Confidence Game

This story was published in If: Worlds of Science Fiction , September 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Illustrated by Ed Emsh
Cutter demanded more and more and more efficiency—and got it! But, as in anything, enough is enough, and too much is …
By JAMES McKIMMEY, JR.
“Get that junk out of the way!” he yelled, and his voice roared over the noise of the truck's engine.
Kurt snapped his head around, his blue eyes thinning, then recognition spread humor crinkles around his eyes and mouth. “All right, sir,” he said. “Just a second while I jump out, and I'll lift it out of your way.”
“With bare hands?” Cutter said.
“With bare hands,
” Kurt said.
Cutter's laugh boomed, and as he rounded the front of the truck, he struck the right front fender with his fist. Kurt roared back from the cab with his own laughter.
He liked joking harshly with Kurt and with the rest of the truck drivers. They were simple, and they didn't have his mental strength. But they had another kind of strength. They had muscle and energy, and most important, they had guts. Twenty years before Cutter had driven a truck himself. The drivers knew that, and there was a bond between them, the drivers and himself, that seldom existed between employer and employee.
The guard at the door came to a reflex attention, and Cutter bobbed his head curtly. Then, instead of taking the stairway that led up the front to the second floor and his office, he strode down the hallway to the left, angling through the shop on the first floor. He always walked through the shop. He liked the heavy driving sound of the machines in his ears, and the muscled look of the men, in their coarse work shirts and heavy-soled shoes. Here again was strength, in the machines and in the men.