him all the circumstances and Quolt laughed softly.
“I’ve quit smoking myself,” he says. “I quit on account of a bad stomach. So I don’t have to travel in washrooms no more. But before I quit, I mastered the art of putting the quietus on these Pullman elocutionists. The last three or four trips I made with the cigarette habit, why I could share a washroom from morning till night with one of these here cross-country loud speakers and you’d never hear a word out of him; that is, after I’d give him the treatment.”
“What was the treatment?” asked Cosset. “Did you just keep still and not answer nothing he said?”
“Oh, no,” says Quolt. “Silence don’t do no good. And it don’t help none to pretend like you are reading. That just gives them something more to talk about—books and magazines and so forth. But if you are in earnest about the importance of this thinking you’ve got to do, why I’ll go in there with you and fix this guy so’s he’ll have lockjaw all the rest of the way to New York.”
Cosset gratefully accepted this proposition and the two gents went to the washroom where they found Lacey lighting a fresh cigar. He was on the long seat, next to the window. Quolt moved one of the chairs to a position facing Lacey, and seated himself. He begun staring at Lacey’s right knee, like they was some item there that baffled or fascinated him. Lacey’s eyes hastily followed the direction of Quolt’s, but he couldn’t detect nothing the matter and looked up again.
“Well,” he said, “I was just reading in the paper about two more brokerage firms has failed in the Big Town. That must be a ticklish game. I was thinking once about going into that game myself. I was all set to go into it with another fella in Chi when a friend of mine that’s with the Trunkey Elevator people give me a ring and asked me how would I like to go into the elevator game. I says I would try anything once, so I took the position and been with them ever since.”
“What?” says Mr. Quolt, continuing to stare at Lacey’s knee.
Lacey looked down again, but couldn’t see nothing wrong.
“I was just saying,” he repeated, “that I seen in this paper where they was two more brokerage houses in New York had took the big flop. I was saying it must be a mighty risky game. I’m tickled to death I stayed out of it. I pretty near got into it once with a fella in Chi. But just as we was making our plans, a friend of mine with the Trunkey Elevator people give me a ring and asked me would I like to go into the elevator game. Well, his proposition sounded reasonable so I took him up and been with them ever since.”
“What of it?” said Mr. Quolt.
“Why,” says Lacey, “it just shows how lucky a man can be sometimes and maybe don’t appreciate just how lucky he was.”
“What of it?” said Mr. Quolt, and kept staring at Lacey’s knee.
Lacey’s eyes followed Quolt’s for the third time, but without results. The train was whistling for a station.
“That must be either Kendallville or Ligonier,” said Lacey.
“What of it?” said Mr. Quolt.
For maybe a half an hour the three gents sat in silence. Quolt’s eyes never left Lacey’s knee and the owner of same looked at it nervously every little while. Once or twice he opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but thought better of it. Finally Cosset spoke up.
“That’s plenty,” he says to Quolt. “The treatment’s worked grand and you don’t have to stay in this stuffy hole no longer. I’ve got a swell name for my play already. It’s going to be named ‘What of It?’ ”
Mr. Quolt removed his glance from Lacey’s knee and looked at Cosset.
“What did you say?” he asked him.
“In Conference”
Harvey Hester entered the outer office of Kramer & Company, Efficiency Engineers. He approached the girl at the desk.
“I want to see Mr. Lansing,” he said.
“A. M. or A. T.?” inquired the girl.
“Mr. A. T. Lansing,” Hester replied.
“What is your name?”
“Harvey Hester.”
The girl pressed a button and wrote something on a slip of paper. A boy appeared. She gave him the paper.
“For Mr. A. T. Lansing,” she said.
The boy went away. Presently a young lady in mannish attire came out.
“I am Mr. Lansing’s secretary,” she said. “Did you want to see him personally?”
“I did and do,” said Hester.
“Well, just now he’s in conference,” said the secretary. “Perhaps you would like to wait.”
“Listen. This is pretty important—”
“I’m sorry, but it’s against the rules to disturb any of the officers in conference.”
“How long will the conference last?”
“It’s hard to say,” replied the secretary. “They just got through one conference and they’re beginning another. It may be ten minutes and it may be an hour.”
“But listen—”
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing for you to do but call again, or else wait.”
“I’ll wait,” snapped Hester, “but I won’t wait long!”
The conferees were sitting around the big table in the conference room. At the head of the table was J. H. Carlisle, president of the firm.
“Where is L. M.?” he inquired crossly. “This is the fifth conference he’s been late to this morning. And we’ve had only six.”
“Well, J. H. C.,” said R. L. Jamieson, a vice-president, “I don’t think we ought to wait for him. If we drag along this way we won’t be able to get in a dozen conferences all day. And a dozen was the absolute minimum agreed on.”
“That’s all right, R. L.,” said K. M. Dewey, another vice-president, “but it happens that L. M. is the one that asked for this conference, and he’s the only one that knows what it’s about. So we’d—”
At this moment the door opened and the tardy one entered. He was L.
