But the little Morey inside the man— he had never been convinced.
Morey ordinarily looked forward to his work. The one day a week at which he did anything was a wonderful change from the dreary consume, consume, consume grind. He entered the bright-lit drafting room of the Bradmoor Amusements Company with a feeling of uplift.
But as he was changing from street garb to his drafting smock, Howland from Procurement came over with a knowing look. “Wain-wright’s been looking for you,” Howland whispered. “Better get right in there.”
Morey nervously thanked him and got. Wainwright’s office was the size of a phone booth and as bare as Antarctic ice. Every time Morey saw it, he felt his insides churn with envy. Think of a desk with nothing on it but work surface—no calendar-clock, no twelve-color pen rack, no dictating machines!
He squeezed himself in and sat down while Wainwright finished a phone call. He mentally reviewed the possible reasons why Wainwright would want to talk to him in person instead of over the phone, or by dropping a word to him as he passed through the drafting room.
Very few of them were good.
Wainwright put down the phone and Morey straightened up. “You sent for me?” he asked.
Wainwright in a chubby world was aristocratically lean. As General Superintendent of the Design Development Section of the Bradmoor Amusements Company, he ranked high in the upper section of the well-to-do. He rasped, “I certainly did. Fry, just what the hell do you think you’re up to now?”
“I don’t know what you m-mean, Mr. Wainwright,” Morey stammered, crossing off the list of possible reasons for the interview all of the good ones.
Wainwright snorted, “I guess you don’t. Not because you weren’t told, but because you don’t want to know. Think back a whole week. What did I have you on the carpet for then?”