"By George!" cried the shipper, with sparkling eyes. "There's a whole day's work done and it's only dinner time. We'll be able to make a big hole in this pile this afternoon," and he pointed to the accumulated work awaiting attention at one end of his desk.
The cold spell continued for several days, and in that time Captain Rumford and Alec cleaned up every one of the accumulated tasks; the captain got his books posted, and even got a little ahead with some routine work. The captain felt as though a mountain had been lifted from his shoulders. Alec realized that another opportunity had come his way. He had gained an insight into the clerical end of oystering. He didn't know whether other offices were run like Captain Rumford's or not; but he did understand that in this particular office, at least, there was room for great improvement. If only the captain would change his methods, he could still do his work single-handed. And with the cost of clerk hire so high, that was a thing worth accomplishing. In his own mind Alec pictured the office as he would conduct it if it were his. He thought over all the time-saving devices he could employ. And he decided that he could do as much work as the captain did in about half the time it took the shipper. That was not because Alec considered himself a superior clerk, but because he knew how to use modern clerical devices and appreciated their value.
"Captain Rumford," he said, when he had turned the matter over well in his mind, "I notice that you write out your shipping tags by hand day after day, and that it takes quite a little time. Don't you have regular customers that you ship to year after year?"
"Why, lad, I've got customers I've shipped to for twenty years," said the captain proudly.
"And in all those twenty years I suppose you've addressed all your tags by hand?"
"Certainly, certainly."
"Wouldn't you save time, Captain, if you had a rubber stamp made for each old customer? Here's a tag you've addressed to Day and Moore, Scranton, Pennsylvania. Ever since I've been here I have noticed bags of oysters going to them almost daily. So I judge they are old customers."
"Exactly," replied the shipper. "One of my oldest customers."
"If you had a rubber stamp with their name and address on it, you could stamp a tag much faster than you can write it, and the address would be much easier to read. With a stamp for each old customer, hung up with the address of each customer over his particular stamp, you could address a good many tags in a minute. Think how much time you would save."
"Um!" grunted the captain. "Um! I'll think it over. It might work. It might work."