cocktails supplied this very thing. They constituted
a stone wall. He never drank during the morning,
nor in office hours; but the instant he left the office
he proceeded to rear this wall of alcoholic inhibition
athwart his consciousness. The office became
immediately a closed affair. It ceased to exist.
In the afternoon, after lunch, it lived again for
one or two hours, when, leaving it, he rebuilt the
wall of inhibition. Of course, there were exceptions
to this; and, such was the rigor of his discipline,
that if he had a dinner or a conference before him
in which, in a business way, he encountered enemies
or allies and planned or prosecuted campaigns, he
abstained from drinking. But the instant the
business was settled, his everlasting call went out
for a Martini, and for a double-Martini at that, served
in a long glass so as not to excite comment.
CHAPTER VI
Into Daylight’s life came Dede Mason.
She came rather imperceptibly. He had accepted
her impersonally along with the office furnishing,
the office boy, Morrison, the chief, confidential,
and only clerk, and all the rest of the accessories
of a superman’s gambling place of business.
Had he been asked any time during the first months
she was in his employ, he would have been unable to
tell the color of her eyes. From the fact that
she was a demiblonde, there resided dimly in his subconsciousness
a conception that she was a brunette. Likewise
he had an idea that she was not thin, while there
was an absence in his mind of any idea that she was
fat. As to how she dressed, he had no ideas at
all. He had no trained eye in such matters, nor
was he interested. He took it for granted, in
the lack of any impression to the contrary, that she
was dressed some how. He knew her as “Miss
Mason,” and that was all, though he was aware
that as a stenographer she seemed quick and accurate.
This impression, however, was quite vague, for he
had had no experience with other stenographers, and
naturally believed that they were all quick and accurate.
One morning, signing up letters, he came upon an I
shall. Glancing quickly over the page for similar
constructions, he found a number of I wills.
The I shall was alone. It stood out conspicuously.
He pressed the call-bell twice, and a moment later
Dede Mason entered. “Did I say that, Miss
Mason?” he asked, extending the letter to her
and pointing out the criminal phrase. A shade
of annoyance crossed her face. She stood convicted.
“My mistake,” she said. “I
am sorry. But it’s not a mistake, you
know,” she added quickly.
“How do you make that out?” challenged
Daylight. “It sure don’t sound right,
in my way of thinking.”
She had reached the door by this time, and now turned
the offending letter in her hand. “It’s
right just the same.”
“But that would make all those I wills wrong,
then,” he argued.
Copyrights
Burning Daylight from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
