Chapter XXX: Frankland & Connor

Georgia and Jim Connor parted at the cemetery gate after the burial of their son. They have not, since then, seen each other.

Exclusive of her debt to Stevens, Georgia owed more than two hundred dollars, nearly half of which was for the funeral. Mrs. Talbot had ordered eight carriages.

Big Al behaved very well, turning in everything beyond carfare and lunch money for several weeks. Then he relaxed to the extent of five bright neckties and a pair of pointed patent leathers. But on the whole he was a very good boy, and Georgia told him so.

Her own wardrobe was in no condition for effective job-hunting. "Old faithful," the tan suit, once the pride of her heart and the queen of her closet, had dated beyond hope. Time had robbed the tan, not so much of substance as of essence, of smartness and caste.

The models of Paris hadn't worn a six yard pleated skirt for three years. So Georgia couldn't either, without proclaiming to her kind that she was either green or broke.

As for the blue serge, that was out of the question too, because it was simply worn out. She bought a black broadcloth coat and skirt that fitted wonderfully, as if they had been made for her, and a half dozen ruffled shirt waists. To these she added a severe black toque and low laced shoes. The total outlay ran to eighty-five dollars, but she considered it essentially a business investment, as no doubt it was.

She was pale, and her face had grown thin, which made her big eyes seem bigger. Her heavy black hair worn low on her forehead accentuated her pallor. She was what is frequently termed "interesting looking." At all events many people on the street were interested enough to turn and look again.

She clung to the idea of an office of her own some day, but because of the impracticability of starting business with a capital of five hundred dollars less than nothing, concluded to begin as assistant to some already established stenographer. Thus, she could learn the game, make acquaintances, get a following. Then when it was time to take the plunge, it would be simple enough to circularize this trade and switch at least part of it over to herself from her former employer.

She went up and down in many elevators and through many ground-glass doors in her hunt for work. One prosperous-looking, buxom, extreme blonde of thirty-eight, dressed a coquettish twenty-five, paid her a compliment.

"Listen," she said in a stage whisper, motioning to Georgia with a stubby forefinger to bend her head nearer, "listen. I wouldn't hire you for a dollar a week." She laughed merrily. "You're too much of a doll-baby yourself."

Georgia noted that the blonde lady's two assistants, hammering away in the dark inside corners of the room, were without menace, sallow and flat-chested.

In a small suite in the newest, highest-rented building in town, she found three tall, thin young men, apparently brothers. They were all very busy, writing by touch, their eyes fixed steadily on their notes. She spoke to the nearest, but his flying fingers did not even pause for her. "No women," he replied succinctly.

Many of the public stenographers had no employes; few more than one. Georgia found several places where they had just hired a girl. Apparently it was nowhere near so easy to find a place where they had just fired one. It was getting discouraging.

But her luck turned at the sign of L. Frankland, room 1241, the Sixth National Building. 1241 had a single narrow window which gave upon eight hundred others in the tall rectangular court. The room was not strategically desirable because there was another stenographic office between it and the elevator bank. Georgia felt sure she had seen L. Frankland before, but couldn't just place her.

"Do you need help? I am an expert stenographer." That was her formula.

"Yes, I do," came the wholly surprising answer. Georgia promptly sat down.

"But," continued L. Frankland, "I cannot afford to pay for it."

Georgia rose. "In that case," she said stiffly, "good-day."

"Why not," suggested L. Frankland, "go in with me as partner?"

"Partner--that would be fine--but I haven't any money."

"Neither have I--and I'll be turned out of here a week from to-morrow if I haven't twenty-seven fifty by then. That's how much I'm behind." She smiled cheerfully. Then Georgia remembered her. She was the nice old maid who had given her the seat in the car on the day she had met Mason.

"What's your rent!"

"Twenty-seven fifty."

"What arrangements do you want to make?"

"Fifty-fifty on everything."

"I'll take a chance," said Georgia, removing her hat. "But," she exclaimed, looking around, "why you've only got one machine--and a double keyboard at that. I'm not used to them."

"We can rent another for a dollar a week--any sort you want," L. Frankland suggested with ready resource.

"We can't get it here to-day. Let's see, Miss, Miss ah--what is your name?" They told each other. "Miss Frankland, are you a fast writer?"

"No," she answered, composedly rattling off a few test lines--"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party." It was true enough. She was slow.

"How much work do you get?"

"Four ten-cent letters and a short brief this morning. That's all to-day."

"What's the idea now--wait?" asked Georgia, taking off her coat and leaning against the solitary desk.

"Yep--like young lawyers."

"No use our both waiting with one machine between us. I tell you what--you go over to the Standard Company, on Wabash Avenue, and order a number four sent here, then traipse around to some other public offices--you can find plenty in the back of the telephone book--and see if they won't sublet us some of their work at half rates. I'll hold down the place, and get the hang of this keyboard while you're gone."

L. Frankland saluted. "Aye, aye, ma'am," said she. "I likewise do now promote you to be captain of this brig."

When she returned she brought a sheaf, the manuscript of a drama.

Georgia knocked it out in twenty-four hours, in triplicate, and took it back to the firm of origin in the Opera House Block. "Z. & Z.--Theatrical Typists" was the sign on the door.

The room was small, and thick with smoke. There must have been a dozen men in it, all important-looking. Mr. Zingmeister, the senior partner, a fat young Hebrew, received Georgia's work.

"Rotten," he said, glancing through it.

"Why?" she asked sharply.

"Wrong spacing. A script plays a minute to the page if typed right. How could anyone tell how long this would play?" He held it up between two fingers, contemptuously.

"Give me a sample act for a guide and I'll do it over for nothing."

He hesitated. "Too many novices in this profession already," he grumbled.

"My time's up," said she, reaching for her work. "If you don't want to pay me for it, I'll take it back."

He laid his hand on it.

"Come, come," said she, impatiently.

"Oh, keep your shirt on while I think it over," he answered. "All right, do it over again and do it right," he sighed plaintively, "and space it this way. Speeches solid. Drop two for character's name. Capitalize them--caps, understand?--with red underlines. Also red underline the business, so."

He demonstrated with a spoiled page from the waste basket.

"That'll give you the code, understand," he concluded, shoving it in her hand. "Now shake a foot."

The important-looking beings in the room apparently neither saw nor heard. Save for the clouds of smoke that issued from them they might have been graven.

When she got back to 1241 she was bursting with an idea.

"How long does your lease run, Miss Frankland?" she asked.

"Until May first."

"You can't get out of it!"

"No, I signed up."

"Well, if we don't pay our rent they'll put us out." It proved to be a prophecy.

Frankland & Connor found a bigger room for sixteen a month in the theatrical district, which for some unexplained reason converges from three sides upon the Court House. They described themselves as "experts in theatrical work," and presently they were.

They learned to give a dramatic criticism with each receipted bill. The play they had just transcribed was deeply moving, especially in the big scene, or one long roar, sure-fire. Playwrights were as thick as July blackberries and the firm prospered.

Occasionally Georgia sat up most of the night with a scared author and an impatient stage director, altering the script of a play after it had flivvered on the opening, and getting out new parts for it.

At first, she and L. Frankland found themselves forced into overtime almost every evening, because the theatrical people were invariably in such a raging hurry to get their work done, vast enterprises apparently hanging upon the rapid, if not the immediate, completion thereof. With growing experience, however, the firm learned to promise impossibilities for the sake of peace, but not to attempt them.

When the orders came in faster than they could handle them, Frankland & Connor jobbed them out again at fifty per cent. Georgia had three or four private stenographers on her list who were glad to pick up a little pin money on their employers' machines after hours. Perhaps in hours, too. She didn't know or care.

At the end of a twelvemonth she had paid off her debts, except the one to Mason, on which she sent interest.

She was also able to employ a woman to help her mother with the housework two afternoons a week.

Early in the firm's second year of existence, L. Frankland came in one Monday morning with a long face, a rare thing for her.

"I want to make a change," she said, "I'm not satisfied. I've been thinking it over. This isn't an impulse."

"A change?"

"Yes."

Georgia was genuinely distressed, because she had grown very fond of Miss Frankland. There was no more cheerful person in the world, she thought, than this dry, twinkling old maid. And she had hoped her feeling was returned. Real friendships were too rare to be tossed away so suddenly.

"I'm not satisfied," repeated L. Frankland, "because the present deal between us isn't fair. You've pulled the big half of the load ever since we started--so, give me a third interest instead of a half--I'd be better pleased, honest Injun, hope to die."

"Oh, shut up, Frank, and get to work. I've no time for foolishness," responded Georgia, much relieved. "Fifty-fifty it started and fifty-fifty it sticks."

Which it did.