Part 15 (2/2)

So it was she altogether failed to see the dark young man who hurried after her eagerly, and who was stopped by a dozen welcoming hands there in the temple vestibule. He swore a deep inward ”d.a.m.n!” as he saw her straight, slim figure disappear down the steps and around the corner, even while he found himself saying, politely, ”Why, thanks! It's good to BE back.” And, ”Yes, things have changed. All but the temple, and Rabbi Thalmann.”

f.a.n.n.y left Winnebago at eight next morning.

CHAPTER NINE

”Mr. Fenger will see you now.” Mr. Fenger, general manager, had been a long time about it. This heel-cooling experience was new to f.a.n.n.y Brandeis. It had always been her privilege to keep others waiting.

Still, she felt no resentment as she sat in Michael Fenger's outer office. For as she sat there, waiting, she was getting a distinct impression of this unseen man whose voice she could just hear as he talked over the telephone in his inner office. It was characteristic of Michael Fenger that his personality reached out and touched you before you came into actual contact with the man. f.a.n.n.y had heard of him long before she came to Haynes-Cooper. He was the genie of that glittering lamp. All through the gigantic plant (she had already met department heads, buyers, merchandise managers) one heard his name, and felt the impress of his mind:

”You'll have to see Mr. Fenger about that.”

”Yes,”--pointing to a new conveyor, perhaps,--”that has just been installed. It's a great help to us. Doubles our s.h.i.+pping-room efficiency. We used to use baskets, pulled by a rope. It's Mr. Fenger's idea.”

Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. Fenger had made it a slogan in the Haynes-Cooper plant long before the German nation forced it into our everyday vocabulary. Michael Fenger was System. He could take a muddle of orders, a jungle of unfilled contracts, a horde of incompetent workers, and of them make a smooth-running and effective unit.

Untangling snarls was his pastime. Esprit de corps was his s.h.i.+bboleth.

Order and management his idols. And his war-cry was ”Results!”

It was eleven o'clock when f.a.n.n.y came into his outer office. The very atmosphere was vibrant with his personality. There hung about the place an air of repressed expectancy. The room was electrically charged with the high-voltage of the man in the inner office. His secretary was a spare, middle-aged, anxious-looking woman in snuff-brown and spectacles; his stenographer a blond young man, also spectacled and anxious; his office boy a stern youth in knickers, who bore no relation to the slangy, gum-chewing, redheaded office boy of the comic sections.

The low-pitched, high-powered voice went on inside, talking over the long-distance telephone. Fenger was the kind of man who is always talking to New York when he is in Chicago, and to Chicago when he is in New York. Trains with the word Limited after them were invented for him and his type. A buzzer sounded. It galvanized the office boy into instant action. It brought the anxious-looking stenographer to the doorway, notebook in hand, ready. It sent the lean secretary out, and up to f.a.n.n.y.

”Temper,” said f.a.n.n.y, to herself, ”or horribly nervous and high-keyed.

They jump like a set of puppets on a string.”

It was then that the lean secretary had said, ”Mr. Fenger will see you now.”

f.a.n.n.y was aware of a pleasant little tingle of excitement. She entered the inner office.

It was characteristic of Michael Fenger that he employed no cheap tricks. He was not writing as f.a.n.n.y Brandeis came in. He was not telephoning. He was not doing anything but standing at his desk, waiting for f.a.n.n.y Brandeis. As she came in he looked at her, through her, and she seemed to feel her mental processes laid open to him as a skilled surgeon cuts through skin and flesh and fat, to lay bare the muscles and nerves and vital organs beneath. He put out his hand. f.a.n.n.y extended hers. They met in a silent grip. It was like a meeting between two men. Even as he indexed her, f.a.n.n.y's alert mind was busy docketing, numbering, cataloguing him. They had in common a certain force, a driving power. f.a.n.n.y seated herself opposite him, in obedience to a gesture. He crossed his legs comfortably and sat back in his big desk chair. A great-bodied man, with powerful square shoulders, a long head, a rugged crest of a nose--the kind you see on the type of Englishman who has the imagination and initiative to go to Canada, or Australia, or America. He wore spectacles, not the fas.h.i.+onable horn-rimmed sort, but the kind with gold ear pieces. They were becoming, and gave a certain humanness to a face that otherwise would have been too rugged, too strong. A man of forty-five, perhaps.

He spoke first. ”You're younger than I thought.”

”So are you.”

”Old inside.”

”So am I.”

He uncrossed his legs, leaned forward, folded his arms on the desk.

”You've been through the plant, Miss Brandeis?”

”Yes. Twice. Once with a regular tourist party. And once with the special guide.” ”Good. Go through the plant whenever you can. Don't stick to your own department. It narrows one.” He paused a moment. ”Did you think that this opportunity to come to Haynes-Cooper, as a.s.sistant to the infants' wear department buyer was just a piece of luck, augmented by a little pulling on your part?”

”Yes.”

”It wasn't. You were carefully picked by me, and I don't expect to find I've made a mistake. I suppose you know very little about buying and selling infants' wear?”

”Less than about almost any other article in the world--at least, in the department store, or mail order world.”

”I thought so. And it doesn't matter. I pretty well know your history, which means that I know your training. You're young; you're ambitious, you're experienced; you're imaginative. There's no length you can't go, with these. It just depends on how farsighted your mental vision is.

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