Part 4 (2/2)
”Get a lift every quarter, though, I suppose?” says I.
”I'm getting the same salary I began with, if that's what you mean,”
says he, tacklin' another sandwich that had got past the meat inspectors.
”Yours must be fatter'n most of the Sat.u.r.day prize packages they hand out in the general office, or you wouldn't have kept satisfied so long,”
says I.
He thinks that over for awhile, like it was a new proposition, and then he says, quiet and easy, ”I'm not at all sure, you see, that I am satisfied.”
”Why not chuck it then and make another grab?” says I. ”It's good luck sometimes to shake the bag.”
He swings his shoulders up at that,--and say, he's got a good pair, all right!--but he don't say a word.
”Ain't married the job, have you?” says I. ”Or have you lost your nerve?”
”Perhaps it's a lack of nerve, as you suggest,” says he, more as if he was talkin' to himself than anything else.
”Don't think you could connect with another, eh?” says I.
He shakes his head. ”I'm not exactly proud of the fact,” says he; ”but I don't mind telling you in confidence that it required the combined efforts of my entire family and all my friends to get me into this job.”
”Honest?” says I. ”Chee! They picked a pippin for you, didn't they?”
”It's a star,” says he.
”So's a swift kick from the bottom of a well,” says I.
With that I shakes off the pie crumbs and takes a chase up around the Flatiron, to watch the kids collectin' cigar coupons and take a look at the folks from the goshfry-mighty belt s.h.i.+verin' in the rubberneck buggies. Say, I never feel quite so much to home in this burg as when I watch them jays from the one-night stands payin' their coin to see things that I shut my eyes on every day.
When I gets back on the gate I tries to figure out this Mallory gent; but I can't place him. He's no Willie, and he's no dope, I can see that.
With his age and general get-up, though, he ought to be pullin' out fifty or so a week. What's he been at all this time?
I was just curious enough to stroll over and take a look at him. He has his coat off, pluggin' away on the job and doin' the kind of work that I could learn to play with any time I had a day off. Not that I'm lookin'
for it. Bein' head office boy suits me down to the ground. That's bein'
somethin', even if they do pay you off with a five and a one. But if you're a live one you'll get tipped as much more. And you don't have cold chills up the spine every time the boss lugs down an after breakfast grouch.
Course, a duck like Mallory can't get in any such game; so he's got to dig away at the filin' case and wear his last summer's suit until Christmas. Diggin' and keepin' quiet seemed to be his only play. Just as though he'd ever win any medals by the way he stacked papers away in little pasteboard boxes!
He wins somethin' else, though. One day the general manager rushes into Mallory's corner after somethin' he wanted in a hurry, and by the time he'd found it he'd pied things from one end of the coop to the other.
Mallory was just tryin' to straighten out the mess, when along comes Piddie, with that pointed nose of his in front. Piddie don't ask any questions; he throws a fit. Why, he had Mallory on the carpet for forty minutes by the clock, givin' him the grand roast, and the only time Mallory opens up to tell him how it was he shuts him off with a, ”That is sufficient, Mr. Mallory! I am here to get results, not excuses. Is that quite clear?”
”Yes, sir,” says Mallory.
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