The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1899-04-14


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,
three or five?" 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 a premonition Of APP
preaching trouble. Mr.. Vaughn's lean
forefnger was pointing to the fourth
item in 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
that fourth item was thirteen or fifteen.
Late on the previous afternoon Mr..
Vaughn had dictated this letter to her,
slowly and with extraordinary pains,
charging her touse all possible care in
getting the figures down correctly. He
had seemed to her quite unnecessarily
deliberate, for she was impatient to go
home that she might finish a 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
,portant communication through tha
'iting machine at railway speed, and
then, as the Office boy was invisible,
she had undertaken to copy it herself.
1t requires care 20 copy letter as il
should be copied. If the tissue leat
upon which it is to be impressed bt
not wet enough, the result will be {
faint copy; if too wet, blurred one
and in that case the original sheet viii
sometimes be so badly defaced by the
washing of the ink as to be almost il
legible,
Mildred had rushed the lette
through the copying press with quit
as much haste as she had put into tn
typewriting of it. She had passed
dripping brush over the leaf and the
had neglected to absorb with a blot
ting pad the superAuous moisture. L
consequence, the copy had turned GU
a slovenly one, and the original ha
been seriously defaced.
She knew then as we'll as she knee
afterward that haste had made waste
and that her plain duty would hay
been to do the work over again frol
beginning to end; but the letter Wa
a long one, o'clock was DRAWN
near, and just then the completion I
her new party gown was of more IN
portance to her than the business col
Germs Of Theophilus Vaughn & Co.
Moreover, if she we're to send Il
letter off as it was, probably she new
would hear from it again; as for I'll
copy, that might be matter of lit
Importance Not half the copies
the letter book ever were referred t
They were put there because it was
business custom to preserve them, b
they seldom proved to be of vital co
.seuuence-that she had discovered
her experience thus far.
So she had crowded the ''wate
logged sheet hastily out of sight
an envelope and sent it away. No
"a hours later, it had occurred to N
Vaughn to glance over the copy, a
a time of reckoning had come.
81 can't make it out, sir, she sat
desperately, after keeping silence
long as she dared. 81 can't
whether it is a five or three / "
look at my notes and see what
ought to be. "
~ know perfectly well what
ought to be, " he commented, dry
cit ought to be a five. What 1
anxious to learn is what it is. "
81 have it five here, sir, said
girl, who had been consulting
shorthand notes.
''The point is, did You get it do
a five here?" her employer return
Mildred's spirits sank, and she la
not meet Mr.. Vaughn's gaze, but ST
before him hot, silent and thoroug
uncomfortable.
'These quotations, he proceed
Indicating the column of figures, "N
furnished to Marshall & Hobbs
their request to enable them to sub