Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle ManLewis, Sinclair
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Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man
Lewis, Sinclair
Courtship -- Fiction; Love stories; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Middle-aged men -- United States -- Fiction
“All right. We appreciate your work all right, but of course you can ’t
expect us to fire any of our present force just because you take the
notion to come back whenever you want to…. Hiking off to Europe,
leaving a good job!… You didn’t get on the Continent, did you?”
“No, I—”
“Well…. Oh, say, how’s the grub in London? Cheaper than it is here? The
wife was saying this morning we’d have to stop eating if the high cost
of living goes on going up.”
“Yes, it’s quite a little cheaper. You can get fine tea for two and
three cents a cup. Clothes is cheaper, too. But I don’t care much for
the English, though there is all sorts of quaint places with a real
flavor…. Say, Mr. Guilfogle, you know I inherited a little money, and I
can wait awhile, and you’ll kind of keep me in mind for a place if
one—”
“Didn’t I _say_ I would?”
“Yes, but—”
“You come around and see me a week from now. And leave your address
with Rosey. I don’t know, though, as we can afford to pay you quite the
same salary at first, even if we can work you in—the season’s been very
slack. But I’ll do what I can for you. Come in and see me in about a
week. Goo’ day.”
Rabin, the salesman, waylaid Mr. Wrenn in the corridor.
“You look kind of peeked, Wrenn. Old Goglefogle been lighting into you?
Say, I ought to have told you first. I forgot it. The old rat, he’s
been planning to stick the knife into you all the while. ’Bout two
weeks ago me and him had a couple of cocktails at Mouquin’s. You know
how chummy he always gets after a couple of smiles. Well, he was
talking about—I was saying you’re a good man and hoping you were having
a good time—and he said, ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘he’s a good man, but he sure
did lay himself wide open by taking this trip. I’ve got him dead to
rights,’ he says to me. ‘I’ve got a hunch he’ll be back here in three
or four months,’ he says to me. ‘And do you think he’ll walk in and get
what he wants? Not him. I’ll keep him waiting a month before I give him
back his job, and then you watch, Rabin,’ he says to me, ‘you’ll see
he’ll be tickled to death to go back to work at less salary than he was
getting, and he’ll have sense enough to not try this stunt of getting
off the job again after that. And the trip’ll be good for him,
anyway—he’ll do better work—vacation at his own expense—save us money
all round. I tell you, Rabin,’ he says to me, ‘if any of you boys think
you can get the best of the company or me you just want to try it,
that’s all.’ Yessir, that’s what the old rat told me. You want to watch
out for him.”
“Oh, I will; indeed I will—”
“Did he spring any of this fairy tale just now?”
“Well, kind of. Say, thanks, I’m awful obliged to—”
“Say, for the love of Mike, don’t let him know I told you.”
“No, no, I sure won’t.”
They parted. Eager though he was for the great moment of again seeing
his comrade, Charley Carpenter, Mr. Wrenn dribbled toward the
bookkeeping-room mournfully, planning to tell Charley of Guilfogle’s
wickedness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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