XXIV
My new "boss" at the yards was a sharp-nosed, sharp-eyed old-young man who seemed to think that his chief mission in life was to crack a sort of mental whip, like an overseer, over the heads of those under him, and keep us all hustling and rushing like frightened geese.
I had been accustomed to answer the correspondence of the soap department myself, Fred merely noting a few words in pencil on each letter, giving the gist of what he wanted said; but Mr. Hopkins dictated everything, and as soon as I was through one batch of correspondence, he would find something else for me to do. It seemed to give him a pain for my typewriter to be idle a moment. I think I was on his mind all the time except when he was thinking up work for Red Top.
My position, therefore, had become a very hard one. I worked incessantly from nine till six. Fred had let me off at five-thirty and often at five; but Mr. Hopkins kept me till six. I think he'd have made it seven, but the bell rang at six, and the office was supposed to close after that.
Many a time I've seen him glance regretfully at the clock or make an impatient movement with his shoulders at the clanging of the bell, at which moment I always banged my type-writer desk, and swiftly departed.
How I missed Fred! He had made life at the yards tolerable and even amusing for me with his jokes and confidences. And, then, there's a pleasure in working for some one you know approves of you and likes you. Fred did like me. In a way, I don't think any one ever liked me better than poor Fred did.
It makes me sad to think that the best girl friend I ever had, Lolly, and the best man friend, Fred, are now both gone out of this world, where I may have still such a long road to travel.
I hated my position now. I was nothing but an overworked machine. Moreover, the routine of the work was deadening. When I answered the letters myself, it gave a slight diversion; but now I simply took dictation and transcribed it, and when I was through with that, I copied pages of itemized stuff. My mind became just like a ticker that tapped off this or that curt and dry formula of business letter in which soap, soap, soap stood out big and slimy.
I now neither wrote at night nor went out. I was too tired from the incessant labor at the type-writer, and when I got to sleep,—after two or three hours, in which I lay awake thinking of Mr. Hamilton and wondering whether I would ever see him again; I always wondered about that when he was away,—I declare, I would hear the tap-tapping of that typewriter all night long! Other type-writists have had the same experience. One ought to escape from one's treadmill at least in sleep.