BREAKING IT TO THE BOSS

I don't admit it went to my head,--not so bad as that,--only maybe my chest measure had swelled an inch or so, and I wouldn't say my heels wa'n't hittin' a bit hard as I strolls dignified up and down the private office.

You see, Mr. Robert was snitchin' a couple of days off for the Newport regatta, and he'd sort of left me on the lid, as you might say. So far as there bein' any real actin' head of the Corrugated Trust for the time being--well, I was it. Anyway, I'd pa.s.sed along some confidential dope to our Western sales manager, stood by to take a report from the special audit committee, and had an interview with the president of a big bond house, all in one forenoon. That was speedin' up some for a private sec, wa'n't it?

And now I was just markin' time, waitin' for what might turn up, and feelin' equal to pullin' off any sort of a deal, from matchin' Piddie for the lunches to orderin' a new stock issue. What if the asphalt over on Fifth-ave. was softenin' up, with the mercury hittin' the nineties, and half the force off on vacations? I had a real job to attend to. I was doin' things!

And as I stops by the roll-top to lean up against it casual I had that comf'table, easy feelin' of bein' the right man in the right place. You know, I guess? You're there with the goods. You ain't the whole works maybe; but you're a special, particular party, one that can push b.u.t.tons and have 'em answered, paw over the mail, or put your initials under a signature.

And right in the midst of them rosy reflections the door to the private office swings open abrupt and in pads a stout old party wearin' a generous-built pongee suit and a high-crowned Panama. Also there's something familiar about the bushy eyebrows and the lima bean ears. It's Old Hickory himself. I chokes down a gasp and straightens up.

"Gee, Mr. Ellins!" says I. "I thought you was down at the Springs?"

"Didn't think I'd been banished for life, did you?" says he.

"But Mr. Robert," I goes on, "didn't look for you until----"

"No doubt," he breaks in. "Robert and those fool doctors would have kept me soaking in those infernal mud baths until I turned into a crocodile.

I know. I'm a gouty, rheumatic old wreck, I suppose; but I'll be dad blistered if I'm going to end my days wallowing in medicated mud! I've had enough. Where is everybody?"

So I has to account for Mr. Robert, tell how Mrs. Ellins and Marjorie and Son-in-Law Ferdie are up to Bar Harbor, and hint that they're expectin' him to come up as soon as he lands.

"That's their programme, is it?" he growls. "Think I'm going to spend the rest of the season sitting on a veranda taking pills, do they? Well, they're mistaken!"

And off he goes into his own room. I don't know what he thought he was goin' to do there. Just habit, I expect. For we've been gettin' along without Old Hickory for quite some time now, while he's been away. First off he tried to keep in touch with things by night letters, then he had a weekly report sent him; but gradually he lost the run of the new deals, and for the last month or so he'd quit firin' over any orders at all.

Through the open door I could see him sittin' at his big, flat-topped mahogany desk, starin' around sort of aimless. Then he pulls out a drawer and shuffles over some old papers that had been there ever since he left. Next he picks up a pen and starts to make some notes.

"Boy!" he sings out. "Ink!"

Course I could have pushed the buzzer and had Vincent do it; but seein'

how n.o.body had put him wise to the change, I didn't feel like announcin' it myself. So I fills the inkwell, chases up a waste basket for him, and turns on the electric fan.

"Now bring the mail!" says he snappy.

He was back to; so it was safe to smile. You see, I'd attended to all the mornin' deliveries, sorted out what I knew had to be held over for Mr. Robert, opened what was doubtful, and sent off a few answers accordin' to orders. But, after all, he was the big boss. He had a right to go through the motions if he wanted to. So I lugs in the mail, dumps it in the tray, and leaves him with it.

Must have been half an hour later, and I was back at my own desk doping out a schedule I'd promised to fix up for Mr. Robert, when I glances up to find Old Hickory wanderin' around the room absent-minded. He's starin' hard at a letter he holds in one paw. All of a sudden he discovers me at the roll-top. For a second he scowls at me from under the bushy eyebrows, and then comes the explosion.

"Boy!" he sings out. "What the hyphenated maledictions are you doing there?"

Well, I broke it to him as gentle as I could.

"Promoted, eh?" he snorts. "To what?"

And I explains how I'm private secretary to the president of the Mutual Funding Company.

"Never heard of such an organization," says he. "What is it, anyway?"

"Dummy concern mostly," says I, "faked up to stall off the I. C. C."

"Eh?" he gawps.

"Interstate Commerce Commission," says I. "We beat 'em to it, you know, by dissolvin'--on paper. Had to have somebody to use the rubber stamp; so they picked me off the gate."

"Humph!" he grunts. "So you're no longer an office boy, eh? But I had you hopping around like one. How was that?"

"Guess I got a hop or two left in me," says I, "specially for you, Mr.

Ellins."

"Hah!" says he. "Also more or less blarney left on the tongue. Well, young man, we'll see. As office boy you had your good points, I remember; but as----" Then he breaks off and repeats, "We'll see, Son."

And he goes to studyin' the letter once more.

Fin'lly he sends for Piddie. They confabbed for a while, and as Piddie comes out he's still explainin' how he's sure he don't know, but most likely Mr. Robert understands all about it.

"Hang what Robert understands!" snaps Old Hickory. "He isn't here, is he? And I want to know now. Torchy, come in here!"

"Yes, Sir," says I, scentin' trouble and salutin' respectful.

"What about these Universal people refusing to renew that Manistee terminal lease?" he demands.

And if he'd asked how many feathers in a rooster's tail I'd been just as full of information. But from what Piddie's drawn by declarin' an alibi, it didn't look like that was my cue.

"Suppose I get you the correspondence on that?" says I, and rushes out after the copybook.

But the results wa'n't enlightenin'. We'd applied for renewal on the old terms, the Universal folks had sent back word that in due course the matter would be taken up, and that's all until this notice comes in that there's nothin' doin'. "Inexpedient under present conditions," was the way they put it.

"I expect Mr. Robert will be back Monday," I suggests cautious.

"Oh, do you?" raps out Old Hickory. "And meanwhile this lease expires to-morrow noon, leaving us without a foot of ore wharf anywhere on the Great Lakes. What does Mr. Robert intend to do then--transport by aeroplane? Just asked pleasant and polite for a renewal, did he? And before I could make 'em grant the original I all but had their directors strung up by the thumbs! Hah!"

He settles back heavy in his chair and sets them cut granite jaws of his solid. He don't look so much like an invalid, after all. There's good color in his cheeks, and behind the droopy lids you could see the fighting light in his eyes. He glances once more at the letter.

"h.e.l.lo!" says he. "I thought their main offices were in Chicago. This is from Broadway, International Utilities Building. Perhaps you can tell me what they're doing down there?"

"Subsidiary of I. U.," says I. "Been listed that way all summer."

"Then," says Old Hickory, smilin' grim, "we have to do once more with no less a personage than Gedney Nash. Well, so be it. He and I have fought out other differences. We'll try again. And if I'm a back number, I'll soon know it. Now get me a list of our outside security holdings."

That was his first order; but, say, inside of half an hour he had everybody in the shop, from little Vincent up to the head of the bond department, doin' flipflops and pinwheels. Didn't take 'em long to find out that he was back on the job, either.

"Breezy with that now!" I'd tell 'em. "This is a rush order for the old man. Sure he's in there. Can't you smell the sulphur?"

In the midst of it comes a hundred-word code message from Dalton, our traffic superintendent, sayin' how he'd been notified to remove his wharf spurs within twenty-four hours and askin' panicky what he should do about it.

"Tell him to hold his tracks with loaded ore trains, and keep his shirt on," growls Old Hickory over his shoulder. "And 'phone Peabody, Frost & Co. to send up their railroad securities expert on the double quick."

That's the way it went from eleven A.M. until two-thirty, and all the lunch I indulged in was two bites of a cheese sandwich that Vincent split with me. At two-thirty-five Old Hickory jams on his hat and signals for me.