"And dinner, sir?"
"Dinner? Let's not worry about that as early in the morning as this."
He started to leave, but at the door turned again.
"If you should want me during the day, you'll find me at my office
with Carter, Rand & Seagraves. Better write that down."
"I will, sir."
"Good-day, Nora."
Don took the Subway this morning, in company with several hundred
thousand others for whom this was as much a routine part of their
daily lives as the putting on of a hat. He had seen all these people
coming and going often enough before, but never before had he felt
himself as coming and going with them. Now he was one of them. He did
not resent it. In fact, he felt a certain excitement about it. But it
was new--almost foreign.
It was with some difficulty that he found his way from the station to
his office. This so delayed him that he was twenty minutes late. Miss
Winthrop, who was hard at work when he entered, paused a second to
glance at the watch pinned to her dress.
"I'm only twenty minutes late," he apologized to her.
"A good many things can happen around Wall Street in twenty minutes,"
she answered.
"I guess I'll have to leave the house a little earlier."
"I'd do something to get here on time," she advised. "Out late last
night?"
"Not very. I was in bed a little after one."
"I thought so."
"Why?"
"You look it."
She brought the conversation to an abrupt end by resuming her work.
He wanted to ask her in just what way he looked it. He felt a bit
hollow; but that was because he hadn't breakfasted. His eyes, too,
were still a little heavy; but that was the result, not of getting to
bed late, but of getting up too early.
She, on the other hand, appeared fresher than she had yesterday at
noon. Her eyes were brighter and there was more color in her cheeks.
Don had never seen much of women in the forenoon. As far as he was
concerned, Frances did not exist before luncheon. But what experience
he had led him to believe that Miss Winthrop was an exception--that
most women continued to freshen toward night and were at their best at
dinner-time.
"Mr. Pendleton." It was Eddie. "Mr. Farnsworth wants to see you in his
office."
Farnsworth handed Don a collection of circulars describing some of the
securities the firm was offering.
"Better familiarize yourself with these," he said briefly. "If there
is anything in them you don't understand, ask one of the other men."
That was all. In less than three minutes Don was back again at
Powers's desk. He glanced through one of the circulars, which had to
do with a certain electric company offering gold bonds at a price to
net four and a half. He read it through once and then read it through
again. It contained a great many figures--figures running into the
millions, whose effect was to make twenty-five dollars a week shrink
into insignificance. On the whole, it was decidedly depressing
reading--the more so because he did not understand it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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