We beg to acknowledge with many thanks your cheque for one thousand dollars.
We regret to learn that you have not been able to find time to read our digest of the serial story placed with us at your order. But we note with pleasure that you propose to have the “essential points” of our digest “boiled down” by one of the business experts of your office.
Awaiting your commands,
We remain, etc., etc.
X.—SPEEDING UP BUSINESS
We were sitting at our editorial desk in our inner room, quietly writing up our week’s poetry, when a stranger looked in upon us.
He came in with a burst,—like the entry of the hero of western drama coming in out of a snowstorm. His manner was all excitement. “Sit down,” we said, in our grave, courteous way. “Sit down!” he exclaimed, “certainly not! Are you aware of the amount of time and energy that are being wasted in American business by the practice of perpetually sitting down and standing up again? Do you realize that every time you sit down and stand up you make a dead lift of”—he looked at us,—“two hundred and fifty pounds? Did you ever reflect that every time you sit down you have to get up again?” “Never,” we said quietly, “we never thought of it.” “You didn’t!” he sneered. “No, you’d rather go on lifting 250 pounds through two feet,—an average of 500 foot-pounds, practically 62 kilowatts of wasted power. Do you know that by merely hitching a pulley to the back of your neck you could generate enough power to light your whole office?”
We hung our heads. Simple as the thing was, we had never thought of it. “Very good,” said the Stranger. “Now, all American business men are like you. They don’t think,—do you understand me? They don’t think.”