Miss Trevelyan was the next subject for prophecy. She had a well-established routine that was almost as rigid as that of Miss Carrick, though she was of a different type. Miss Trevelyan was a baby-doll beauty of the Betty Boop variety and with the voice to match. At the moment she was regarding herself anxiously in a ridiculously small compact mirror, tilting her head this way and that with quick birdlike jerks so as to better scrutinize nose, cheeks, eyes and ears. After that, as J.C. gleefully foretold, would come the powdering, the lip-sticking, the eyebrow-brushing—in the order named—and eventually an elaborate tucking-in of imaginary wisps of vagrant hair. J.C. didn't miss a bet.
Then three salesmen came in. Jake Sarrat, the big, jovial ace of the wholesale district, slapped the other two on the back, hurled his brief case and kit into a desk drawer, made a brief phone call, and then went out. Old Mr. Firrel wore his usual somber, tired look, and walked slowly to the bare table they had let him use. He unbent his lanky and stooped six feet of skin and bones and began dragging copious sheafs of notes from his brief case. Those he glanced at briefly and began tearing up, one by one. The third, a saturnine little fellow who appeared to be perpetually angry, marched straight to his desk and began scribbling furiously on a pad of report blanks. He was Ellis Hardy, Chisholm's pet.
"Jake," said Mr. Chisholm, confidently, "is working up a big case and wants to surprise me with it. Watch his smoke before the week is over. Ellis has just brought in a big one—stick around, we may pour a drink before we call it a day. As for Old Dismal, he's quitting. The poor dope!"
He twirled his chair around to face a mahogany cabinet. He opened the door of it, took out a bottle and glass, and poured himself a stiff slug of rye. He tossed it off with a grunt and swiveled back.
"That guy is not a salesman and never will be," he snorted contemptuously. "Look at him! He looks like a tramp and as mournful as a pallbearer. When I talk to him about dolling himself up he says he hasn't the dough; when I tell him to cheer up and wear a smile, he croaks about his stomach ulcers. What do I care how hard he works if he never brings the bacon in? Why, if that poor drip ever took a look at himself in the mirror, he'd go hang himself."
Maizie gripped her pencil harder and quoted softly:
"Ah, wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us—"
"That's right," exclaimed Mr. Chisholm. "You get it. Take me. I'm always on the lookout for that. If I didn't watch myself, I might turn stout. But no, I'm wise. I don't wait for people to tell me—I go to the gym three times a week and have a good work-out. The rubber says there's not a spare ounce on me. There's no crime in being big—people respect a big man, don't you think?"
"They do get out of their way," admitted Maizie, flashing her stock smile, and batting her eyelids appreciatively. After all, he paid her forty a week and she had a paralyzed mother to support.