第44章

The boy came back to Cameron with cheerful politeness. The "old man's" eye was upon him.

"There is no vacancy at present," he said briefly, and turned away as if his attention were immediately demanded elsewhere by pressing business of the Metropolitan Transportation & Cartage Company.

For answer, Cameron threw back the leaf of the counter that barred his way, and started up the long room, past the staring clerks, to the desk next the door.

"I wish to see Mr. Fleming, Sir," he said, his voice trembling slightly, his face pale, his blue-gray eyes ablaze.

The man at the desk looked up from his work.

"I have just informed you there is no vacancy at present," he said testily, and turned to his papers again, as if dismissing the incident.

"Will you kindly tell me if Mr. Fleming is in?" said Cameron in a voice that had grown quite steady; "I wish to see him personally."

"Mr. Fleming cannot see you, I tell you!" almost shouted the man, rising from his desk and revealing himself a short, pudgy figure, with flabby face and shining bald head. "Can't you understand English?--I can't be bothered--!"

"What is it, Bates? Someone to see me?"

Cameron turned quickly towards the speaker, who had come from the inner room.

"I have brought you a letter, Sir, from Mr. Denman," he said quietly; "it is there," pointing to Bates' desk.

"A letter? Let me have it! Why was not this brought to me at once, Mr. Bates?"

"It was an open letter, Sir," replied Bates, "and I thought there was no need of troubling you, Sir. I told the young man we had no vacancy at present."

"This is a personal letter, Mr. Bates, and should have been brought to me at once. Why was Mr.--ah--Mr. Cameron not brought in to me?"

Mr. Bates murmured something about not wishing to disturb the manager on trivial business.

"I am the judge of that, Mr. Bates. In future, when any man asks to see me, I desire him to be shown in at once."

Mr. Bates began to apologise.

"That is all that is necessary, Mr. Bates," said the manager, in a voice at once quiet and decisive.

"Come in, Mr. Cameron. I am very sorry this has happened!"

Cameron followed him into his office, noting, as he passed, the red patches of rage on Mr. Bates' pudgy face, and catching a look of fierce hate from his small piggy eyes. It flashed through his mind that in Mr. Bates, at any rate, he had found no friend.

The result of the interview with Mr. Fleming was an intimation to Mr. Bates that Mr. Cameron was to have a position in the office of the Metropolitan Transportation & Cartage Company, and to begin work the following morning.

"Very well, Sir," replied Mr. Bates--he had apparently quite recovered his equanimity--"we shall find Mr. Cameron a desk."

"We begin work at eight o'clock exactly," he added, turning to Cameron with a pleasant smile.

Mr. Fleming accompanied Cameron to the door.

"Now, a word with you, Mr. Cameron. You may find Mr. Bates a little difficult--he is something of a driver--but, remember, he is in charge of this office; I never interfere with his orders."

"I understand, Sir," said Cameron, resolving that, at all costs, he should obey Mr. Bates' orders, if only to show the general manager he could recognise and appreciate a gentleman when he saw one.

Mr. Fleming was putting it mildly when he described Mr. Bates as "something of a driver." The whole office staff, from Jimmy, the office boy, to Jacobs, the gentle, white-haired clerk, whose desk was in the farthest corner of the room, felt the drive. He was not only office manager, but office master as well. His rule was absolute, and from his decisions there was no appeal. The general manager went on the theory that it was waste of energy to keep a dog and bark himself. In the policy that governed the office there were two rules which Mr. Bates enforced with the utmost rigidity--the first, namely, that every member of the staff must be in his or her place and ready for work when the clock struck eight; the other, that each member of the staff must work independently of every other member. A man must know his business, and go through with it; if he required instructions, he must apply to the office manager. But, as a rule, one experience of such application sufficed for the whole period of a clerk's service in the office of the Metropolitan Transportation & Cartage Company, for Mr. Bates was gifted with such an exquisiteness of ironical speech that the whole staff were wont to pause in the rush of their work to listen and to admire when a new member was unhappy enough to require instructions, their silent admiration acting as a spur to Mr. Bates' ingenuity in the invention of ironical discourse.

Of the peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of Mr. Bates' system, however, Cameron was quite ignorant; nor had his experience in the office of Messrs. Rae & Macpherson been such as to impress upon him the necessity of a close observation of the flight of time. It did not disturb him, therefore, to notice as he strolled into the offices of the Metropolitan Transportation & Cartage Company the next morning that the hands of the clock showed six minutes past the hour fixed for the beginning of the day's work. The office staff shivered in an ecstasy of expectant delight. Cameron walked nonchalantly to Mr. Bates' desk, his overcoat on his arm, his cap in his hand.

"Good morning, Sir," he said.

Mr. Bates finished writing a sentence, looked up, and nodded a brief good morning.

"We deposit our street attire on the hooks behind the door, yonder!" he said with emphatic politeness, pointing across the room.

Cameron flushed, as in passing his desk he observed the pleased smile on the lanky boy's sallow face.

"You evidently were not aware of the hours of this office," continued Mr. Bates when Cameron had returned. "We open at eight o'clock."

"Oh!" said Cameron, carelessly. "Eight? Yes, I thought it was eight! Ah! I see! I believe I am five minutes late! But I suppose I shall catch up before the day is over!"