The Rules of the Game Read online

  III

  The winter wore away. Bob dragged himself out of bed every morning athalf-past six, hurried through a breakfast, caught a car--and hoped thatthe bridge would be closed. Otherwise he would be late at the office,which would earn him Harvey's marked disapproval. Bob could not see thatit mattered much whether he was late or not. Generally he had nothingwhatever to do for an hour or so. At noon he ate disconsolately at acheap saloon restaurant. At five he was free to go out among his ownkind--with always the thought before him of the alarm clock thefollowing morning.

  One day he sat by the window, his clean, square chin in his hand, hiseyes lost in abstraction. As he looked, the winter murk partednoiselessly, as though the effect were prearranged; a blue sky shonethrough on a glint of bluer water; and, wonder of wonders, there throughthe grimy dirty roar of Adams Street a single, joyful robin note flew upto him.

  At once a great homesickness overpowered him. He could see plainly thehalf-sodden grass of the campus, the budding trees, the red "gym"building, and the crowd knocking up flies. In a little while the shotputters and jumpers would be out in their sweaters. Out at Regents'Field the runners were getting into shape. Bob could almost hear thecreak of the rollers smoothing out the tennis courts; he could almostrecognize the voices of the fellows perching about, smell the fragrantreek of their pipes, savour the sweet spring breeze. The library clockboomed four times, then clanged the hour. A rush of feet from all therecitation rooms followed as a sequence, the opening of doors, themurmur of voices, occasionally a shout. Over it sounded the sharp,half-petulant advice of the coaches and the little trainer to theathletes. It was getting dusk. The campus was emptying. Through thetrees shone lights. And Bob looked up, as he had so often done before,to see the wonder of the great dome against the afterglow of sunset.

  Harvey was examining him with some curiosity.

  "Copied those camp reports?" he inquired.

  Bob glanced hastily at the clock. He had been dreaming over an hour.

  A little later Fox came in; and a little after that Harvey returnedbringing in his hand the copies of the camp reports, but instead oftaking them directly to Bob for correction, as had been his habit, helaid them before Fox. The latter picked them up and examined them. In amoment he dropped them on his desk.

  "Do you mean to tell me," he demanded of Harvey, "that _seventeen_ onlyran ten thousand? Why, it's preposterous! Saw it myself. It has ahalf-million on it, if there's a stick. Let's see Parsons's letter."

  While Harvey was gone, Fox read further in the copy.

  "See here, Harvey," he cried, "something's dead wrong. We never cut allthis hemlock. Why, hemlock's 'way down."

  Harvey laid the original on the desk. After a second Fox's face cleared.

  "Why, this is all right. There were 480,000 on _seventeen_. And thathemlock seems to have got in the wrong column. You want to be a littlemore careful, Jim. Never knew that to happen before. Weren't out withthe boys last night, were you?"

  But Harvey refused to respond to frivolity.

  "It's never happened before because I never let it happen before," hereplied stiffly. "There have been mistakes like that, and worse, inalmost every report we've filed. I've cut them out. Now, Mr. Fox, Idon't have much to say, but I'd rather do a thing myself than do it overafter somebody else. We've got a good deal to keep track of in thisoffice, as you know, without having to go over everybody else's worktoo."

  "H'm," said Fox, thoughtfully. Then after a moment, "I'll see about it."

  Harvey went back to the outer office, and Fox turned at once to Bob.

  "Well, how is it?" he asked. "How did it happen?"

  "I don't know," replied Bob. "I'm trying, Mr. Fox. Don't think it isn'tthat. But it's new to me, and I can't seem to get the hang of it rightaway."

  "I see. How long you been here?"

  "A little over four months."

  Fox swung back in his chair leisurely.

  "You must see you're not fair to Harvey," he announced. "That mancarries the details of four businesses in his head, he practically doesthe clerical work for them all, and he never seems to hurry. Also, hecan put his hand without hesitation on any one of these documents," hewaved his hand about the room. "I can't."

  He stopped to light the stub of a long-extinct cigar.

  "I can't make it hard for that sort of man. So I guess we'll have totake you out of the office. Still, I promised Welton to give you a goodtry-out. Then, too, I'm not satisfied in my own mind. I can see you aretrying. Either you're a damn fool or this college education racket hashad the same effect on you as on most other young cubs. If you're theson of your father, you can't be entirely a damn fool. If it's thecollege education, that will probably wear off in time. Anyhow, I thinkI'll take you up to the mill. You can try the office there. Collins iseasy to get on with, and of course there isn't the same responsibilitythere."

  In the buffeting of humiliation Bob could not avoid a fleeting innersmile over this last remark. Responsibility! In this sleepy, quietbackwater of a tenth-floor office, full of infinite little statisticsthat led nowhere, that came to no conclusion except to be engulfed indark files with hundreds of their own kind, aimless, useless, annoyingas so many gadflies! Then he set his face for the further remarks.

  "Navigation will open this week," Fox's incisive tones went on, "and ourhold-overs will be moved now. It will be busy there. We shall take theeight o'clock train to-night." He glanced sharply at Bob's lean, setface. "I assume you'll go?"

  Bob was remembering certain trying afternoons on the field when ascaptain, and later as coach, he had told some very high-spirited boyswhat he considered some wholesome truths. He was remembering the variousways in which they had taken his remarks.

  "Yes, sir," he replied.

  "Well, you can go home now and pack up," said Fox. "Jim!" he shot out inhis penetrating voice; then to Harvey, "Make out Orde's check."

  Bob closed his desk, and went into the outer office to receive hischeck. Harvey handed it to him without comment, and at once turned backto his books. Bob stood irresolute a moment, then turned away withoutfarewell.

  But Archie followed him into the hall.

  "I'm mighty sorry, old man," he whispered, furtively. "Did you get theG.B.?"

  "I'm going up to the mill office," replied Bob.

  "Oh!" the other commiserated him. Then with an effort to see the bestside, "Still you could hardly expect to jump right into the head officeat first. I didn't much think you could hold down a job here. You seethere's too much doing here. Well, good-bye. Good luck to you, old man."

  There it was again, the insistence on the responsibility, the activity,the importance of that sleepy, stuffy little office with its two men atwork, its leisure, its aimlessness. On his way to the car-line Bobstopped to look in at an open door. A dozen men were jumping truck loadsof boxes here and there. Another man in a peaked cap and a silesia coat,with a pencil behind his ear and a manifold book sticking out of hispocket shouted orders, consulted a long list, marked boxes and scribbledin a shipping book. Dim in the background huge freight elevators roseand fell, burdened with the mass of indeterminate things. Truck horses,great as elephants, magnificently harnessed with brass ornaments, drewdrays, big enough to carry a small house, to the loading platform wherethey were quickly laden and sent away. From an opened upper window camethe busy click of many typewriters. Order in apparent confusion, immenseactivity at a white heat, great movement, the clanging of the wheels ofcommerce, the apparition and embodiment of restless industry--theseappeared and vanished, darted in and out, were plain to be seen and werevague through the murk and gloom. Bob glanced up at the emblazoned sign.He read the firm's name of well-known wholesale grocers. As he crossedthe bridge and proceeded out Lincoln Park Boulevard two figures rose tohim and stood side by side. One was the shipping clerk in his peaked capand silesia coat, hurried, busy, commanding, full of responsibility; theother was Harvey, with his round, black skull cap, his great, gold-bowedspectacles, entering minutely, painstakingl
y, deliberately, his neatlittle figures in a neat, large book.