New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Women white collar workers -- Fiction
Out of the mist of strange faces, blurred hordes of people who swaggered
up the office aisle so knowingly, and grinned at her when she asked
questions, individualities began to take form:
Miss Moynihan; the Jewish stenographer with the laughing lips and hot
eyes; the four superior older girls in a corner, the still more superior
girl lieutenant, and the office-manager, who was the least superior of
all; the telephone-girl; the office-boys; Mr. S. Herbert Ross and his
assistant; the managing editor; a motor magnate whose connection was
mysterious; the owner, a courteous, silent, glancing man who was
reported to be hard and "stingy."
Other people still remained unidentifiable to her, but the office
appeared smaller and less formidable in a month. Out of each nine
square feet of floor space in the office a novel might have been made:
the tale of the managing editor's neurotic wife; the tragedy of Chubby
Hubbard, the stupid young editor who had been a college football star,
then an automobile racer, then a failure. And indeed there was a whole
novel, a story told and retold, in the girls' gossip about each of the
men before whom they were so demure. But it was Walter Babson whom the
girls most discussed and in whom Una found the most interest.
On her first day in the office she had been startled by an astounding
young man who had come flying past her desk, with his coat off, his
figured waistcoat half open, his red four-in-hand tie askew under a
rolling soft collar. He had dashed up to the office-manager and
demanded, "Say! Say! Nat! Got that Kokomobile description copied for me
yet? Heh? Gawd! you're slow. Got a cigarette?" He went off, puffing out
cigarette smoke, shaking his head and audibly muttering, "Slow bunch,
werry." He seemed to be of Una's own age, or perhaps a year older--a
slender young man with horn-rimmed eye-glasses, curly black hair, and a
trickle of black mustache. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbow, and
Una had a secret, shamed, shivering thrill in the contrast of the
dead-white skin of his thin forearms with the long, thick, soft, black
hairs matted over them. They seemed at once feminine and acidly male.
"Crazy idiot," she observed, apparently describing herself and the
nervous young man together. But she knew that she wanted to see him
again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account