She stood waiting an opportune moment to slip into the rapidly-swinging doors, and should have turned away in despair of ever entering, when a young man stopped, and holding the circular portal still, with one strong arm, he bowed to Tavia to pass through. She plunged into the compartment and was whirled into a white marble hall directly in front of a row of elevators. Again she read the address of Mr. Akerson. “Room 1409.” Entering an elevator she wondered in a misty, dizzy way how one knew where to get off to find room Number 1409.
“Eighteenth floor!” yelled the elevator operator, looking askance at Tavia. Then before Tavia could think, he called, “Going down!” and the elevator filled up for the downward trip. Tavia gasped. How stupid she had been! How she wished Dorothy was with her! Then she left the elevator on the ground floor and pulling together all her courage, she asked an important looking man in uniform, how she could reach Room 1409.
“Fourteenth floor, to your right,” explained the man, taking the bewildered Tavia by the arm and putting her on an elevator.
“So that’s the system,” thought Tavia, and she could have laughed aloud. And marveling at the perfect simplicity of so many things that at first glance seemed complicated, Tavia found herself at the fourteen floor.
“Room Fourteen Hundred and Nine to your right,” said the elevator boy, without Tavia having asked him anything about it.
“To your right,” sounded simple, but as Tavia surveyed the various halls, running in numerous directions, she grew weary of her first business trip and so tired that she almost lost sight of the reason for the journey. Under the guidance of a flippant young person, Tavia finally located “to the right.”
She opened the door and entered. She fairly rushed into the office because she felt that Mr. Akerson must be tired waiting for her arrival. A small boy sat at a telephone switchboard.
“Who d’yer wanta see?” asked the boy, with utter indifference.
“Mr. Akerson,” said Tavia.
The boy telephoned to somewhere, and presently a young girl appeared, and without a word, conducted Tavia through a long suite of offices, with crowds of clerks, desks and bookcases in every conceivable corner. The young miss poked her head into a door and called out: