Chapter III: An Economic Unit

Georgia's desk was in a rectangular room which was over one hundred feet long and half as wide. There was light on three sides. Near the ceiling was a series of little gratings, each with a small silkoline American flag in front of it. These flags were constantly fluttering, indicating forced ventilation; so that although the desks were near together and the place contained its full complement of busy people, there was plenty of oxygen for them.

This arrangement was designed primarily for economic rather than philanthropic purposes. The increased average output of work due to the fresh air yielded a satisfactory interest on the cost of the ventilating apparatus; and, besides, it impressed customers favorably and had a tendency to hold employes. The office dealt in life insurance.

The desks were mounted on castors so that they could be wheeled out of the way at night while the tiled floor was being washed down with hose and long-handled mops and brooms and sometimes sand, as sailors holystone a deck. Much of the hands-and-knees scrubbing was in this way done away with.

Rubber disks hinged against the desks and set to the floor held them in place during working hours. Narrow black right-angular marks showed where each desk belonged and to what point, exactly, it must be moved back when the nightly cleaning was finished.

These details were all of profound interest to Georgia, for her desk was the most important thing in the world to her at this time in her life.

She delighted in neatness, order, precision, in the adjustment of the means to the end. Every morning just before nine, she punched the clock, which gave her a professional feeling; and hung her hat and jacket in locker 31, which seemed to her a better, a more self-respecting place for them to be than her small, untidy bedroom closet, all littered up with so many things--hers and Jim's.

Her mother, who kept house for them, was a good deal at loose ends, in Georgia's opinion. And it didn't seem quite the decent thing that a woman who had nothing else in the world to do should fail to keep a six-room flat in order. Of course her mother was getting a little old, but hardly too old to do that.

Georgia had lately had a trial promotion to "take" the general agent's letters--the previous functionary, a tall blonde girl, having married very well.

It was the first stenographic position in the office and carried the best salary, so there was a good deal of human jealousy about it--much the same sort as freshmen feel who are out for the class eleven.

Georgia had tried her hardest for five days. She had stayed overtime to rewrite whole pages for the sake of a single omitted letter; she had bought half a dozen severely plain shirt waists, and yielded up her puffs. Everyone knew how the old man hated the first sign of nonsense.

But in spite of all that the day before he had called in Miss Gerson to take his dictation.

Well--it was pretty hard, but she had done her best. And she was a better workman than Miss Gerson, she would stick to that. Only yesterday she had seen Miss G. twice hunting in a pocket dictionary hidden in her lap--and she never had to do that, practically.

Life was just one damn thing after another, as Jim was always complaining--only he could never possibly have apprehended the full truth and implication of that saying--in spite of its rather common way of putting it. She knew that he never saw deeply, really fundamentally into the dreadful mystery of being here; he couldn't for he was coarse and masculine and he drank.

Her fingers were working rapidly casting up purple letter after purple letter before her eyes, but the physiologists tell us that she was using only the front part of her brain for it. The rest of it was free to contemplate the Ultimate Purpose, or gross favoritism in the office especially in relation to Miss Gerson, or whether an ice cream soda was a silly thing to have before lunch, as she knew it was, but then one had to have some pleasure.

Rat-tat-tat-tat went the keys; ding, there was her bell. Ten letters more on this line said the front part of her brain. One thing she was sure of, said the back, she devoutly hoped her young brother Al wouldn't develop into a mere white-collared clerk--though of course she certainly wanted him to be always a gentleman. She slid her carriage for the new line.

Rat-tat-tat-tat--and again, ding. There, the end of the page. Single space and not an error. She would like to see Miss Gerson do that at her speed.

The shuffle of the old man's office boy sounded behind her. Now, wait--what would to-day's verdict be? Would he pass or stop?

"Miss Connor," a-a-ah--"the old man wants you to take some letters." (Georgia had let them suppose she was unmarried.)

The benison of perfect peace now enfolded her.

Poor little Miss Gerson--well, after all, life is a game, the loser pays, and the winner can be perfectly philosophical about it.

Georgia went to the old man's private office and closed the door behind her.

"Yes, sir." She stood at attention, pad and pencil ready.

"Will you take these please, Miss Connor? Mr. James Serviss--here's his address," the old man tossed the letter he was answering over to her. "Dear Sir: Replying to yours of the 16th inst, we regret that----. Well, tell him it's impossible. Write the letter yourself. You understand!" He was observing her as if to probe her resourcefulness.

"Perfectly, sir."

"Miss Belmont saved me a great deal of trouble in that way. She could tell what I would want to say." Miss Belmont was the blonde girl who had married and left a vacancy.

"I can do the same, sir."

"Well, here are some more," continued the old man. "This--No." He tossed another letter to her. She made a shorthand notation in the corner of it. "This--By all means,--and be polite about it. This--An appointment to-morrow afternoon."

"Yes, sir."

"This--Routine. And these--Send them to the proper departments." More notations.

"Yes, sir."

"You can start on those. Bring them in when they're ready."

"Yes, sir." Exit Georgia.

She summoned the deeper layers of her vitality, settled to her work and her fingers flew. She knew the joy--if joy it be--of creation.

Quietly she slipped back into the old man's office, without knocking. His secretary had entrance except at such times as he shut his telephone off.

She seemed very slim and neat, and calm and steady--almost prim, perhaps, as she stood with pen and blotter in her hand to take the old man's signatures.

But her being surged within her like that of a mother who waits to hear if her boy is to be expelled from school or forgiven.

The old man had been going over a campaign plan for business with one of his quickest witted solicitors, and after Georgia had waited standing for a few moments, dismissed him with, "Yes, that's the right line, Stevens. Just keep plugging along it."

As Stevens passed her on his way out he bowed slightly. He had been doing that for some time now, though he had not yet spoken to her.

Stevens was still under thirty, she concluded, though she had heard he had been with the company for ten years. A silent, sharp-featured, tall young fellow with chilly blue eyes, who had the name in the office of keeping himself to himself and being all business.

The old man, having glanced over and signed the letters, passed his verdict on her work--"Hmm, hmm, Miss Connor, you may move your things to Miss Belmont's desk. And here's a note----"

When an author conquers a stage manager; or Atchison rises 4% the very next day; or the Cubs bat it out in the tenth on a darkening September afternoon; when on the third and last trial, it's a boy; or when Handsome Harry Matinee returns you his curled likeness _signed_; or you first sip Mai Wein, you know what it is to move your things to Miss Belmont's desk.

"And here's a note," continued the old man, without the gap which we have made to put in analogues, "to Mr. Edward Miles--I'd better dictate this one myself--'Dear Mr. Miles: I should be happy to have you call--' No, strike that out. 'In response to your letter of even date, I should be glad to see you at any time that suits you, here in my office--' no, make it three o'clock to-morrow afternoon--'to confer over the subject of the Senatorial campaign in your district.' Read what you've got."

Georgia did so.

The old man changed his eyeglasses. "Maybe you'd better telephone him instead," he said. "It's Ed Miles, the politician. You can probably locate him at----"

"Yes, sir, I know," suggested Georgia.

"And get Mr. Somers on the phone--Mr. Somers does some of our legal work----"

"Yes, sir."

"And ask him to be here at the same time. Make a note of it on my list of appointments."

"Yes, sir."

"Tell him Miles is coming, and to get up a little résumé for me of the situation in those districts over there, and ah--perhaps an estimate in a general way of what we ought to do for, ah--Mr. Miles. You will indicate that to him."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, telephone him that." Georgia rose and went to the door. "Ah--Miss Connor----" She turned and looked at her employer, her head tilted forward, with a peculiar open-eyed, steady little stare, which was a trick of hers when wholly interested.

"Did I indicate to you," said he, "that you are my _private_ secretary now?"

"I understand, sir. Thank you."