flushed.

“Well!” he said. “I’ll take him home with me.”

Madeline didn’t know how to be gracious, but she appreciated this.

“He can’t walk,” was all she said.[Pg 95]

“All right!” said Ritchie grandly. “I’ll call a taxi.”

He had never done this before. He hastened to a cab stand on Fifth Avenue, and it seemed to his proud soul that all the chauffeurs knew he had never used a taxi, and despised him. He was very truculent about it.

An infinitely greater humiliation was in store for him. When he returned to the restaurant, he couldn’t lift, or even move, the helpless young man. All those hours with the exerciser availed him nothing. His physique was shamefully deficient.

“Let me,” said Madeline. “I’m real strong.”

Without much trouble, she took the fellow under his arms and got him to his feet. He opened his eyes, then, and smiled a dreamy, innocent smile. Supported by Madeline and pushed by Ritchie, he made a sort of attempt at walking to the cab.

“I’d better go with you,” said she, “or you’ll never get him up the stairs.”

Sick with shame, Ritchie was obliged to consent. Neither of them for an instant contemplated asking the chauffeur’s assistance; and the chauffeur, being class conscious, did not volunteer it.

Ritchie had the worst fifteen minutes of his life during his first ride in a taxi. He felt himself a mean, contemptible, worthless thing, with his lack of bodily strength. He contrasted his worn, shabby suit with the stranger’s expensive clothes. He knew that Madeline must despise him. She would despise him far more when she saw his room, yet he could devise no way for preventing that.

When the cab stopped before his door, he paid the fare, torn between a certainty that his natural enemy, the chauffeur, was cheating him, and his desire to appear lordly before Madeline. Then, together, they began to get the stranger up the stairs.

The noise of the operation made Ritchie’s blood run cold. Suppose some one saw him with a drunken man and a girl? He hauled at the fellow’s arm in no very gentle manner.

At last, at the top of the house, he unlocked a door, and, supporting the stranger against the wall of the corridor, he brusquely said to Madeline:

“All right! You might as well go now.”

“I’d like to see him settled,” said she.

So Ritchie had to light the gas and had to let her in.

The room was a bleak, bare, cold little cell, with the exerciser fastened to the wall, and the window nailed open, to admit all the hygienically fresh air possible. On the bureau, instead of the little accessories of a fastidious gentleman, were a pair of military brushes, the vital library, all in a row, and a bottle of ink. On the table were an alarm clock and the apparatus of the correspondence course. There were no other visible articles personal to Ritchie, except a razor strop and six cakes of carbolic soap, economically unwrapped to dry.

He pushed the stranger down on his cot.

“All right!” he thought defiantly. “Now you can see just how I live—and I hope you’ll like it! Go on—laugh, if you want to!”

But she was not laughing.

“Oh, my, what a dusty towel!” she was thinking, in distress. “And no curtains. The woman that runs this house ought to be ashamed of herself!”

She turned to Ritchie without the least trace of haughtiness.

“Well, good night, Everard,” she said.

It was the first time she had used his name. He needed that assuagement to compensate for the lingering glance she gave to the prostrate unknown.

Ritchie came home in a somewhat bitter humor, partly due to his having spent the night on a hard chair, and partly to other and finer causes. He hoped that drunken fellow would be gone. He wished never to see him again; but when Ritchie opened the door, there he was, lying on the bed and reading one of the little books.

“Hello!” he said, as joyously as if Ritchie were his heart’s dearest friend.

“Are you feeling better?” Ritchie curtly inquired.

Without waiting for a reply, he began to take off his grimy work clothes.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” the other went on. “Absolutely the whitest thing I ever heard of! I must have been pretty far gone last night—can’t remember a blamed thing.”

He was not discouraged by his host’s silence.

“I shan’t forget this, you know,” he continued. “You darned nearly saved my life. Can’t imagine what my people would have said, if I’d come home like that. You know how it is[Pg 96]—”

“No, I don’t,” interrupted Ritchie. “I’m a teetotaler.”

“Shows sense,” said the other warmly. “I think I’ll have to be one myself. My name’s Bradley.” He waited. “What’s yours?” he asked.

“Ritchie,” responded the other. “And as good as Bradley any day,” he added mentally.

In some respects, however, honesty obliged him to admit that he was not so good as Bradley.

Bradley, after stretching, got up. He was in his shirt sleeves, and Ritchie surveyed his tall, slender figure with the eye of a connoisseur in physiques. The fellow was young yet, not fully developed, but certainly those shoulders, that solid neck, that broad chest, were promising—very promising.

“Well, he probably eats too much meat,” thought Ritchie, with dejection. “Living like he does, he won’t last!”

In order to show his perfect ease and indifference, he began to wash, whistling when the process permitted.

“I must be badly in your way,” said the other, in his good-humored manner. “I’ll clear out, I think. Got a spare overcoat? I don’t like to go out like this.”

Ritchie grew scarlet. His overcoat—certainly spare enough—was in that place where winter overcoats naturally go in the spring.

“No,” he said sullenly.

“Then I—” began Bradley.

There was a knock at the door. Ritchie flung it wide open, with the air of one who has nothing to conceal. In the hall stood two resplendent young heroes, broadly smiling.

“Still alive, Bradley?” said the taller and older of the two.

They both came into the room as if Ritchie did not exist. Trembling with resentment, he stood aside, collarless, in his cheap striped shirt, with his black hair still wet on his forehead. These three well fed, well clothed creatures, with their vigorous voices, completely filled the room—filled, he thought, the whole world, squeezing him out of it.

In an affectionate and blasphemous manner Bradley reproached his friend for deserting him the night before.

“You ought to thank me,” said his friend, “for leaving you in the care of that peach of a girl!”

“What peach of a girl?” asked Bradley, pleasantly surprised.

The friend recounted the circumstances. No one observed Mr. Ritchie’s rage and dismay.

“I went there just now to make inquiries,” the friend went on, “and she told me where I’d find you. Bradley, old son, if you’re a man and a brother, you’ll go there at once and thank her! She’s a beautiful girl, and—”

“Here!” interrupted Ritchie. His voice was so strange that they all turned to look at him. “Leave her out!” he cried. “You can thank me!”

Bradley was smitten with compunction. He began thanking Ritchie with energy, introduced his friends, and invited him to dinner.

“No!” said Ritchie. Like many teetotalers, he had acquired the habit of saying “no” somewhat ungraciously. “No! But you can just leave her out!”

Again he was thanked by all of them, and at last they left his room; but he knew that Madeline would not be left out. He felt certain that they would go at once to Compson’s Chophouse. He could see them talking to Madeline. He knew how she would admire their dress, and their silly language, and their frivolous and disgusting manners.

“All right!” he said to himself. “You’re welcome to ’em; but you don’t catchmegoing there any more, to be made a fool of. Not much!”

Suddenly he decided that he wanted no dinner—not at Compson’s, or at any other place. He threw himself down on his cot, with a scornful laugh that sounded like a sob. Fellows like that always got everything. They thought they owned the earth—and very likely they did.

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