DEAR SIR--
Don never had an opportunity to test his knowledge of the bonds
about which he had laboriously acquired so much information,
because within the next week all these offerings had been sold and
their places taken by new securities. These contained an entirely
different set of figures. It seemed to him that all his previous
work was wasted. He must begin over again; and, as far as he could
see, he must keep on beginning over again indefinitely. He felt
that Farnsworth had deprived him of an opportunity, and this had the
effect of considerably dampening his enthusiasm.
Then, too, during December and most of January Frances kept him very
busy. He had never seen her so gay or so beautiful. She was like a
fairy sprite ever dancing to dizzy music. He followed her in a sort of
daze from dinner to dance, until the strains of music whirled through
his head all day long.
The more he saw of her, the more he desired of her. In Christmas week,
when every evening was filled and he was with her from eight in the
evening until two and three and four the next morning, he would glance
at his watch every ten minutes during the following day. The hours
from nine to five were interminable. He wandered restlessly about the
office, picking up paper and circular, only to drop them after an
uneasy minute or two. The entire office staff faded into the
background. Even Miss Winthrop receded until she became scarcely more
than a figure behind a typewriter. When he was sent out by Farnsworth,
he made as long an errand of it as he could. He was gone an hour, or
an hour and a half, on commissions that should not have taken half the
time.
It was the week of the Moore cotillion that Miss Winthrop observed the
change in him. She took it to be a natural enough reaction and had
half-expected it. There were very few men, her observation had told
her, who could sustain themselves at their best for any length of
time. This was an irritating fact, but being a fact had to be
accepted. As a man he was entitled to an off day or two--possibly to
an off week.
But when the second and third and fourth week passed without any
notable improvement in him, Miss Winthrop became worried.
"You ought to put him wise," she ventured to suggest to Powers.
"I?" Powers had inquired.
"Well, he seems like a pretty decent sort," she answered indifferently.
"So he is," admitted Powers, with an indifference that was decidedly
more genuine than her own. It was quite clear that Powers's interest
went no further. He had a wife and two children and his own
ambitions.
For a long time she saw no more of him than she saw of Blake. He
nodded a good-morning when he came in, and then seemed to lose himself
until noon. Where he lunched she did not know. For a while she had
rather looked for him, and then, to cure herself of that, had changed
her own luncheon place. At night he generally hurried out early--a bad
practice in itself: at least once, Farnsworth had wanted him for
something after he was gone; he had made no comment, but it was the
sort of thing Farnsworth remembered. When, on the very next day, Mr.
Pendleton started home still earlier, it had required a good deal of
self-control on her part not to stop him. But she did not stop him.
For one thing, Blake was at his desk at the time.
It was a week later that Miss Winthrop was called into the private
office of Mr. Seagraves one afternoon. His own stenographer had been
taken ill, and he wished her to finish the day. She took half a dozen
letters, and then waited while Farnsworth came in for a confidential
consultation upon some business matters. It was as the latter was
leaving that Mr. Seagraves called him back.
"How is Pendleton getting along?" he inquired.
Miss Winthrop felt her heart stop for a beat or two. She bent over her
notebook to conceal the color that was burning her cheeks. For an
impersonal observer she realized they showed too much.
"I think he has ability," Farnsworth answered slowly. "He began well,
but he has let down a little lately."
"That's too bad," answered Mr. Seagraves. "I thought he would make a
good man for us."
"I can tell better in another month," Mr. Farnsworth answered.
"We need another selling man," declared Mr. Seagraves.
"We do," nodded Farnsworth. "I have my eye on several we can get if
Pendleton doesn't develop."
"That's good. Ready, Miss Winthrop."
The thing Miss Winthrop had to decide that night was whether she
should allow Mr. Pendleton to stumble on to his doom or take it upon
herself to warn him. She was forced to carry that problem home with
her, and eat supper with it, and give up her evening to it. Whenever
she thought of it from that point of view, she grew rebellious and
lost her temper. There was not a single sound argument why her time
and her thought should be thus monopolized by Mr. Pendleton.
She had already done what she could for him, and it had not amounted
to a row of pins. She had told him to go to bed at night, so that he
could get up in the morning fresh, and he had not done it. She had
advised him to hustle whenever he was on an errand for Farnsworth, and
of late he had loafed. She had told him to keep up to the minute on
the current investments the house was offering, and to-day he probably
could not have told even the names of half of them. No one could argue
that it was her duty to keep after him every minute--as if he belonged
to her.
And then, in spite of herself, her thoughts went back to the private
office of Mr. Seagraves. She recalled the expression on the faces of
the two men--an expression denoting only the most fleeting interest in
the problem of Mr. Pendleton. If he braced up, well and good; if he
did not, then it was only a question of selecting some one else. It
was Pendleton's affair, not theirs.
That was what every one thought except Pendleton himself--who did not
think at all, because he did not know. And if no one told him, then he
would never know. Some day Mr. Farnsworth would call him into the
office and inform him his services were no longer needed. He would
not tell him why, even if Don inquired. So, with everything almost
within his grasp, Pendleton would go. Of course, he might land another
place; but it was no easy thing to find the second opportunity, having
failed in the first.
Yet this was all so unnecessary. Mr. Pendleton had in him everything
Farnsworth wanted. If the latter could have heard him talk as she had
heard him talk, he would have known this. Farnsworth ought to send him
out of the office--let him get among men where he could talk. And that
would come only if Mr. Pendleton could hold on here long enough. Then
he _must_ hold on. He must cut out his late hours and return to his
old schedule. She must get hold of him and tell him. But how?
The solution came the next morning. She decided that if she had any
spare time during the day she would write him what she had to say.
When she saw him drift in from lunch at twenty minutes past one, she
took the time without further ado. She snatched a sheet of office
paper, rolled it into the machine, snapped the carriage into position,
and began.
MR. DONALD PENDLETON,
Care Carter, Rand & Seagraves,
New York, N.Y.
_Dear Sir_:--
Of course it is none of my business whether you get fired or not;
but, even if it isn't, I like to see a man have fair warning.
Farnsworth doesn't think that way. He gives a man all the rope he
wants and lets him hang himself. That is just what he's doing with
you. I had a tip straight from the inside the other day that if
you keep on as you have for the last six weeks you will last here
just about another month. That isn't a guess, either; it's right
from headquarters.
For all I know, this is what you want; but if it is, I'd rather
resign on my own account than be asked to resign. It looks better,
and helps you with the next job. Most men downtown have a
prejudice against a man who has been fired.
You needn't ask me where I got my information, because I won't
tell you. I've no business to tell you this much. What you want to
remember is that Farnsworth knows every time you get in from lunch
twenty minutes late, as you did to-day; and he knows when you get
in late in the morning, as you have eleven times now; and he knows
when you take an hour and a half for a half-hour errand, as you
have seven times; and he knows when you're in here half-dead, as
you've been all the time; and he knows what you don't know about
what you ought to know. And no one has to tell him, either. He
gets it by instinct.
So you needn't say no one warned you, and please don't expect me
to tell you anything more, because I don't know anything more. I
am,
Respectfully yours,
SARAH K. WINTHROP.
She addressed this to the Harvard Club, and posted it that night on
her way home. It freed her of a certain responsibility, and so helped
her to enjoy a very good dinner.