To Una and to Mr. Fein it seemed obvious that, since women have at least
half of the family decision regarding the purchase of suburban homes,
women salesmen of suburban property should be at least as successful as
men. But Mr. Truax had a number of "good, sound, conservative" reasons
why this should not be so, and therefore declined to credit the evidence
of Una, Beatrice Joline, and saleswomen of other firms that it really
was so.
Yet, after solving the Boutell office problem, Una was frequently
requisitioned by "Chas." to talk to women about the advantages of sites
for themselves and their children, while regular and intelligent (that
is, male) salesmen worked their hypnotic arts on the equally regular and
intelligent men of the families. Where formerly it had seemed an awesome
miracle, like chemistry or poetry, to "close a deal" and bring thousands
of dollars into the office, now Una found it quite normal.
Responsibility gave her more poise and willingness to take initiative.
Her salary was raised to thirty dollars a week. She banked two hundred
dollars of commissions, and bought a Japanese-blue silk negligée, a
wrist-watch, and the gown of black satin and net recommended by Miss
Joline. Yet officially she was still Mr. Truax's secretary; she took his
dictation and his moods.
Her greatest reward was in the friendship of the careful, diligent Mr.
Fein.
§ 2
She never forgot a dinner with Mr. Fein, at which, for the first time,
she heard a complete defense of the employer's position--saw the office
world from the stand-point of the "bosses."
"I never believed I'd be friendly with one of the capitalists," Una was
saying at their dinner, "but I must admit that you don't seem to want to
grind the faces of the poor."
"I don't. I want to wash 'em."
"I'm serious."
"My dear child, so am I," declared Mr. Fein. Then, apparently addressing
his mixed grill, he considered: "It's nonsense to say that it's just the
capitalists that ail the world. It's the slackers. Show me a man that we
can depend on to do the necessary thing at the necessary moment without
being nudged, and we'll keep raising him before he has a chance to ask
us, even."
"No, you don't--that is, I really think you do, Mr. Fein, personally,
but most bosses are so afraid of a big pay-roll that they deliberately
discourage their people till they lose all initiative. I don't know;
perhaps they're victims along with their employees. Just now I adore my
work, and I do think that business can be made as glorious a profession
as medicine, or exploring, or anything, but in most offices, it seems to
me, the biggest ideal the clerks have is _safety_--a two-family house on
a stupid street in Flatbush as a reward for being industrious. Doesn't
matter whether they _enjoy_ living there, if they're just secure. And
you do know--Mr. Truax doesn't, but you do know--that the whole office
system makes pale, timid, nervous people out of all the clerks--"
"But, good heavens! child, the employers have just as hard a time. Talk
about being nervous! Take it in our game. The salesman does the
missionary work, but the employer is the one who has to worry. Take some
big deal that seems just about to get across--and then falls through
just when you reach for the contract and draw a breath of relief. Or say
you've swung a deal and have to pay your rent and office force, and you
can't get the commission that's due you on an accomplished sale. And
your clerks dash in and want a raise, under threat of quitting, just at
the moment when you're wondering how you'll raise the money to pay them
their _present_ salaries on time! Those are the things that make an
employer a nervous wreck. He's got to keep it going. I tell you there's
advantages in being a wage-slave and having the wages coming--"
"But, Mr. Fein, if it's just as hard on the employers as it is on the
employees, then the whole system is bad."
"Good Lord! of course it's bad. But do you know anything in this world
that isn't bad--that's anywhere near perfect? Except maybe Bach fugues?
Religion, education, medicine, war, agriculture, art, pleasure,
_anything_--all systems are choked with clumsy, outworn methods and
ignorance--the whole human race works and plays at about ten-per-cent.
efficiency. The only possible ground for optimism about the human race
that I can see is that in most all lines experts are at work showing up
the deficiencies--proving that alcohol and war are bad, and consumption
and Greek unnecessary--and making a beginning. You don't do justice to
the big offices and mills where they have real efficiency tests, and if
a man doesn't make good in one place, they shift him to another."
"There aren't very many of them. In all the offices I've ever seen, the
boss's indigestion is the only test of employees."
"Yes, yes, I know, but that isn't the point. The point is that they are
making such tests--beginning to. Take the schools where they actually
teach future housewives to cook and sew as well as to read aloud. But,
of course, I admit the very fact that there can be and are such schools
and offices is a terrible indictment of the slatternly schools and
bad-tempered offices we usually do have, and if you can show up this
system of shutting people up in treadmills, why go to it, and good luck.
The longer people are stupidly optimistic, the longer we'll have to wait
for improvements. But, believe me, my dear girl, for every ardent
radical who says the whole thing is rotten there's ten clever
advertising-men who think it's virtue to sell new brands of soap-powder
that are no better than the old brands, and a hundred old codgers who
are so broken into the office system that they think they are perfectly
happy--don't know how much fun in life they miss. Still, they're no
worse than the adherents to any other paralyzed system. Look at the
comparatively intelligent people who fall for any freak religious system
and let it make their lives miserable. I suppose that when the world has
no more war or tuberculosis, then offices will be exciting places to
work in--but not till then. And meantime, if the typical business man
with a taste for fishing heard even so mild a radical as I am, he'd
sniff, 'The fellow don't know what he's talking about; everybody in all
the offices I know is perfectly satisfied.'"
"Yes, changes will be slow, I suppose, but that doesn't excuse bosses of
to-day for thinking they are little tin gods."
"No, of course it doesn't. But people in authority always do that. The
only thing we can do about it is for us, personally, to make our offices
as clean and amusing as we can, instead of trying to buy yachts. But
don't ever think either that capitalists are a peculiar race of fiends,
different from anarchists or scrubwomen, or that we'll have a millennium
about next election. We've got to be anthropological in our view. It's
taken the human race about five hundred thousand years to get where it
is, and presumably it will take quite a few thousand more to become
scientific or even to understand the need of scientific conduct of
everything. I'm not at all sure that there's any higher wisdom than
doing a day's work, and hoping the Subway will be a little less crowded
next year, and in voting for the best possible man, and then forgetting
all the _Weltschmertz_, and going to an opera. It sounds pretty raw and
crude, doesn't it? But living in a world that's raw and crude, all you
can do is to be honest and not worry."
"Yes," said Una.
She grieved for the sunset-colored ideals of Mamie Magen, for the fine,
strained, hysterical enthusiasms of Walter Babson, as an enchantment of
thought which she was dispelling in her effort to become a "good, sound,
practical business woman." Mr. Fein's drab opportunist philosophy
disappointed her. Yet, in contrast to Mr. Schwirtz, Mr. Truax, and
Chas., he was hyperbolic; and after their dinner she was gushingly happy
to be hearing the opportunist melodies of "Il Trovatore" beside him.
§ 3
The Merryton Realty Company had failed, and Truax & Fein were offered
the small development property of Crosshampton Hill Gardens at so
convenient a price that they could not refuse it, though they were
already "carrying" as many properties as they could easily handle. In a
characteristic monologue Mr. Truax asked a select audience, consisting
of himself, his inkwell, and Una, what he was to do.
"Shall I try to exploit it and close it out quick? I've got half a mind
to go back to the old tent-and-brass-band method and auction it off. The
salesmen have all they can get away with. I haven't even a good,
reliable resident salesman I could trust to handle it on the grounds."
"Let me try it!" said Una. "Give me a month's trial as salesman on the
ground, and see what I can do. Just run some double-leaded classified
ads. and forget it. You can trust me; you know you can. Why, I'll write
my own ads., even: 'View of Long Island Sound, and beautiful rolling
hills. Near to family yacht club, with swimming and sailing.' I know I
could manage it."
Mr. Truax pretended not to hear, but she rose, leaned over his desk,
stared urgently at him, till he weakly promised: "Well, I'll talk it
over with Mr. Fein. But you know it wouldn't be worth a bit more salary
than you're getting now. And what would I do for a secretary?"
"I don't worry about salary. Think of being out on Long Island, now that
spring is coming! And I'll find a successor and train her."
"Well--" said Mr. Truax, while Una took her pencil and awaited dictation
with a heart so blithe that she could scarcely remember the symbols for
"Yours of sixteenth instant received."