The Rules of the Game | Page 6

be late at the
office, which would earn him Harvey's marked disapproval. Bob could
not see that it mattered much whether he was late or not. Generally he
had nothing whatever to do for an hour or so. At noon he ate
disconsolately at a cheap saloon restaurant. At five he was free to go
out among his own kind--with always the thought before him of the
alarm clock the following morning.
One day he sat by the window, his clean, square chin in his hand, his
eyes lost in abstraction. As he looked, the winter murk parted
noiselessly, as though the effect were prearranged; a blue sky shone
through on a glint of bluer water; and, wonder of wonders, there
through the grimy dirty roar of Adams Street a single, joyful robin note
flew up to him.
At once a great homesickness overpowered him. He could see plainly
the half-sodden grass of the campus, the budding trees, the red "gym"
building, and the crowd knocking up flies. In a little while the shot
putters and jumpers would be out in their sweaters. Out at Regents'
Field the runners were getting into shape. Bob could almost hear the
creak of the rollers smoothing out the tennis courts; he could almost
recognize the voices of the fellows perching about, smell the fragrant
reek of their pipes, savour the sweet spring breeze. The library clock
boomed four times, then clanged the hour. A rush of feet from all the

recitation rooms followed as a sequence, the opening of doors, the
murmur of voices, occasionally a shout. Over it sounded the sharp,
half-petulant advice of the coaches and the little trainer to the athletes.
It was getting dusk. The campus was emptying. Through the trees
shone lights. And Bob looked up, as he had so often done before, to see
the wonder of the great dome against the afterglow of sunset.
Harvey was examining him with some curiosity.
"Copied those camp reports?" he inquired.
Bob glanced hastily at the clock. He had been dreaming over an hour.
A little later Fox came in; and a little after that Harvey returned
bringing in his hand the copies of the camp reports, but instead of
taking them directly to Bob for correction, as had been his habit, he laid
them before Fox. The latter picked them up and examined them. In a
moment he dropped them on his desk.
"Do you mean to tell me," he demanded of Harvey, "that seventeen
only ran ten thousand? Why, it's preposterous! Saw it myself. It has a
half-million on it, if there's a stick. Let's see Parsons's letter."
While Harvey was gone, Fox read further in the copy.
"See here, Harvey," he cried, "something's dead wrong. We never cut
all this hemlock. Why, hemlock's 'way down."
Harvey laid the original on the desk. After a second Fox's face cleared.
"Why, this is all right. There were 480,000 on seventeen. And that
hemlock seems to have got in the wrong column. You want to be a
little more careful, Jim. Never knew that to happen before. Weren't out
with the boys last night, were you?"
But Harvey refused to respond to frivolity.
"It's never happened before because I never let it happen before," he
replied stiffly. "There have been mistakes like that, and worse, in

almost every report we've filed. I've cut them out. Now, Mr. Fox, I
don't have much to say, but I'd rather do a thing myself than do it over
after somebody else. We've got a good deal to keep track of in this
office, as you know, without having to go over everybody else's work
too."
"H'm," said Fox, thoughtfully. Then after a moment, "I'll see about it."
Harvey went back to the outer office, and Fox turned at once to Bob.
"Well, how is it?" he asked. "How did it happen?"
"I don't know," replied Bob. "I'm trying, Mr. Fox. Don't think it isn't
that. But it's new to me, and I can't seem to get the hang of it right
away."
"I see. How long you been here?"
"A little over four months."
Fox swung back in his chair leisurely.
"You must see you're not fair to Harvey," he announced. "That man
carries the details of four businesses in his head, he practically does the
clerical work for them all, and he never seems to hurry. Also, he can
put his hand without hesitation on any one of these documents," he
waved his hand about the room. "I can't."
He stopped to light the stub of a long-extinct cigar.
"I can't make it hard for that sort of man. So I guess we'll have to take
you out of the office. Still, I promised Welton to give you a good
try-out. Then, too, I'm