Horace could not suppress a shudder.
"That's all," said Mr. Cowan.
When Horace arrived at his Flatbush flat, late for supper, he did not enjoy the bread pudding, though it was a particularly good one—with raisins. Nor did he go to sleep quickly, no matter how many numbers he multiplied. He was thinking what it would mean to him at his age if Mr. Cowan should have him put out of his cage. His dreams were haunted by a pair of eyes like those of a frozen owl.
The next afternoon Horace Nimms, busy in his cage, received a notice that there would be an organization meeting at the end of the day. He went. The meeting had been called by S. Walmsley Cowan, who in his talks to large groups adopted the benevolent big-brother manner and turned on and off a beaming smile.
"My friends," he began, "it is no secret to some of you that Mr. Hammer has not been pleased with the way things are going in the company. He has felt that there has been a great deal of waste of time and money; that neither the volume of business nor the profits on it are what they should be. He has commissioned me to find out what is wrong in the company and to put pep, efficiency, enthusiasm into our organization."
He smiled a modest smile.
"I rather fancy," he continued, "that I'll succeed. I have been conducting the tests with which you are all doubtless familiar through reading my books, 'Pep, Personality, Personnel,' and 'How to Enthuse Employees.' I have made a most interesting and startling discovery. Most of you are in the wrong jobs!"
He paused. The men and women looked at each other uneasily. Then he went on.
"I'll cite just one instance. Yesterday I tested the mentality of one of you. I found that he was of the cage, or solitary, type of worker. See Page 239 of my book on Getting Into Men's Brains. But he was already working in a cage! Here was a problem. Could it be that that was where he would do best? No! Then a happy solution struck me. He was in the wrong cage. So I am going to transfer him from a mathematical cage to a mechanical cage. I am going to transfer him to be an elevator operator. This may surprise you, my friends, but science is always surprising. Just fancy! This man has been working with figures for more than twenty years, and I discover by measuring that his thumbs are of the purely mechanical type, and all that time he would have been much happier running an elevator. Now by an odd coincidence I found that one of the elevator operators has a pure type of mathematical ear, so I am transferring him to the cashier's cage. He may seem a bit awkward there at first, but we shall see, we shall see."
He turned on his smile. But the eyes of the employees had turned sympathetically to the pale face of Horace Nimms. How old and tired Uncle Horace looked, they thought. In a nightmare Horace heard his doom pronounced. After twenty-one years! His temple of figures!