forever remote. As a result it is a shock to awake some morning and find that the distant future has suddenly become the immediate present. It is like a foolish rumor about a lion in the district, which no one takes seriously until the beast springs at you from behind a lilac bush.
The wedding rehearsal was scheduled for five-thirty. Mr. Banks set out for the office exhibiting a nonchalance that he did not feel. Yes, of course, he would take the three-ten from town. There was nothing to get so excited about. Beneath the surface, however, he was distinctly nervous. He felt like a man moving beneath powerful floodlights.
The floodlight operator must have been off duty during his trip to town, however. The same apathetic faces greeted him at the station with the same apathetic comments about the weather, their health, or their lack of it. As the train pulled out of Fairview Manor, Reggie Fry lurched into the seat beside him and spent three stations describing an intricate realestate deal in the course of which he had outwitted and discomfited the best brains in the business. Mr. Banks could stand it no longer.
“My daughter’s getting married tomorrow,” he said simply.
“Really?” said Mr. Fry. “Didn’t know you had a daughter. Time flies, eh? I hope she’s got a place to live after she’s married. It’s a bad situation. Getting worse. The Real-Estate Board put out some interesting figures about it in their last bulletin. I’ve got it here somewhere. Here it is. Now just let me read you these few paragraphs. This is on the volume of building of one-family homes in the mid-continent states during the first quarter.”
Mr. Banks shuddered and gave himself up to his thoughts.
He would have found it hard to describe just what he expected when he arrived at the office. Obviously he had not anticipated organized cheering as he came in the door, yet it depressed him to have Miss Rooney nod to him from the switchboard and say, “Morning-MrBanksnicemorning,” just as she did on the other three hundred working days of the year.
“Now just let me read you these few paragraphs. ”
Even his partners failed to grasp the significance of current events. As each one drifted into Mr. Banks’ office during the morning he offered some fatuous remark about not falling down in the aisle or trying to bend over in his cutaway. Then, having made their concessions to the trivia of life, they concentrated on the task of dumping on his desk every unanswerable and boring problem they could dig out of their pending files. They reminded Mr. Banks of executives cleaning out their desks before leaving for their summer vacations.
During the moments when his partners were not bedeviling him the outside world took up the torch. The cream of the dullest and most long-winded of Mr. Banks’ clients flocked into his office for no other apparent reason than to make sheep eyes at him and fill up an idle hour with the sound of their own voices.
The only positive note was the telephone. Whenever Mr. Banks thought about that morning during later years it was his telephone buzzer which sounded the motif of the nightmare cacophony.
“Darling, the worst thing. Old Mr. McQuade is down at the station.—McQuade, dear. I don’t know. He’s some relative of yours. —Well, it’s no use arguing about that now . He’s down at the station and he wants to know where he’s supposed to go. Where in the world am I going to put him?”
Only the presence of a customer mooning beside his desk restrained Mr. Banks from detailed instructions.
“Hello. Is this you, Stanley?—This is Ella. Ella.— Is this Stanley Banks?—This is Ella. Yes. How are you? We came down the last minute as a surprise. Now we don’t want you to bother your head about us. Just tell us how the trains run to Fairview Manor and how to get from the station to your house. If you haven’t room to put us up we can go anywhere at all. The last thing we want to do is put you to any
The wedding rehearsal was scheduled for five-thirty. Mr. Banks set out for the office exhibiting a nonchalance that he did not feel. Yes, of course, he would take the three-ten from town. There was nothing to get so excited about. Beneath the surface, however, he was distinctly nervous. He felt like a man moving beneath powerful floodlights.
The floodlight operator must have been off duty during his trip to town, however. The same apathetic faces greeted him at the station with the same apathetic comments about the weather, their health, or their lack of it. As the train pulled out of Fairview Manor, Reggie Fry lurched into the seat beside him and spent three stations describing an intricate realestate deal in the course of which he had outwitted and discomfited the best brains in the business. Mr. Banks could stand it no longer.
“My daughter’s getting married tomorrow,” he said simply.
“Really?” said Mr. Fry. “Didn’t know you had a daughter. Time flies, eh? I hope she’s got a place to live after she’s married. It’s a bad situation. Getting worse. The Real-Estate Board put out some interesting figures about it in their last bulletin. I’ve got it here somewhere. Here it is. Now just let me read you these few paragraphs. This is on the volume of building of one-family homes in the mid-continent states during the first quarter.”
Mr. Banks shuddered and gave himself up to his thoughts.
He would have found it hard to describe just what he expected when he arrived at the office. Obviously he had not anticipated organized cheering as he came in the door, yet it depressed him to have Miss Rooney nod to him from the switchboard and say, “Morning-MrBanksnicemorning,” just as she did on the other three hundred working days of the year.
“Now just let me read you these few paragraphs. ”
Even his partners failed to grasp the significance of current events. As each one drifted into Mr. Banks’ office during the morning he offered some fatuous remark about not falling down in the aisle or trying to bend over in his cutaway. Then, having made their concessions to the trivia of life, they concentrated on the task of dumping on his desk every unanswerable and boring problem they could dig out of their pending files. They reminded Mr. Banks of executives cleaning out their desks before leaving for their summer vacations.
During the moments when his partners were not bedeviling him the outside world took up the torch. The cream of the dullest and most long-winded of Mr. Banks’ clients flocked into his office for no other apparent reason than to make sheep eyes at him and fill up an idle hour with the sound of their own voices.
The only positive note was the telephone. Whenever Mr. Banks thought about that morning during later years it was his telephone buzzer which sounded the motif of the nightmare cacophony.
“Darling, the worst thing. Old Mr. McQuade is down at the station.—McQuade, dear. I don’t know. He’s some relative of yours. —Well, it’s no use arguing about that now . He’s down at the station and he wants to know where he’s supposed to go. Where in the world am I going to put him?”
Only the presence of a customer mooning beside his desk restrained Mr. Banks from detailed instructions.
“Hello. Is this you, Stanley?—This is Ella. Ella.— Is this Stanley Banks?—This is Ella. Yes. How are you? We came down the last minute as a surprise. Now we don’t want you to bother your head about us. Just tell us how the trains run to Fairview Manor and how to get from the station to your house. If you haven’t room to put us up we can go anywhere at all. The last thing we want to do is put you to any
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