Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1899-06-01

otep THIS way moment, II you
please, Miss Chadbourne.
Mr.. Vaughn had opened the letter
book and was looking at it with puz-
zled air. He spoke quietly, but his
tone caused the young stenographer
to start from her chair and approach
him with trepidation.
''What do you call that figure, q
three or fve?" he asked.
AS she caught sight of the blurred
press copy of the letter she had taken
from dictation and sent to Marshall &
Hobbs the evening before, she flushed
guiltily and with premonition of ap-
preaching trouble. Mr. Vaughn's lean
forefnger was pointing to the fourth
item in a long column of figures, quo
tations of prices furnished to one of
the firms best customers, and Mildred
Chadbourne suspected that the trans
action involved was one of unusual
importance.
To hide her confusion she bent low
over the page and anxiously scruti-
nized the indistinct copy; but to do
her best she could not decide whether
bAdp lOul VII lpOill W do I'LL tCCu VI Alt66U.
Late on the previous afternoon Mr..
Vaughn had dictated this letter to her,
slowly and with extraordinary pains,
charging her to use all possible care in
getting the figures down correctly. He
had seemed to her quite unnecessarily
deliberate, for she was impatient to go
LONE that she might finish gown
she was making, and she had planned
to leave few minutes before the Gus
tomary closing hour.
When the dictation was completed
he had rushed off to his train, although
first charging her to write, copy and
post the letter that night without fail.
Inwardly rebelling, she had ratified the
important communication through the
writing machine at railway speed, and
then, as the office boy was invisible,
she had undertaken to copy it herself.
1t requires care to copy letter as it
should be copied If the tissue leaf
upon which it is to be impressed be
not wet enough, the result will be a
faint copy; if too wet, blurred one,
and in that case the original sheet will
sometimes be so badly defaced by the
washing of the ink as to be almost il
legible.
Mildred had rushed the letter
through the copying press with quite
as much haste as she had put into the
typewriting of it. She had passed a
dripping brush over the leaf and then
had neglected to absorb with a blot
ting pad tho superhuous moisture. In
consequence, the copy had turned out
a slovenly one, and the original had
been seriously defaced.
She knew then as we'll as she knew
afterward that haste had made waste,
and that her plain duty would have
been to do the work over again from
beginning to end; but the letter was
long one, 6 o'clock was drawing
near, and just then the completion of
her new party gown was of more i'm
portance to her than the business con-
Germs of Theophilus Vaughn & Co.
Moreover, if she were to send the
letter off as it was, probably she never
would hear from it again; as for the
copy, that might be matter of little
Importance. Not half the copies in
the letter book ever were referred to.
They were put there because it was a
business custom to preserve them, but
they seldom proved to be of vital con-
sequence-that she had discovered in
her experience thus far.
So she had crowded the "water
logged" sheet hastily out of sight in
an envelope and sent it away. Now,
"a hours later, it had occurred to Mr..
Vaughn to glance over the copy, and
time of reckoning had come.
~ can't make it out, SIR" she said,
desperately, after keeping silence as
long as she dared. 81 can't tell
whether it is five or three. I will
look at my notes and see what it
ought to be-"
81 know perfectly we'll what it
ought to be, he commented, dryly.
ut ought to be five. What l am
anxious to learn is what it is"
ct have it five here, sir, said the
girl, who had been consulting her
shorthand notes.
''The point is, did You get it down
a five here?" her employer returned.
Mildred's spirits sank, and she dared
not meet Mr.. Vaughn's gaze, but stood
before him hot, silent aud thoroughly
uncomfortable.
''These quotations, he proceeded,
Indicating the column of figures, "were
furnished to Marshall a. Hobbs at
their request to enable them to submit