V. V.'s Eyes

by Henry Sydnor Harrison

The car came to a standstill, and Cally was reminded of another afternoon, long ago, when she and Hen Cooney had encountered Mr. V.V. upon this humming corner. This time, she knew which way to look.

"There it is.... Confess, Hugo, you're surprised that it's so small!"

But Hugo helped no new-thoughter to belittle honest business.

"Unlike some I could mention, I've seen factories before," quoth he. "I've seen a million dollar business done in a smaller plant than that."

Actually Cally found the Works bigger than she had expected; reaction from the childish marble palace idea had swung her mind's eye too far. But gazing at the weather-worn old pile, spilling dirtily over the broken sidewalk, she was once more struck and depressed by something almost sinister about it, something vaguely foreboding. To her imagination it was a little as if the ramshackle old pile leered at her: "Wash your hands of me if you will, young lady. I mean you harm some day...."

But then, of course, she wasn't washing her hands of it; her hands had never been in it at all.

"You'll get intensely interested and want to stay hours!" said she, with the loud roar of traffic in her ears. "Remember I only came for a peep--just to see what a Works is like inside."

Hugo, guiding her over the littered sidewalk to the shabby little door marked "Office," swore that she could not make her peep too brief for him.

She had considered the possibility of encountering her father here; had seen the difficulties of attributing this foray to Hugo's insatiable interest in commerce, with Hugo standing right there. However, in the very unpretentious offices inside--desolate places of common wood partitions, bare floors, and strange, tall stools and desks--she was assured by an anæmic youth with a red Adam's apple that her father had left for the bank an hour earlier, which was according to his usual habit. She inquired for Chas Cooney, who kept books from one of those lofty stools, but Chas was reported sick in bed, as Cally then remembered that Hen had told her, some days since. Accordingly the visitors fell into the hands of Mr. MacQueen, whom Carlisle, in the years, had seen occasionally entering or leaving papa's study o' nights.

MacQueen was black, bullet-headed, and dour. He had held socialistic views in his fiery youth, but had changed his mind like the rest of us when he found himself rising in the world. In these days he received a percentage on the Works profits, and cursed the impudence of Labor. As to visitors, his politics were that all such had better be at their several homes, and he indicated these opinions, with no particular subtlety, to Miss Heth and Mr. Canning. He even cited them a special reason against visiting to-day: new machines being installed, and the shop upset in consequence. However, he did not feel free to refuse the request out-right, and when Canning grew a little sharp,--for he did the talking, generously enough,--the sour vizier yielded, though with no affectation of a good grace.