GINGERING-UP THE ADMIRALTY
"Boss in?"
Mr. Blair started violently; he had not heard John Dene enter his room.
"Er--yes, Mr. Dene," he replied, "I'll tell him." He half rose; but
before he could complete the movement John Dene had opened the door
communicating with Sir Lyster's private room.
Mr. Blair sank back in his chair. He was a man who assimilated
innovation with difficulty. All his life he had been cradled in the
lap of "as it was in the beginning." He was a vade-mecum on procedure
and the courtesies of life, which made him extremely valuable to Sir
Lyster. He was a gentle zephyr, whereas John Dene was something
between a sudden draught and a cyclone.
Mr. Blair fixed his rather prominent blue eyes on the door that had
closed behind John Dene. He disliked colonials. They always said what
they meant, and went directly for what they wanted, all of which was in
opposition to his standard of good-breeding.
As he continued to gaze at the door, it suddenly opened and John Dene's
head appeared.
"Say," he cried, "if that yellow-headed girl comes, send her right in,"
and the door closed with a bang.
Inwardly Mr. Blair gasped; it was not customary for yellow-haired girls
to be sent in to see the First Lord.
"The difference between this country and Can'da," remarked John Dene,
as he planted upon Sir Lyster's table a large, shapeless-looking
parcel, from which he proceeded to remove the wrapping, "is that here
every one wants to know who your father was; but in Can'da they ask
what can you do. I got that pound of tea," he added inconsequently.
"The pound of tea!" repeated Sir Lyster uncomprehendingly, as he
watched John Dene endeavouring to extract a packet from his pocket with
one hand, and undo the string of the parcel with the other.
"Yes, for that yellow-headed girl. I ran into her in the corridor and
smashed her teapot yesterday. I promised I'd get her some more tea.
Here it is;" and John Dene laid the package on the First Lord's table.
"If she comes after I'm gone, you might give it to her. I told her to
run in here and fetch it. This is the pot," he added, still struggling
with the wrappings.
Presently he disinterred from a mass of paper wound round it in every
conceivable way, a large white, pink and gold teapot.
Sir Lyster gazed from the teapot, terrifying in the crudeness of its
shape and design, to John Dene and back again to the teapot.
"Like it?" asked John Dene, as he looked admiringly at his purchase.
"Ought to cheer those girls up some."
Sir Lyster continued to gaze at the teapot as if fascinated.
"I told her to run in here and fetch it," continued John Dene,
indicating the packet of tea. "She doesn't know about the pot," he
added with self-satisfaction.
"In here," repeated Sir Lyster, unwilling to believe his ears.
"Sure," replied John Dene, his eyes still fixed admiringly upon the
teapot, "at eleven o'clock. It's that now," he added, looking at his
watch.
As he did so Mr. Blair entered and closed the door behind him. He was
obviously embarrassed.
"A young person----" he began.
"Send her right in," cried John Dene.
Mr. Blair glanced uncertainly from Sir Lyster to John Dene, then back
again to his chief. Seeing no contradiction in his eye, he turned and
held open the door to admit Dorothy West.
"Ah! here you are," cried John Dene, rising and indicating that the
girl should occupy his chair. "There's your pound of tea," pointing to
the package lying before Sir Lyster, "and there's a new teapot for
you," he added, indicating that object, which seemed to flaunt its pink
and white and gold as if determined to brazen things out.
The girl looked at the teapot, at Sir Lyster and on to John Dene, and
back to the teapot. Then she laughed. She had pretty teeth, John Dene
decided.
"It's very kind of you," she said, "but there wasn't a pound of tea in
the teapot you broke yesterday, and--and----"
"Never mind," said John Dene, "you can keep the rest. Now see here, I
want someone to take down my letters. You're a stenographer?" he asked.
The girl nodded her head.
"Speeds?" enquired John Dene.
"A hundred and twenty----" was the response.
"Typing?"
"Sixty-five words----"
"You'll do," said John Dene with decision. "In future you'll do my
work only. Nine o'clock, every morning."
The girl looked enquiringly at Sir Lyster, who coughed slightly.
"We will take up your references, Miss--er----"
"Oh! cut it out," said John Dene impatiently, "I don't want references."
"But," replied Sir Lyster, "this is work of a confidential nature.".
"See here," cried John Dene. "I started life selling newspapers in
T'ronto. I never had a reference, I never gave a reference and I never
asked a reference, and the man who can get ahead of John Dene had
better stay up all night for fear of missing the buzzer in the morning.
That girl's straight, else she wouldn't be asked to do my letters," he
added. "Now, don't you wait," he said to Dorothy, seeing she was
embarrassed at his remark; "nine o'clock to-morrow morning."
"I think it will be necessary to take up references," began Sir Lyster
as John Dene closed the door on Dorothy.
John Dene span round on his heel. "I run my business on Canadian
lines, not on British," he cried. "If you're always going to be around
telling me what to do, then I'll see this country to hell before they
get my _Destroyer_. The man who deals with John Dene does so on his
terms," and with that he left the room, closing the door with a bang
behind him.
For a moment he stood gazing down at Mr. Blair. "Can you tell me," he
asked slowly, "why the British Empire has not gone to blazes long ago?"
Mr. Blair gazed at him, mild surprise in his prominent eyes.
"I am afraid I don't--I cannot----" he began.
"Neither can I," said John Dene. "You're all just about as cute as
dead weasels."
John Dene walked along the corridor and down the staircase in high
dudgeon.
"Ha! Mr. Dene, what's happened?" enquired Sir Bridgman, who was
mounting the stairs as John Dene descended.
"I've been wondering how it is the British Empire has hung together as
long as it has," was the response.
"What have we been doing now?" enquired Sir Bridgman.
"It's my belief," remarked John Dene, "that in this country you
wouldn't engage a janitor without his great-grandmother's
birth-certificate."
"I'm afraid we are rather a prejudiced nation," said Sir Bridgman
genially.
"I don't care a cousin Mary what you are," responded John Dene, "so
long as you don't come up against me. I'm out to win this war; it
doesn't matter to me a red cent who's got the most grandmothers, and
the sooner you tell the First Lord and that prize seal of his, the
better we shall get on;" and John Dene abruptly continued on his way.
Sir Bridgman smiled as he slowly ascended the stairs.
"I suppose," he murmured, "we are in the process of being gingered-up."
The rest of the day John Dene devoted to sight-seeing and wandering
about the streets, keenly interested in and critical of all he saw.
The next morning he was at the Admiralty a few minutes to nine, and was
conducted by an attendant to the room that had been assigned to him.
He gave a swift glance round and, apparently satisfied that it would
suit his purpose, seated himself at the large pedestal table and took
out his watch. As he did so, he noticed an envelope addressed to him
lying on the table. Picking it up he tore off the end, extracted and
read the note. Just as he had finished there came a tap at the door.
"Come," he called out.
The door opened and Dorothy West entered, looking very pretty and
business-like with a note-book and pencil in her hand.
"Good morning," she said.
"Mornin', Miss West," he replied, gazing at her apparently without
seeing her. He was obviously thinking of something else.
She seated herself beside his table and looked up, awaiting his signal
to begin the day's work.
"There are some things in this country that get my goat," he remarked.
John Dene threw down the letter he was reading, twirled the cigar
between his lips and snorted his impatience, as he jumped from his
chair and proceeded to stride up and down the room.
"There are quite a lot that get mine," she remarked demurely, as she
glanced up from her note-book.
"A lot that get yours," he repeated, coming to a standstill and looking
down at her.
"Things that get my goat." There was the slightest possible pause
between the "my" and the "goat."
Then John Dene smiled. In Toronto it was said that when John Dene
smiled securities could always be trusted to mount at least a point.
"Well, listen to this." He picked up the letter again and read:
"DEAR MR. DENE,--
"Sir Lyster desires me to write and express it as his most urgent wish
that you will pay special regard to your personal safety. He fears
that you may be inclined to treat the matter too lightly, hence this
letter.
"Yours truly,
"REGINALD BLAIR."
"If that chap hadn't such a dandy set of grandmothers and first
cousins, he'd be picking up cigarette-stubs instead of wasting his time
telling me what I knew a year ago."
"But he's only carrying out Sir Lyster's instructions," suggested
Dorothy.
"There's something in that," he admitted grudgingly, "but if they're
going to be always running around warning me of danger I know all
about----" He broke off. "Why," he continued a moment later, "I was
shot at on the steamer, nearly hustled into the docks at Liverpool, set
on by toughs in Manchester and followed around as if I was a bell-mule.
I tell you it gets my goat. This country wants gingering-up." John
Dene continued his pacing of the room.
"Couldn't you wear a red beard and blue glasses and----"
"What's that?" John Dene span round and fixed his eyes on the girl.
"I mean disguise yourself," said Dorothy, dropping her eyes beneath his
gaze.
"Why?" The interrogation was rapped out in such a tone as to cause the
girl to shrink back slightly.
"They wouldn't know and then it wouldn't----" she hesitated.
"Wouldn't what?" he demanded.
"Get your goat," said Dorothy after a moment's hesitation.
He continued to gaze intently at Dorothy, who was absorbed in a blank
page of her note-book.
"Here, take this down;" and he proceeded to dictate.
"MY DEAR MR. BLAIR,--
"I am in receipt of yours of to-day's date. Will you tell Sir Lyster
that I have bought a machine-gun, a blue beard, false eyebrows, and
Miss West and I are going to do bayonet drill every morning with a
pillow.
"With kind regards,
"Yours sincerely."
For a few moments Dorothy sat regarding her book with knitted brows.
"I don't think I should send that, if I were you, Mr. Dene," she said
at length.
"Why not?" he demanded, unaccustomed to having his orders questioned.
"It sounds rather flippant, doesn't it?"
John Dene smiled grimly, and as he made no further comment, Dorothy
struck out the letter from her note-book.
All through the morning John Dene threw off letters. The way in which
he did his dictating reminded Dorothy of a retriever shaking the water
from its coat after a swim. He hurled short, sharp sentences at her,
as if anxious to be rid of them. Sometimes he would sit hunched up at
his table, at others he would spring up and proceed feverishly to pace
about the room.
As she filled page after page of her note-book, Dorothy wondered when
she would have an opportunity of transcribing her notes. Hour after
hour John Dene dictated, in short bursts, interspersed with varying
pauses, during which he seemed to be deep in thought. Once Sir
Bridgman looked in, and Dorothy had a space in which to breathe; but
with the departure of the First Sea Lord the torrent jerked forth
afresh.
At two o'clock Dorothy felt that she must either scream or faint. Her
right hand seemed as if it would drop off. At last she suggested that
even Admiralty typists required lunch. In a flash John Dene seemed to
change into a human being, solicitous and self-reproachful.
"Too bad," he said, as he pulled out his watch. "Why, it's a quarter
after two. You must be all used up. I'm sorry."
"And aren't you hungry as well, Mr. Dene?" she asked, as she closed her
note-book and rose.
"Hungry!" he repeated as if she had asked him a surprising question.
"I've no use for food when I'm hustling. Where do you go for lunch?"
"I go to a tea-shop," said Dorothy after a moment's hesitation.
"And what do you eat?" demanded John Dene, with the air of a
cross-examining counsel.
"Oh, all sorts of things," she laughed; "buns and eggs and--and----"
"That's no good," was the uncompromising rejoinder.
"They're really quite nourishing," she said with a smile. At the
Admiralty it was not customary for the chiefs to enquire what the
typists ate.
"You'd better come with me and have a good meal," he said bluntly,
reaching for his hat.
Dorothy flushed. The implication was too obvious to be overlooked.
Drawing herself up slightly, and with her head a little thrown back,
she declined.
"I'm afraid I have an engagement," she said coldly.
John Dene looked up, puzzled to account for her sudden hauteur. He
watched her leave the room, and then, throwing down his hat, reseated
himself at his table and once more became absorbed in his work.
Dorothy went to the Admiralty staff-restaurant and spent a week's lunch
allowance upon her meal. It seemed to help her to regain her
self-respect. When she returned to John Dene's room some forty minutes
later, determined to get some of her notes typed before he returned,
she found him still sitting at his table. As she entered he took out
his watch, looked at it and then up at her. Dorothy crimsoned as if
discovered in some illicit act. She was angry with herself for her
weakness and with John Dene--why, she could not have said.
"You've been hustling some," he remarked, as he returned the watch to
his pocket.
"We've both been quick," said Dorothy, curious to know if John Dene had
been to lunch.
"Oh, I stayed right here," he said, still gazing up at her.
Dorothy felt rebuked. He had evidently felt snubbed, she told herself,
and it was her fault that he had remained at work.
"See here," said John Dene, "I can't breathe in this place. It's all
gold braid and brass buttons. I'm going to rent my own offices, and
have lunch sent in and we'll get some work done. You can get a rest or
a walk about three. I don't like breaking off in the midst of things,"
he added, a little lamely, Dorothy thought.
"Very well, Mr. Dene," she said, as she resumed her seat.
"Do you mind? Say right out if you'd hate it." There was a suspicion
of anxiety in his tone.
"I'm here to do whatever you wish," she said with dignity.
With a sudden movement John Dene sprang up and proceeded to pace up and
down the room.
From time to time he glanced at Dorothy, who sat pencil and note-book
ready for the flood of staccatoed sentences that usually accompanied
these pacings to and fro. At length he came to a standstill in the
middle of the room, planted his feet wide apart as if to steady the
resolution to which he had apparently come.
"Say, what's all this worth to you?" he blurted out.
Dorothy looked up in surprise, not grasping his meaning.
"Worth to me?" she queried, her head on one side, the tip of her pencil
resting on her lower lip.
"Yes; what do they pay you?"
"Oh! I see. Thirty-five shillings a week and, if I become a
permanent, a pension when I'm too old to enjoy it," she laughed. "That
is if the Hun hasn't taken us over by then."
"That'll be about nine dollars a week," mumbled John Dene, twisting his
cigar round between his lips. "Well, you're worth twenty dollars a
week to me, so I'll make up the rest."
"I'm quite satisfied, thank you," she said, drawing herself up slightly.
"Well, I'm not," he blurted out. "You're going to work well for me,
and you're going to be well paid."
"I'm afraid I cannot accept it," she said firmly, "although it's very
kind of you," she added with a smile.
He regarded her in surprise. It was something new to him to find
anyone refusing an increase in salary. His cigar twirled round with
remarkable rapidity.
"I suppose I'm getting his goat," thought Dorothy, as she watched him
from beneath lowered lashes.
"Why won't you take it?" he demanded.
"I'm afraid I cannot accept presents," she said with what she thought a
disarming smile.
"Oh, shucks!" John Dene was annoyed.
"If the Admiralty thought I was worth more than thirty-five shillings a
week, they would pay me more."
"Well, I'm not going to have anyone around that doesn't get a living
wage," he announced explosively.
"Does that mean that I had better go?" she inquired calmly.
"No, it doesn't. You just stay right here till I get back," was the
reply, and he opened the door and disappeared, leaving Dorothy with the
conviction that someone was to suffer because, in John Dene's opinion,
she was inadequately paid.
As she waited for John Dene's return, she could not keep her thoughts
from what an extra forty-five shillings a week would mean to her. She
could increase the number and quality of the little "surprises" she
took home with her to the mother in whose life she bulked so largely.
Peaches could be bought without the damning prefix "tinned"; salmon
without the discouraging modification "Canadian"; eggs that had not
long since forgotten what hen had laid them and when. She could take
her more often to a theatre, or for a run in a taxi when she was tired.
In short, a hundred and seventeen pounds a year would buy quite a lot
of rose-leaves with which to colour her mother's life.
Whilst Dorothy was building castles in Spain upon a foundation of
eleven dollars a week, John Dene walked briskly along the corridor
leading to Sir Lyster's room. Mr. Blair was seated at his desk reading
with calm deliberation and self-evident satisfaction a letter he had
just written for Sir Lyster to one of his constituents. He had devoted
much time and thought to the composition, as it was for publication,
and he was determined that no one should find in it flaw or ambiguity.
The morning had been one of flawless serenity, and he was looking
forward to a pleasant lunch with some friends at the Berkeley.
"Here, what the hell do you mean by giving that girl only nine dollars
a week?"
Suddenly the idyllic peaceful ness of his mood was shattered into a
thousand fragments. John Dene had burst into the room with the force
of a cyclone, and stood before him like an accusing fury.
"Nine dollars a week! What girl?" he stuttered, looking up weakly into
John Dene's angry eyes. "I--I----"
"Miss West," was the retort. "She's getting nine dollars a week, less
than I pay an office boy in T'ronto."
"But I--it's nothing to do with me," began Mr. Blair miserably. He had
become mortally afraid of John Dene, and prayed for the time to come
when the Hun submarine menace would be ended, and John Dene could
return to Toronto, where no doubt he was understood and appreciated.
"Well, it ought to be," snapped John Dene, just as Sir Bridgman North
came out of Sir Lyster's room.
"Good morning, Mr. Dene," he cried genially. "What are you doing to
poor Blair?"
John Dene explained his grievance. "I'd pay the difference myself,
just to make you all feel a bit small, only she won't take it from me."
"Well, I think I can promise that the matter shall be put right, and
we'll make Blair take her out to lunch by way of apology, shall we?" he
laughed.
"I'd like to see him ask her," said John Dene grimly. "That girl's a
high-stepper, sir. Nine dollars a week!" he grumbled as he left the
room to the manifest relief of Mr. Blair.
"You're being gingered-up, Blair," said Sir Bridgman; "in fact, we're
all being gingered-up. It's a bit surprising at first; but it's a
great game played slow. You'll get to like it in time, and it's all
for the good of the British Empire."
Mr. Blair smiled weakly as Sir Bridgman left the room; but in his heart
he wished it were possible to have a sentinel outside his door, with
strict injunctions to bayonet John Dene without hesitation should he
seek admittance.
"I've fixed it," announced John Dene, as he burst in upon Dorothy's day
dream. "You'll get twenty dollars in future."
She looked up quickly. "You're very kind, Mr. Dene," she said, "but is
it--is it----?" she hesitated.
"It's a square deal. I told them you wouldn't take it from me, and
that I wasn't going to have my secretary paid less than an office boy
in T'ronto. I gingered 'em up some. Nine dollars a week for you!"
The tone in which the last sentence was uttered brought a slight flush
to Dorothy's cheeks.
"Now you can get on," he announced, picking up his hat. "I'm going to
find offices;" and he went out like a gust of wind.
Dorothy typed steadily on. Of one thing she had become convinced, that
the position of secretary to John Dene of Toronto was not going to
prove a rest-billet.
At a little after four Marjorie Rogers knocked at the door and,
recognising Dorothy's "Come in," entered stealthily as if expecting
someone to jump out at her.
"Where's the bear, Wessie?" she enquired, keeping a weather eye on the
door in case John Dene should return.
"Gone out to buy bear-biscuits," laughed Dorothy, leaning back in her
chair to get the kink out of her spine.
"Do you think he'll marry you?" enquired the little brunette
romantically, as she perched herself upon John Dene's table and swung a
pretty leg. "They don't usually, you know."
"He'll probably kill you if he catches you," said Dorothy.
"Oh, if he comes I'm here to ask if you would like some tea," was the
airy reply.
"You angel!" cried Dorothy. "I should love it."
"Has he tried to kiss you yet?" demanded the girl, looking at Dorothy
searchingly.
"Don't be ridiculous," cried Dorothy, conscious that she was flushing.
"I see he has," she said, regarding Dorothy judicially and nodding her
head wisely.
Dorothy re-started typing. It was absurd, she decided, to endeavour to
argue with this worldly child of Whitehall.
"They're all the same," continued Marjorie, lifting her skirt slightly
and gazing with obvious approval at the symmetry of her leg. "You
didn't let him, I hope," continued the girl. "You see, it makes it bad
for others." Then a moment later she added, "It should be chocs.
before kisses, and they've got to learn the ropes."
"And you, you little imp, have got to learn morals." Dorothy laughed
in spite of herself at the quaint air of wisdom with which this girl of
eighteen settled the ethics of Whitehall.
"What's the use of morals?" cried the girl. "I mean morals that get in
the way of your having a good time. Of course I wouldn't----" She
paused.
"Never mind what you wouldn't do, Brynhilda the Bold," said Dorothy,
"but concentrate on the woulds, and bring me the tea you promised."
The girl slipped off the table and darted across the room, returning a
few minutes later with a cup of tea and a few biscuits.
"I can't stop," she panted. "Old Goggles has been giving me the bird;"
and with that she was gone.
It was a quarter to seven before John Dene returned. Without a word he
threw his hat on the bookcase and seated himself at his table. For the
next quarter of an hour he was absorbed in reading the lists and
letters Dorothy had typed. At seven o'clock Dorothy placed the last
list on the table before him.
"Is there anything more, Mr. Dene?" she enquired. She was conscious of
feeling inexpressibly weary.
"Yes," said John Dene, without looking up. "You're coming out to have
some dinner."
"I'm afraid I can't, thank you," she said. "My mother is waiting."
"Oh shucks!" he cried, looking up quickly.
"But it isn't!" she said wearily.
"Isn't what?" demanded John Dene.
"Shucks!" she said; then, seeing the absurdity of the thing, she
laughed.
"We'll send your mother an express message or a wire. You look dead
beat." He smiled and Dorothy capitulated. It would be nice, she told
herself, not to have to go all the way to Chiswick before having
anything to eat.
"But where are you taking me, Mr. Dene?" enquired Dorothy, as they
turned from Waterloo Place into Pall Mall.
"To the Ritzton."
"But I'm--I'm----" she stopped dead.
"What's wrong?" he demanded, looking at her in surprise.
"I--I can't go there," she stammered. "I'm not dressed for----" She
broke off lamely.
"That'll be all right," he said. "It's my hotel."
"It may be your hotel," said Dorothy, resuming the walk, "but I don't
care to go there in a blouse and a skirt to be stared at."
"Who'll stare at you?"
"Not at me, at my clothes," she corrected.
"Then we'll go to the grill-room," he replied with inspiration.
"That might be----" She hesitated.
"You're not going home until you have something to eat," he announced
with determination. "You look all used up," he added.
Dorothy submitted to the inevitable, conscious of a feeling of content
at having someone to decide things for her. Suddenly she remembered
Marjorie Rogers' remarks. What was she doing? If any of the girls saw
her they would---- She had done the usual thing, sent a telegram to
her mother to say she should be late, and was dining out with her chief
on the first day---- Oh! it was horrible.
"Would you--would you?"--she turned to John Dene appealingly,--"would
you mind if I went home," she faltered. "I'm not feeling--very well."
She gulped out the last words conscious of the lie.
"Why sure," he said solicitously. "I'm sorry."
To her infinite relief he hailed a taxi.
"I'll come along and see you safe," he announced in a matter-of-fact
tone.
"Oh, please no," she cried, "I'd much sooner----" She broke off
distressed.
Without a word he handed her into the taxi.
"Where am I to tell him?" he enquired.
"Douglas Mansions, Chiswick, please," gasped Dorothy, and she sank back
in the taxi with a feeling that she had behaved very ridiculously.