The giftie gien

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Unknown Worlds April 1943. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

It was five o'clock. The girls were getting ready to go home and the city salesmen were beginning to come trooping in. Mr. J. C. Chisholm, sales manager of the Pinnacle Office & Household Appliance Corp., folded his pudgy hands across his ample middle and sat back in his chair to watch the daily ritual going on beyond the clear-glass partition that separated his office from the salesmen's room. A bland smile was on his pink face and a stranger might have said that he appeared to be beaming with satisfaction and good will. At any rate, the smile was there, and, as a matter of fact, Mr. Chisholm was quite satisfied with himself. There was not the slightest doubt in his mind--and the incoming orders up to that hour were added proof of it--that he was the best little old sales manager POHAC had ever had. Consequently, he viewed the activities beyond the partition with the utmost amiability.

Miss Maizie Delmar, his secretary, sat beside him, her notebook on her knee and her pencil poised in anticipation of any weighty utterance he might see fit to make. Not that she expected to take any notes for the next ten minutes, for she knew her boss quite as well as he thought he knew everybody else. This was the "psychic hour," as she caustically referred to it when outside the smothering confines of POHAC's. It amused Mr. Chisholm to display his keen powers of observation and his uncanny judgment of people. So she waited with a hard, set face for his first prediction. She knew that he would look at her from time to time to get her reaction, but she was ready for that. She had a little frozen smile and a gleam to put into her tired eyes that she could flash on and off like a light, but she reserved those until they were demanded.

"Har-rum," he observed, "Miss Carrick has now finished dabbing her nose. In exactly forty-three seconds she will fold her typewriter under and slam the lid. Then she will go to the window and look at the sky. It is cloudy, so she will put on her galoshes and take an umbrella."

He started his stop watch. Miss Delmar sighed inaudibly and waited. Of course he was right. Miss Carrick was an elderly and sour spinster and decidedly "set in her ways." She was as predictable as sunset and the tides.

"Forty-four seconds," he announced, triumphantly, snapping off the watch at the bang of the desk top. "Don't tell me. I know these people like a book. Nobody can slip anything over old J.C."

Miss Trevelyan was the next subject for prophecy. She had a well-established routine that was almost as rigid as that of Miss Carrick, though she was of a different type. Miss Trevelyan was a baby-doll beauty of the Betty Boop variety and with the voice to match. At the moment she was regarding herself anxiously in a ridiculously small compact mirror, tilting her head this way and that with quick birdlike jerks so as to better scrutinize nose, cheeks, eyes and ears. After that, as J.C. gleefully foretold, would come the powdering, the lip-sticking, the eyebrow-brushing--in the order named--and eventually an elaborate tucking-in of imaginary wisps of vagrant hair. J.C. didn't miss a bet.

Then three salesmen came in. Jake Sarrat, the big, jovial ace of the wholesale district, slapped the other two on the back, hurled his brief case and kit into a desk drawer, made a brief phone call, and then went out. Old Mr. Firrel wore his usual somber, tired look, and walked slowly to the bare table they had let him use. He unbent his lanky and stooped six feet of skin and bones and began dragging copious sheafs of notes from his brief case. Those he glanced at briefly and began tearing up, one by one. The third, a saturnine little fellow who appeared to be perpetually angry, marched straight to his desk and began scribbling furiously on a pad of report blanks. He was Ellis Hardy, Chisholm's pet.

"Jake," said Mr. Chisholm, confidently, "is working up a big case and wants to surprise me with it. Watch his smoke before the week is over. Ellis has just brought in a big one--stick around, we may pour a drink before we call it a day. As for Old Dismal, he's quitting. The poor dope!"

He twirled his chair around to face a mahogany cabinet. He opened the door of it, took out a bottle and glass, and poured himself a stiff slug of rye. He tossed it off with a grunt and swiveled back.

"That guy is not a salesman and never will be," he snorted contemptuously. "Look at him! He looks like a tramp and as mournful as a pallbearer. When I talk to him about dolling himself up he says he hasn't the dough; when I tell him to cheer up and wear a smile, he croaks about his stomach ulcers. What do I care how hard he works if he never brings the bacon in? Why, if that poor drip ever took a look at himself in the mirror, he'd go hang himself."

Maizie gripped her pencil harder and quoted softly:

"Ah, wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us--"

"That's right," exclaimed Mr. Chisholm. "You get it. Take me. I'm always on the lookout for that. If I didn't watch myself, I might turn stout. But no, I'm wise. I don't wait for people to tell me--I go to the gym three times a week and have a good work-out. The rubber says there's not a spare ounce on me. There's no crime in being big--people respect a big man, don't you think?"

"They do get out of their way," admitted Maizie, flashing her stock smile, and batting her eyelids appreciatively. After all, he paid her forty a week and she had a paralyzed mother to support.

"Exactly," he continued, gratified, "and that's only appearance I'm talking about. The big thing is personal relations. Look how often somebody takes me for an easy-mark and tries to slip something over. I fool 'em, don't I? That's because I keep studying myself. I say to myself, say I, 'Look here, J.C., this bird thinks he's smart; now show him you're smarter.' Good system, eh? That's what comes of taking an objective view of yourself. That's why I keep all those psychology books around. You have no idea--"

"It must be grand to be so masterful, to be able to hold down such a big position ... and ... and all that," she said, hoping the blush it cost her wouldn't be noticed.

But there was a diversion at hand. Ellis Hardy was approaching and she knew without being told what was about to happen. In line of duty she listened in--with the connivance of Miss Perkins, the PBX operator--on salesmen's telephone conversations. In fact, she was the modest source of much of Mr. Chisholm's omniscience.

Hardy came in without the ceremony of knocking, and promptly sat down on top of Chisholm's desk. He threw down a sheaf of filled-out orders. A certified check running to five figures was clipped to the top.

"Got 'em," announced Hardy with a self-satisfied smirk. "Eight SXV units, motor-driven, complete with accessories and a year's supply. That's for the head office. I sold 'em four more for the branches."

"Attaboy!" responded Chisholm, doing another rightabout-face. This time he set out three glasses with the bottle. "Moore & Fentress, eh? I told you they would be push-overs. Don't ever say I don't give you the breaks--that was like getting money from home."

"Uh-huh," admitted Hardy, with a reluctant grin. "Of course that sap Firrel--"

"Never mind Firrel," snapped Chisholm, "I'll handle him. The money's the thing."

"Oh, sure," said Hardy, "as soon as my check comes through--"

"Drink up," said Chisholm, waving a deprecating hand. There was no need of Maizie knowing too much--she was discreet and loyal and all that, but still--

Firrel was at the door, standing hesitantly as if unwilling to interrupt the conference going on, but fidgeting as if anxious to be on his way.

"Scram, Ellis," said Chisholm, seeing the gaunt old man. "Let me hear what this egg's wail is."