CHAPTER V
THE next morning Oakley saw General Cornish off on the 7.15 train, and then went back to his hotel for breakfast Afterwards, on his way to the office he mailed a check to Ezra Hart for his father. The money was intended to meet his expenses in coming West.
He was very busy all that day making out his new schedules, and in figuring the cuts and just what they would amount to. He approached his task with a certain reluctance, for it was as unpleasant to him personally as it was necessary to the future of the road, and he knew that no half-way measures would suffice. He must cut, as a surgeon cuts, to save. By lopping away a man here and there, giving his work to some other man, or dividing it up among two or three men, he managed to peel off two thousand dollars on the year. He counted that a very fair day's work.
He would start his reform with no particular aggressiveness. He would retire the men he intended to dismiss from the road one at a time. He hoped they would take the hint and hunt other positions. At any rate, they could not get back until he was ready to take them back, as Cornish had assured him he would not be interfered with. He concluded not to hand the notices and orders to Miss Walton, the typewriter, to copy. She might let drop some word that would give his victims an inkling of what was in store for them. He knew there were unpleasant scenes ahead of him, but there was no need to anticipate. When at last his figures for the cuts were complete he would have been grateful for some one with whom to discuss the situation. All at once his responsibilities seemed rather heavier than he had bargained for.
There were only two men in the office besides himself—Philip Kerr, the treasurer, and Byron Holt, his assistant. They were both busy with the payroll, as it was the sixth of the month, and they commenced to pay off in the shops on the tenth.
He had little or no use for Kerr, who still showed, where he dared, in small things his displeasure that an outsider had been appointed manager of the road. He had counted on the place for himself for a number of years, but a succession of managers had come and gone apparently without its ever having occurred to General Cornish that an excellent executive was literally spoiling in the big, bare, general offices of the line.
This singular indifference on the part of Cornish to his real interests had soured a disposition that at its best had more of acid in it than anything else. As there was no way in which he could make his resentment known to the general, even if he had deemed such a course expedient, he took it out of Oakley, and kept his feeling for him on ice. Meanwhile he hided his time, hoping for Oakley's downfall and his own eventual recognition.
With the assistant treasurer, Dan's relations were entirely cordial. Holt was a much younger man than Kerr, as frank and open as the other was secret and reserved. When the six-o'clock whistle blew he glanced up from his work and said:
“I wish you'd wait a moment, Holt. I want to see you.”
Kerr had already gone home, and Miss Walton was adjusting her hat before a bit of a mirror that hung on the wall back of her desk. “All right,” responded Holt, cheerfully.