Munsey's Magazine/Volume 79/Issue 1/The Matador

by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

 

The Matador

 

A SENTIMENTAL EPISODE IN THE CAREER OF GRAVES, THE HARD-HEARTED OFFICE MANAGER

 

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

 

TECHNICALLY Graves was the personnel manager, but we called him “the matador” because it was his job to deal the death blow, to give the fatal thrust. He had, in other words, to do the “firing.”

He had developed a beautiful technique, and, like all good workmen, he enjoyed his work. He was really a very kind-hearted fellow. His idea was that it did people any amount of good to be discharged, if it were done in the right way—if, for instance, you told the departing one, exactly why he or she was no longer wanted.

It was necessary, he said, to keep the nicest balance between candor and brutality. What you wanted was to destroy conceit without injuring self-respect. He added proudly that all the people whom he had fired remained his firm friends.

I asked him how he knew this, and I refused to believe it a proof of friendliness that these victims had never yet waylaid and assaulted him. He said, however, that he could always tell—that no one could deceive him. I denied that any man could know he had never been deceived. Such a negative statement was impossible to prove.

He brushed all this aside, and continued to explain his technique.

“I never tell a man that we're laying him off because business is bad,” he said. “I try to show him what defects in himself make him the kind of man who's always laid off as soon as business drops. And as for those printed slips in a pay envelope—'Your services will not be required after such and such a date'—inhuman, I call that. No, sir! I'll call the fellow, or the girl, as the case may be, into my office, and I'll say something like this:

“'Now see here, So-and-So,' I'll say, 'I'm going to give you the gate; and if you'll listen to me fair-mindedly, it 'll be the gate to something a whole lot better.'”

“Always?” I asked.

“Why, yes,” said he.

“Of course,” I continued, “you've kept a record of the subsequent careers of all the poor devils you've fired, so that you know exactly how much they've benefited by your valediction?”

“Well,” said Graves; “well—”

“Of course,” I went on, “you keep a card index? You write down the fault for which you discharge the fellow, and you keep track of the length of time it takes him to overcome that fault?”

“Well—”

“What, Graves?” said I sternly. “You make me a positive statement, you tell me it benefits people to be discharged by you, and you have not one fact by which to substantiate your statement. I demand to be shown one of these alleged persons!”

“Well—” he said again.

He was so much perturbed that I hadn't the heart to perturb him further. He was such an honest, artless, enthusiastic fellow, and altogether so likable, that I can't for the life of me explain why it was so natural to worry and badger him; but everybody did. When some especially woeful-looking derelict passed by, some one was sure to call Graves to the window and say something like—

“See here, Graves! Isn't that the shipping clerk you discharged for not keeping his nails manicured?”

Rather gruesomely, we used to read aloud from the newspapers various reports of suicides.

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.”

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. Even stenographers have some knowledge 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.

II

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 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's stupid!” 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 any faults, 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.”

III

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 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 suiting me,” 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 be something that 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.”

“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.

IV

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 the Frankenstein who 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't want any 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 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 as his 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.

V

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.”

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

VI

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 particularly 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 Sir,'” 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.

VII

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 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?”