Three days later Average Jones entered the Cosmic Club, with that twinkling up-turn of the mouth corners which, with him, indicated satisfactory accomplishment.
“Really, Bert,” he remarked, seeking out his languid friend, in the laziest corner of the large divan.
“You’d be surprised to know how few experienced envelope erasers there are in four millions of population. Only seven people answered that advertisement, and they were mostly tyros.”
“Then you didn’t get your man?”
“It was a woman. The fifth applicant. Got a pin about you?”
Bertram took a pearl from his scarf.
“That’s good. It will make nice, bold, inevitable sort of letters. Come over here to this desk.”
For a few moments he worked at a sheet of, paper with the pin, then threw it down in disgust.
“This sort of thing requires practice,” he muttered. “Here, Bert, you’re cleverer with your fingers than I. You take it, and I’ll dictate.”
Between them, after several failures, they produced a fair copy of the following: