iceman in this
office. Have you got that article on 'Stealing Our National Water
Power' ready for me?"

"Mr. Gerrard took it back to make modifications. He gave it to me at
noon on Saturday, just before the office closed. I will have it
ready for you to-morrow morning, Mr. O'Mally, if you have not too
many letters for me this afternoon," Ardessa replied pointedly.

"Holy Mike!" muttered O'Mally, "we need a traffic policeman for the
staff, too. Gerrard's modified that thing half a dozen times
already. Why don't they get accurate information in the first
place?"

He began to dictate his morning mail, walking briskly up and down
the floor by way of giving his stenographer an energetic example.
Her indolence and her ladylike deportment weighed on him. He wanted
to take her by the elbows and run her around the block. He didn't
mind that she loafed when he was away, but it was becoming harder
and harder to speed her up when he was on the spot. He knew his
correspondence was not enough to keep her busy, so when he was in
town he made her type his own breezy editorials and various articles
by members of his staff.

Transcribing editorial copy is always laborious, and the only way to
make it easy is to farm it out. This Ardessa was usually clever
enough to do. When she returned to her own room after O'Mally had
gone out to lunch, Ardessa rang for an office boy and said
languidly, "James, call Becky, please."

In a moment a thin, tense-faced Hebrew girl of eighteen or nineteen
came rushing in, carrying a wire basket full of typewritten sheets.
She was as gaunt as a plucked spring chicken, and her cheap, gaudy
clothes might have been thrown on her. She looked as if she were
running to catch a train and in mortal dread of missing it. While
Miss Devine examined the pages in the basket, Becky stood with her
shoulders drawn up and her elbows drawn in, apparently trying to
hide herself in her insufficient open-work waist. Her wild, black
eyes followed Miss Devine's hands desperately. Ardessa sighed.

"This seems to be very smeary copy again, Becky. You don't keep your
mind on your work, and so you have to erase continually."

Becky spoke up in wailing self-vindication.

"It ain't that, Miss Devine. It's so many hard words he uses that I
have to be at the dictionary all the time. Look! Look!" She produced
a bunch of manuscript faintly scrawled in pencil, and thrust it
under Ardessa's eyes. "He don't write out the words at all