Coal mines and mining -- Fiction; Factories -- Fiction; Inventions -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
As luck would have it for Jimmy, the president of the Wentworth Glass
Company was not in the least busy at that particular moment. As a
matter of fact, he was waiting for an expected visit from his
daughter. It did not promise to be particularly pleasant, for she had
just telephoned him she was coming down to get a check he had only
that morning at breakfast told her she could not have.
All of which had made the company’s chief executive decide that he
would do no business that morning, for in his present perturbed state
of mind whatever business decisions he made probably would be
ill-advised. So when his secretary appeared with this unique tale of
an unknown youth who promised to tell him in five minutes how to
revolutionize completely his business, Mr. Wentworth welcomed the
diversion. He smiled quizzically, and directed Mr. Leffingwell Hope to
show the young man in at once.
“Mr. Wentworth will see you now,” said the secretary sourly,
reappearing at the little wooden gate.
“Thank you very much,” said Jimmy, rising with alacrity. He grinned at
Mr. Hope, but without a trace of triumph.
The secretary said nothing more, but led Jimmy past endless rows of
stenographers, down a long corridor, through two or three small
semiprivate offices, until at last they reached the very innermost
private office of the president himself.
With his hat clutched tightly in his hand and his heart beating so it
seemed about to smother him, Jimmy suddenly found himself facing a
large, flat-topped mahogany desk that stood in the center of the huge
office into which Mr. Hope had ushered him.
At the desk sat a gray-haired, slightly stout gentleman of about
sixty. His mustache was very long and almost snow-white. His skin was
clear and ruddy, and his eyes that smiled at Jimmy as he entered were
very kindly. Jimmy liked him at once, but he was afraid of him just
the same.
“This is the young man who wants to see you. He says his name is
Rand,” said Mr. Leffingwell Hope.
“Sit down, Mr. Rand.” The president indicated a chair. “What can I do
for you?”
Jimmy sat down. He expected Mr. Hope to take his departure, but
instead of leaving, the secretary went to a filing-cabinet and busied
himself at one of its drawers. Jimmy wondered if he dared ask him to
leave the room, and then decided he had better not. After all, he had
wanted to see this big business man, and here he was in his private
office, and Mr. Wentworth was waiting for him to begin telling his big
idea. He cleared his throat nervously. How would he begin? What was
the best thing to say first?
“You were fortunate, Mr. Rand,” the president’s quiet voice
interrupted his reverie. “I’m not busy just at this moment. But I will
be shortly.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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