Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; College graduates -- Fiction; Gangsters -- Fiction
"Now, be serious," she announced. "Let's look for something really good.
Here's somebody wants a finishing superintendent for a string music
instrument factory, and a business manager and electrical engineer in
this one. What's an efficiency expert?"
"Oh, he's a fellow who gums up the works, puts you three weeks behind in
less than a week and has all your best men resigning inside of a month.
I know, because my dad had one at his plant a few years ago."
The girl looked at him for a moment. "Your father is a business man?"
she asked, and without waiting for an answer, "Why don't you work for
him?"
It was the first reference that Jimmy had ever made to his connections
or his past.
"Oh," he said, "he's a long way off and--if I'm no good to any one here
I certainly wouldn't be any good to him."
His companion made no comment, but resumed her reading of the
advertisement before her:
WANTED, an Efficiency Expert--Machine works
wants man capable of thoroughly reorganizing large
business along modern lines, stopping leaks and
systematizing every activity. Call International
Machine Company, West Superior Street. Ask for
Mr. Compton.
"What do you have to know to be an efficiency expert?" asked the girl.
"From what I saw of the bird I just mentioned the less one knows about
anything the more successful he should be as an efficiency expert, for
he certainly didn't know anything. And yet the results from kicking
everybody in the plant out of his own particular rut eventually worked
wonders for the organization. If the man had had any sense, tact or
diplomacy nothing would have been accomplished."
"Why don't you try it?" asked the girl.
Jimmy looked at her with a quizzical smile. "Thank you," he said.
"Oh, I didn't mean it that way," she cried. "But from what you tell me
I imagine that all a man needs is a front and plenty of punch. You've
got the front all right with your looks and gift of gab, and I leave it
to Young Brophy if you haven't got the punch."
"Maybe that's not the punch an efficiency expert needs," suggested
Jimmy.
"It might be a good thing to have up his sleeve," replied the girl, and
then suddenly, "do you believe in hunches?"
"Sometimes," replied Jimmy.
"Well, this is a hunch, take it from me," she continued. "I'll bet you
can land that job and make good."
"What makes you think so?" asked Jimmy.
"I don't know," she replied, "but you know what a woman's intuition is."
"I suppose," said Jimmy, "that it's the feminine of hunch. But however
good your hunch or intuition may be it would certainly get a terrible
jolt if I presented myself to the head of the International Machine
Company in this scenery. Do you see anything about my clothes that
indicates efficiency?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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