s the enormous mahogany desk
and explain to Una how much of a connoisseur he was in tennis,
fly-casting, the ordering of small, smart dinners at the Plaza.

He was fond of the word "smart."

"Rather smart poster, eh?" he would say, holding up the latest creation
of his genius--that is to say, of his genius in hiring the men who had
planned and prepared the creation.

Mr. Ross was as full of ideas as of elegance. He gave birth to ideas at
lunch, at "conferences," while motoring, while being refreshed with a
manicure and a violet-ray treatment at a barber-shop in the middle of
one of his arduous afternoons. He would gallop back to the office with
notes on these ideas, pant at Una in a controlled voice, "Quick--your
book--got a' idea," and dictate the outline of such schemes as the
Tranquillity Lunch Room--a place of silence and expensive food; the
Grand Arcade--a ten-block-long rival to Broadway, all under glass; the
Barber-Shop Syndicate, with engagement cards sent out every third week
to notify customers that the time for a hair-cut had come again. None of
these ideas ever had anything to do with assisting Mr. Pemberton in the
sale of soap, and none of them ever went any farther than being
outlined. Whenever he had dictated one of them, Mr. Ross would assume
that he had already made a million out of it, and in his quiet,
hypnotizing voice he would permit Una to learn what a great man he was.
Hitching his chair an inch nearer to her at each sentence, looking
straight into her eyes, in a manner as unboastful as though he were
giving the market price of eggs, he would tell her how J. Pierpont
Morgan, Burbank, or William Randolph Hearst had praised him; or how much
more he knew about electricity or toxicology or frogs or Java than
anybody else in the world.

Not only a priest, but a virtuoso of business was he, and Una's chief
task was to keep assuring him that he was a great man, a very great
man--in fact, as great as he thought he was. This task was, to the
uneasily sincere Una, the hardest she had ever attempted. It was worth
five dollars more a week than she had received from Troy Wilkins--it was
worth a million more!

She got confidence in herself from the ease with which she satisfied Mr.
Ross by her cold, canned compliments. And though she was often dizzied
by the whirling dynamo of Pemberton's, she was not bored by the routine
of valeting Mr. Ross in his actual work.... For Mr. Ross actually did
work now and t