Now, this particular thing as to whether I called a boy or Mr. Shelley did—anyway, we put Lee Oswald with another worker who was experienced in filling orders. This boy showed him the location of the various publishers' stock. He worked with him, it seems to me, like only an hour or two, and then he started filling orders by himself. And from then on he worked alone.
He would occasionally ask the other boys where certain stock items were when he couldn't find them. But he was filling small parcel post and a few freight orders for the various schools—as they would come down from the office.
Mr. Belin. Well, could you describe how his work progressed as he was working with you?
Mr. Truly. Well, he seemed to catch on and learn the location of the stock. We have several thousand titles of books in our warehouse. But he was filling mostly one or two publishers' orders.
Mr. Belin. What publishers were those?
Mr. Truly. The main publisher was Scott, Foresman and Co.
Now, they have quite a lot of small orders, all through the year. They are one of our biggest publishers. So it kept him busy filling mostly their orders, plus some of the smaller publishers. Possibly he filled some of Gregg Publishing Co. and others. But when he would run out of Scott, Foresman orders, he would pick up other orders that might have had several publishers' books on the same order.
Incidentally, not only Scott, Foresman orders were billed separately. There would be other publishers' orders on the same invoice.
Mr. Belin. Well, perhaps you might explain to the Commission just what exactly the nature of your business is, and how an employee would go about filling orders.
Mr. Truly. We are agents for a number of publishers. We furnish offices for those who desire them in Texas. And our business is shipping, inventorying, collecting, doing all the bookkeeping work for the various publishers' books.