LXIII—BUSINESS LETTERS
A text-book on English composition, giving examples of good and bad letter-writing, is always a mine of possibilities for one given to ruminating and with nothing in particular to do. In "Business Man's English" the specimen letters are unusually interesting. It seems almost as if the authors, Wallace Edgar Bartholomew and Floyd Hurlbut, had selected their examples with a view to their fiction possibilities. It also seems to the reader as if he were opening someone else's mail.
For instance, the following is given as a type of "very short letter, well placed":
Mr. Richard T. Green,
Employment Department,
Travellers' Insurance Co.,
Chicago, Ill.Dear Mr. Green:
The young man about whom you inquire has much native ability and while in our employ proved himself a master of office routine.[pg 308]
I regret to say, however, that he left us under circumstances that would not justify our recommending him to you.
Cordially yours,
C.S. THOMPSON
Now I want to know what those "circumstances" were. And in lieu of the facts, I am afraid that I shall have to imagine some circumstances for myself. Personally, I don't believe that the "young man" was to blame. Bad companions, maybe, or I shouldn't be at all surprised if he was shielding someone else, perhaps a young lady stenographer with whom he was in love. The more I think of it the more I am sure that this was the secret of the whole thing. You see, he was a good worker and had, Mr. Thompson admits, proved himself a master of office routine. Although Mr. Thompson doesn't say so, I have no doubt but that he would have been promoted very shortly.
And then he fell in love with a little brown-eyed stenographer. You know how it is yourself. She had an invalid mother at home and was probably trying to save enough money to send her father to college. And whatever she did, it couldn't have been so very bad, for she was such a nice girl.
Well, at any rate, it looks to me as if the young man, while he was arranging the pads of paper for [pg 309]the regular Monday morning conference, overheard the office-manager telling about this affair (I have good reason to believe that it was a matter of carelessness in the payroll) and saying that he considered the little brown-eyed girl dishonest.
At this the young man drew himself up to his full height and, looking the office-manager squarely in the eye, said:
"No, Mr. Hostetter; it was I who did it, and I will take the consequences. And I want it understood that no finger of suspicion shall be pointed at Agnes Fairchild, than whom no truer, sweeter girl ever lived!"
"I am sorry to hear this, Ralph," said Mr. Hostetter. "You know what this means."