LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4578, 24 February 1893, Page 1

LITERATURE.

A PIECE OF CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS, Chajtbb I. Suit Cline Halsted, Broker, of Broad street, turned over a new leaf on a New Year. I met him in the morning. He bad a reformed look in the corner of his eye. "lam going to settle down/ 7 he aaid, in a -calm, bnsinesß-like manner. Everything that Cline did was done in a bußinesß'like way, whether it was purchasing bouquets to send to a favourite actress, ox having his bald head shampooed. I believe that any where Qlive would be called, a good fellow. He held strictly to the business principle of skinning his fellow-men alive in the City, and spending bis money in princely style when he was not on the financial war-path. One day Cline, as I said, turned a leaf. He did it methodically, oalculatingly, and firmly. He was polishing his, dome before the glass ; and as he laid thebrnsh down he said, " I must get married."- ,- ; i: When a bachelor can't comb bis tophair over any more, he beginß to think about getting a wife. It was business. ' Very punctilious an.d discreet was Cline. He proposed to get married juat, as be proposed to bay , Brighton "A." It was a ■ good investment. . > Then he Bet about it in the most extraordinary Broad street manner. "I don't want," said he, "any giddy beauties. I want a mature, sensible, sober, economical, level-headed, modest, healthy, good - tempered, prudent, affectionate, sagacious, lovable,, -motherly, genteel, sterling woman. Girls be blowed- Girls make me weary, and I'm going to organise the business of getting -what I , want. I can give an hour a day for the next year to . the finding, pf what I want, and I'm too old a business hand to have what I don't want." When you get one of these financial intellects regularly to business he knows what he is about, and he doesn't make any mistake. If he is going to get a wife or buy a in a cemetery he is going to get the worth of his money. • ■;. So Cline at forty-four organised himself. He set up a matrimonial bureau in that private office with cathedral windows, put his' number eleven boots on sentiment, threw the forget-me-nots out of his fioul, and came down to hard facts. , He would advertise. Yes, he would.' No nonsensical rot about cultured gent desiring to mee.t cultured lady, but straight business proposition; It would involve immense clerical system— very well, would get typewriter, dictate answers for an hour every morning. "First thing to do — get typerwriter; must be business girl— girls bad, but have to put up with it ; no women typewriters in the market — all girls—beastly shame." „ Chaptkb 11. ..;.,..' One morning there , came to Cline's general office in Broad street a girl with a baby waist, a pearl-grey pelisse over her shoulders, and a cornelian ring on her finger. One of Cline's. young men noticed her first standing by the door. He told me afterwards that what he noticed was the absurd little Bailor-hat with, a blue ribbon and an anchor on it, and he wondered if she hadn't borrowed it from her little brother to come in, it sat up so perky and saucily on her roll of brown hair, as if she might be a lieutenant in the' Salvation Army. It'B astonishing what things these young idiots notice. , He went round and Bald, "What can we do fox you madam 9" ' , "Madam " is a kind of official squelcher kept for girls who venture away from their proper places to where young men can pay them off in their own coin. '•I am a typewriter," said sailor-hat very meekly. "I came to answer an advertisement " • Then they direoted her into the little office with cathedral windows, using a sign language of their own and telegraphing to each other by winks. Then they saw the sailor-hat,go through the fatal glasß door on the other side of which Cline kept his grim official severity. Chapmb 111. He was signing cheques. It was one of the most seriouß moments of his life. He looked up and caw the sailor-hat ■on the brown hair. It aggravated him just a little, as if a very proper parson should see one of the Empire ballet girls in his country church, and she should bow to him sweetly. He leaned back in his chair, stuck his legs out straight, and fastened bis commercial eye on his cheque-book. ; " /Well, young woman, I want a discreet confidential secretary to 'answerscorrespondents, She's got to be here at ten o'clock every morning, attend to business strictly, and she can get away at two or three. The salary is thirty shillings a, week. Do you think you con ait down to that kind of drudgery for that pittance, and keep the business to yourself ?" All that Cline overheard was a demure little " Yes, sir," that had the same Buggestion ot tremolo in itonegetß from a fine raspberry jelly. • ••All right, I can't bother with you today, come to-morrow," and Cline fell to signing cheques, and the sailor»hat went away. . Chapteb IV. Cline's private office had a new feature. There was an instrument under the window with a black tin roof over it, and a little sailor-hat, with 4 blue ribbon on it, hung on the bronze peg opposite the door. . "Now, then," said Cline, putting on amost forbidding air of strict business. *' You understand that the matter for which I have engaged you is entirely aside from the regular business of thia office. By the way, what shall I call you PMißßWhat ? Chalcey ? Well, never mind the Nelly. I'll call you Mies Chalcey | it's more bußinesslike, and I don't want yon to talk outside this room about any of the business you have to transact here. Do you understand ? If you get that into your head to begin with there'Jl be no trouble." Then she turned her demure face towards him, and said : " les, sir," bo meekly and patiently and profoundly that he noticed her eyes. They were agates— moss-agates, by Jove., Funny little spots in them that swam and' danced round, and melted into each other in the most absurdly molten way, as if there might be little caldrons under them where the light was boiled and softened down into some, ridiculous girl nonsense. "The worßt of it waß the way^ they always seemed to bo juat on the point of boiling over, as if light, like music, had some kind of inscrutable pathos in it. Chapter V. So they got along very nicely without any nonsense. Cline would come in about half-past ten or eleven, look to see if the sailor-hat was hanging on the peg, grunt out, "Good morning, Miss Chalcey," and then sit down at his desk to open letters. Sometimes she would sit demurely for half an hour, her head turned, looking out of the one clear little pane in the cathedral window straight at Bob Slocnm's office opposite, where there was never anything to see except Bob Slocum's window blinds, and that piece of telegraph tape that dangled for ever from the wires overhead, in spite of all the sparrows that had tried to ptjll it off. At other timeo Cline woold diotate, and then the click of the in-

strament drowned the , Tnonotonptia chirp of the hail-porter's bullfinch that was whistling somewhere. Of oourse ah© got to know all about it— what it was ihe waß trying' to do— 'and he grew to consult her about the detaila. Like a good girl she put her whole heart. into it, and really tried to help him all ahe could to find the wifehe wanted. How could she help it ? And then, too, she couldn't help finding out by degrees, that Cline drew some heavy cheques and had a swell circle of acquaintances. And he— well, he like a good methodical business man, (ell into a routine here ac elsewhere. Hia heart was constructed on solid clockwork business principles, and one morning when he came in the sailor-hat was nob on the peg. It annoyed him at once. It always does annoy a business man to have things irregular. He fidgeted in his chair. It was too bad. Nobody could be depended on, and here: were several letters to be answered. He called Swain in. *' Where is that young woman P" 'Swam started a little, as if he felt guilty of having abducted her, and eaid, do you want a typewriter, sir? Here's Wallace and Ducant, .and Clapp, any one of- 'em can——" - " '-. ■ ■■. . ,• ,■•■ . ■ ' And Cline shouted, "KTonsense. Shut the door." Then he noticed the bronze peg. It had an ironical and plucked aspect. : He sat down in the chair by the window, and looked at Bob Slocum'a blinds. He couldn't help wondering what Miss Chalcey found to think about during all the vacant hours when she looked out there, waitingly. ; ■ The nest day when* Bhe came he reprimanded her fiercely. "It annoyed me very much/ he said from his chair, without looking round. "You should have sent me Home word. I depended on you. It's very' irregular, and/unbusiness-like." She turned round and looked at him in her meek way. ' "My mother is dying," she said. " I have neglected her to-day so as not to disappoint you." His astonishment twisted him round, in his chair, and he came plump up against the agates, swimming in some kind of light he had never seen before. "Confound it, MiBS Chalcey! "he said, jumping up. "What do you mean by having a mother ill and not telling me P What do you mean by coming here to-day ? Will you never get any business ideas into your head ? I told you thia room was to be confidential. Do you call it confidential to act in this manner ? I'm surprised, Miss Chalcey. ■ ', Pin hurt." ■'■' He took down the sailor-hat. " You are to go back to your mother—at oace." He opened the doori "Here, Swain, get a hanaom." And ' Swain saw the Bailor* hat in his hand. : Chapter VI. .It was about a week after' this. The room had half a ton 6Z letters in it. Cline used to come,. in* look at the bronze peg and go away again. Then the sailor-hat re-appeared. ... . - : „ Mies Chalcey waß there waiting, so was her little lunch that Bhe always, ate when Cline and Wallace went out to' a swell restaurant, and on Cline's desk waa a tiny bunch, of violets. He shook hands with her, congratulated her on her . mother's recovery, and said : "Pshaw, don't mention; it, my child. I am about as kind as the average business man — no more, no less. We've got a terrible lot of business here." They both laughed. Cline was in particularly good spirits that morning. It was so comfortable, , don't you know, to have the office routine go on in its regular business-like way— to hear the click of the instrument; to get side glimpses of two white rounded wrists dancing a gallopade, to know that the sailor-bat was covering up that confounded bronze peg, and you couldn't hear the beastly bullfinch. . ■ It; went on for about a week, with a tittle punch of violets every morning on his deßk, which he always put in hiß buttonhole when he went out to lunch. There were two days when he hadn't got a pin, and she had, and so she fastened them on for him. Then the whole affair came to a "sudden atop. Theae thingß always do in rea'.llife. It was a Monday morning. She had hung up her hat, and dusted her machine, and looked to see if Bob Slocum's blinds were there, when Cline said, with a horribly sad expression of countenance : "MiBS Ohalcoy, you've been a very faithful and efficacious secretary, and I'm sorry I've got to lose you, but the fact is, I've found the woman I want, and, of course,! shall not need you any more." Bhe was looking at him dreamily, as if she wondered where the paragon came from that satisfied him. "■■*' Yes," he aaidf'Btrange.as itmay sound^ I've actually, picked out the' woman who is to be' nt/;. wife, and. I shall not want ,a. secretary/ ' ■ WVee had a very pleasant' time here together, haven't we ?" "Yes, sir." "And you remember all the qualities that I was fool enough to expect in one woman P" ' Yes air." " Well, I've found most of them." "I'm very glad, sir." " Do you think, Misß Chalcey, from what you know of me that she will have me if I auk he*?": "Yes, sir." ; "You truly think so on business principles P " ' "Yes, sir." "Then, by Jove, I'll marry her. You can consider yourself discharged Miss Chaloey— but, Nelly, will you marry me ?" The only unbusinesslike thing they that did waa to both try to look out the ridiculous little pane at the same time—and no two business people could do that simultaneously without looking like Siamese twins.