THE DUTY DEVOLVES
Ethel Clayton felt the assurance of wrongdoing on the part of the
superintendent of the Hapwood-Diller Company. Yet she could not tell
why nor how.
That the concern had been drawn into the Bogata affair by some trick
was without question. Mayberry’s look and words alone would have proved
that to her satisfaction.
She had a clear and particular remembrance of the circumstances
surrounding the receipt of the order from the Norville company,
Barton’s decision to refuse to fill it, his reason for so doing, and
all. The way in which she had shown the general manager how to refuse
the order without giving offence could not easily be forgotten.
Mr. Barton had said that the running of the factory on double time, or
crowding the shops with extra workmen, meant a distinct loss of profit
rather than a gain for the Hapwood-Diller Company. The factory was not
arranged for such increase of output. More than one concern has been
ruined by such false prosperity.
Here Mayberry was planning to put into execution exactly the plan
vetoed by the absent general manager’s good sense. Yet, knowing how the
contracts for their product stood, Ethel believed that such increase in
working hours would be necessary if the Bogata order was to be filled
on time.
There was a catch there. She felt it. She was convinced that the
superintendent had more knowledge of the subject than he was willing to
admit.
It all puzzled the girl. Why should Jim Mayberry be so determined to
balk Mr. Barton’s will? And in this particular instance?
As far as she had been able to see the superintendent had done nothing
in his conduct of the factory’s affairs which would have either
displeased Barton or was contrary to the latter’s methods. Why was the
superintendent so determined to favor the Bogata Company?
She remembered clearly that the general manager of the Hapwood-Diller
Company was positive of the irresponsibility of the Bogata people.
There was no gainsaying that. She was positive he had not changed his
mind, involving the destruction of the letter she had written and
Barton had signed, the removal of the carbon copy from the files, and
the filing of the schedule of the Bogata Company’s order.
No! she would not believe Frank Barton had done all that and said
nothing about it to either Mayberry or herself. Yet, if the manager
had not done it, _who had_?
Who would be benefited by such a favor to the Bogata people? It might
be actually disastrous to the Hapwood-Diller Company--and that thought
frightened Ethel.
She did not know what to do. That is, what to do to halt the line of
conduct Mayberry had plainly determined to follow. She figured up
the schedule for factory stock again. Between four and five thousand
dollars for special grade raw material, useless except to the Bogata
people, was included in it.
Knowing well how carefully Barton had watched the outlay for stock
for months--how narrow the line was between profit and loss in every
department indeed--Ethel quite realized that this single purchase would
make a very bad showing upon the books of the Hapwood-Diller Company,
unless the Bogata order was finished and was paid for.
If that contract was filled and was not paid for, a ruinous deficit
in supplies and labor cost would face the factory at the end of the
fiscal year. And in addition the general manager had assured her he
figured overtime work or an increase of help in the shops as positively
detrimental.
This order for stock and factory supplies was supposed to go out at
once. It was nearly time for John Murphy to make his last trip for the
day to the post-office. There was absolutely nothing to hold the order
back, and Mayberry, she knew, would take offence if the matter was
retarded.
It was true that five days must be wasted if Mr. Barton was communicated
with by mail. And that joker in the Bogata Company’s letter seemed to
be a barrier to any attempt to get out of fulfilling the contract at
this late day. Would it do any good to disturb Barton about the matter
at all now?
If she could only see him! If she could discuss the point with
him--tell him of her suspicions and fears. At least, some of her
suspicions. Ethel scarcely admitted to herself that she positively
identified the person guilty of juggling the letters and the Bogata
order sheets. Merely she felt certain that Frank Barton knew nothing
about it.
He should know. He must know before more harm was done.
The order for supplies was before her. She reached across the desk for
the envelope in which to enclose it and her stiff linen cuff caught in
the filigree work of the inkstand the office staff had presented to her.
It tottered. In another moment the catastrophe had occurred--a deluge
of blue fluid rolled across the desk and the papers on it.
Ethel sprang up to escape the drip from the top of the desk.
“Man overboard!” ejaculated Benway Chase, starting for the lavatory for
a towel with which to mop up the ink.
Little Skinner held the blotted order sheets gingerly by their corners,
to drip over Ethel’s wastebasket.
“Gee!” she said, hoarsely, “all them papers!”
“Those papers, Mabel,” admonished Ethel involuntarily.
For Mabel Skinner was like an actor afflicted with stammering in his
natural character; when once in his part and on the stage he never
stutters. So Mabel, nimble of wit, who was studying stenography at
a night school, hoping to work up to a better position with the
Hapwood-Diller Company, could take the small amount of dictation that
fell to her reasonably well and could transcribe it into fair English:
but she usually talked like a street gamin.
“They will have to be recopied, Mabel,” Ethel said quietly. “Josephine
has her hands full; will you do it for me?”
“Sure,” agreed Miss Skinner, shifting her gum. Then she cocked an
apprehensive eye at the clock. “I--I got a date to-night, Miss Clayton;
but I can go without supper----”
“I don’t wish you to finish it to-night, Mabel. Let me have it
completed sometime to-morrow forenoon.”
“I’m on,” said the girl, and bore away the streaked and blotted papers
to her machine.
John was called in to clean up the muss, and after a while Ethel could
resume her seat. Nothing of importance upon her desk had been spoiled
by the ink but the supply order sheets, and fortunately Jim Mayberry
did not come out of the private office until it was all over. It was
Ethel’s business to see that the order was promptly sent. It was her
fault that it was delayed.
Never before in her business experience had Ethel Clayton deliberately
done such a thing. She was acting upon her own initiative and in a way
that scarcely measured up to her ethical standards. Yet how should she
meet guile save with guile?
On the way home that evening Benway was bewailing the fact that Mr.
Barton was not in the office so that he could see how well he, Benway,
was fitting into the routine of the office.
“Even Mr. Mayberry admits I can do the work all right,” the boy said
hopefully. “He said as much yesterday. But I don’t like the fellow,
Ethel. I don’t like the way he looks at you.”
“‘A cat may look at a king’, Bennie,” she said lightly.
“But no dog like him should look at a queen, Ethel,” Benway Chase
retorted with a smile and a little sigh. “They are all tarred with the
same brush, Ethel. Every man that comes into the offices wants to hang
over your desk and palaver.”
“Hush, Ben! How you talk!” she exclaimed, a little flushed and annoyed.
“I declare I’ll have you sent out into the shipping room to work if you
watch me like that.”
“Pooh!” he laughed. “Is the honey at fault because the bees buzz around
it?”
“How poetical!” she scoffed. Yet she was secretly displeased. She did
not like to think that the men she met in business hours gave her more
attention than matters relating to business called for. The one man
whose admiration she would have been glad to secure had never, while he
was with them, shown any particular interest in her.
Ethel was too introspective for her own comfort.
She wondered all the evening if the thought that was budding in her
mind was germinated by her desire to see Frank Barton. Was it for
business reasons that she determined on her course? Or did she have
another and more personal desire to speak with the general manager of
the Hapwood-Diller Company, face to face?
However, she considered that the duty had devolved upon her to take
a drastic course. The order for new stock for the factory could be
delayed only forty-eight hours through the accident to the first draft
of the schedule. Instead of its reaching its destination on Saturday,
Ethel saw to it that it was not mailed until after noon on Saturday.
Therefore it would not be received by the dealer to whom it was
assigned until Monday. Meantime----
She astonished her mother on Saturday evening by announcing that she
proposed to go to Quehasset on the early train Sunday morning. By
this time the railroad was running excursion trains to the officers’
training camp on Saturdays and Sundays. Quehasset was becoming a
popular week-end resort.
“Not alone!” gasped Mrs. Clayton. “Never!”
“I’d like to know why not?” her daughter asked, rather tartly. “I’ve
been to Boston alone, and that’s farther.”
“But it won’t look right--all those men, Ethel. You know some of them,
too. There’s Mr. Barton!”
“I expect to see him,” declared the girl composedly.
“It--it doesn’t look right,” objected her mother more faintly.
“I’d like to know why not? I should hope I was old enough to go about
without a chaperon, or----”
“Let Benway go with you,” urged Mrs. Clayton, hurriedly.
But that was exactly what Ethel did not wish to do. Indeed, if
possible, she should have liked to keep the knowledge of her trip to
Quehasset from her mother. She hurried away early in the morning,
before most of the folk at that end of Burnaby Street were astir, and
boarded the train which stopped but a minute at the Mailsburg Station
at eight o’clock.
She noted, as she passed along the High Street to the station, that
more than the usual number of automobiles were abroad and most of
them headed for the Creek Road which was the first lap of the driving
highway to the training camp.
The Fuller car was one of these she saw. Helen was driving and her
mother and father sat in the tonneau. Her cousins gave Ethel Clayton
not the slightest notice, but she could not help being somewhat
disturbed by the thought that they were likewise bound for the training
camp and that they would see her there with Frank Barton. At any rate,
she hoped to arrive at the army camp first.