BATTY'S GREAT DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 173, 23 July 1936, Page 26

BATTY'S GREAT DAY.

By OLIVE BARETT

CCT'-M afraid these entries will liave to 1 lnj brought up to date to-niglit, Batt. Not inconveniencing you 1 hope? No arrangements made?"' "X-no. Th-thai's all right, sir." Henry Butt, known to tin- office i,n general as "Batty," raised his meek blue eys and held out a limp hand for the two hours' extra work. For 30 years Henry Batt had been stammering his mild: "Tli-t hat's all right sir." Even the general ollice stall" put upon liim. The last cup of tea at tea-time, the tepid, overdrawn cup of tea in the eracked cup, was always Batty's. All the unpopular jobs got pushed on fo him. The odd errands 100. "Oil, Battv, be an angel and fetch me a packet of foolscap from (he store." Aliss Jones, the junior typist, would say. He was always panting up the wooden stairs to the stationery room for one or the other of them. A favourite trick of Alfred, the office boy, was to creep up and lock him in while he was pottering about its dim, shelved interior. Batty never did more than weakly threaten. And all the while he hated them. Everyone of them he hated in varying degrees. For their jokes at his expense. For the nickname they gave him. For his own inability to stand up to them. But most of all he hated that genial, overfed, well-dressed figure of prosperity, Herbert Chatterton. Chatterton and he had once sat at the same high stools, worked on the same ledgers. And now—Chatterton sat in a spacious office, with "Private" on the door. You knocked on that door on the rare occasions when he had anything to say to a mere clerk. And, after you'd floundered across the thick carpet to his massive desk, and waited, and cleared your throat, with your heart hammering for fear that ' the moment had come at last: "Ah, Batt, Si' down, Batt. Si' down." Genial, employer-to-employee tone. Slaking you | feel at ease. Just the right note.

"It's like this, Batt," smooth-voiced, on, on . . . "Depression . . . hard times alt round . . . very sorry to have to do it, . . . salary cut of 5/ a week until things get better. . . And you stumbled out, stammering in your relief. "Th-that's all right, sir." Anything was better than the fortnight's notice you'd feared—anything.

Only afterwards, how you resented him! The things that you said to him in the quiet of your own mind—for his greed, his slave-driving, for his sleek air of prosperity and his damn condescension.

To-night, the last member of the stall to leave the office, Henry Batt was seething with his hatred. All the way home, while outwardly lie appeared to bo engrossed in his paper, he was lashing Herbert C'hatterton with his tongue, picking on every weak spot.

All through his solitary meal at home that night he played out in his mind those little scenes which were his refuge from reality. Scenes in which he triumphed, became top-dog—either through some vague act of heroism, or through the power of a vast fortune, miraculously acquired.

He dreamed that night that he was reclining in a magnificent .Rolls, pulling an immense cigar, with Herbert Cliatterton as his chauffeur.

When he dragged his reluctant limb* out of the warm huddle of bedclothes the next morning, lie had no idea that the miracle had happened.

It was as ill-starting a day -as any. Ho pattered on to the landing, only to find the bathroom locked.

From inside came a sound of tumbling water which told him that the present occupant was only just preparing his bath, he retreated to iiis room to ring for shaving water.

It was lukewarm when it came. His breakfast tray arrived late, and with the tea slopped into lifs food. Even the white • envelope at the side was stained brown with it. He looked curiously at that envelope.

j\ T ow who would that be from! He turned it over, looking at tiie typewritten address, and scrutinising the postmark in the way of those who receive few letters and like to savour those they have. He slit it open carefully, slipped his glasses on, and gingerly unfolded the white sheet it contained. Messrs. Brownrigg, lirownrigg, and Brownrigg, solicitors—that was the name at the top of the notepaper. Curious! He read on.

The letters danced before his eyes. He sat down in a chair, and poured himself out a cup of tea with a trembling hand. ... . sole heir to the estate of your great uncle Simon Batt . . .

Over and over, over and over, he repeated the words to himself, until they suddenly established their meaning. Very quietly', but breathing fast, he rose and lifted his bowler hat off the top of the bureau, then he set off to the Lincoln's Tnn address.

At half-past ten the last Mr. Brownrigg, of Brownrigg, Brownrigg and Brownrigg, bowed him out of his office. He stood, with pumping heart, on the doorstep, staring at a new world.

"Twenty thousand pounds," he whispered to a lazy pigeon, strutting in a patch of yellow sun. "And all bocause I was —what did the old boy's will say? —"the only relative he's never had the misfortune to set. eyes on!"

"Twenty thousand pounds! "I'm ricb —I'm rich!"

His eyes "littered, and he walked fo: ward unsteadily, with short, jerky stepHe'd show them! Those fools in ths office, tlioSe puppies who'd made a laugh infr stock of him—and. above all, tha> self-satisfied, stuck-up pig, Chatterton. A bus came along the road—and he started mechanically to chase after it. Then lie stopped, and- laughed out loud —threw his head back and laughed hysterically. ,^<" v "Taxi!" lie shouted at the top of his voice, and didn't care that he was shouting in the street. "Taxi!" Bowling through city streets, ho chuckled and talked to himself, savouring the triumph to come. He saw himseff bursting into Chatterton's room bursting in without knocking. He pictured the sensation as he sped throush the secretary's outer office, the look or. Chatterton's face. He fretted at every traffic block. -So long he'd waited for this moment, ho felt lie couldn't contain himself anotluv second. They turned, at last, down the narrow street, leading to the still narrower alley in which the firm of Clarke, Chat terton, Limited, were housed. He stepped out, and his jaw dropped. He stood gapinrr .... cheeked. The quier alleyway was full of people, tightly wedged forms, scrambling throujr>i thick cloix'.s of smoke.

(SHORT STORY.)

And suddenly he found himself, in the midst of the office stall', staring up at the blazing windows of Clarke, Chafterton's premises. "Where's Chatterton?" he asked someone, dully. Xo one seemed to notice his omission of the prefix. "He was out when it happened," said .Miss Phillips, Chatterton's secretary. At that moment there was a diversion, Alfred, the office boy, came hurtling through the crowd. "Where's Batty?" he was shouting. "Oh, oh, I locked him in the storeroom." t "Nonsense," exclaimed Henry Batt, turning sharply. "I've only just got here." Alfred stared. His face was white ana tear-stained. "Rb-ut, I locked someone in," he insisted. "Then I went orf down to the post office and forgot." "I tell you you didn't lock me in, because I wasn't here," replied Henry Batt. shortly. "W-well. it must er bin you," muttered Alfred in a frightened way. Then Miss Phillips screamed. "Mr. Chatterton! T.thought, he'd gont out. but that's the only one it could be. lie does take a tit on to look round there sometimes. Oh, oh, you wicked boy." Henry Batt suddenly strode savagely forward and shook Alfred until his teeth chattered. "What are you all gaping and doing nothing for? Where's the fire engines?" Even as he spoke there was a sound of distant bells. "But it's too late," sobbed Miss Phillips. "Its like a furnace up there." At this something snapped in Henry Batt's brain. Chatterton should never escape him like this. » • » » He sped to the smoking doorway. A burly policeman • tried to stop him, but he twisted out of his grasp. Coughing. spluttering, lie raced up the stairs. The stairs that led up to the store cupboard had already caught at one side. He fought his way through, beating at them as he went, till his coat caught too, and lie had to east it from him. But somehow he reached the cupboard, opened the door, and dragged a prostrate figure from the smoke-filled interior. ITe never knew how he got back, dragging a weight that was twice his own. He had ceased to think, ceased to be anything but a pain-racked automatum. .At the last it seemed to him that lie was falling into a pit of flame, and then he remembered nothing more.

The next thing Henry Batt was con scions of was a white wall. He couldn't turn his head, he could only blink through something that seemed to muffle his whole face. A nurse's head Swam in front of his eyes, and a familiar voice boomed in his ear.

Tt wag Chatterton's voice, hut the words it was saying were meaningless They travelled to him on waves, alternating between a distant whisper and a terrifying roar in his head. "Saved my life . . . don't know how to thank you .... a hero, Batt ..." A jangle of sounds in his head.

He was very tired. There was . . . something. ... he wanted .... to remember. His head ached with the effort to find words.

"Th-that's all right, sir," he stam mered.