The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-04-01
CHAPTER 524
 Copyright, 1920. King Features Syn

dicate, Inc
 | To cover this conduct, so unlike l Carlotta's usual warm friedliness. I
 turned promptly to MT. Hoadley.
 though I purposely made my request loud enough for everyone in the of- 1 flee to hear:
 l You've been splendid about get l ting things into shape so that by
 10 o'clock we'll be in running order | and ready for business I said. But | m going to ask one more thing of
 you. The furniture people made 1 stupid blunder about my office fur I nishings. They sent me brand-new
 Circassion walnut instead of the sec | ond-hand quartered oak ordered. | eff I were to telephone, they'd
 probably get more confused than | ever. The furniture place is very | near your office. Would you mind stepping in on your way downtown 1 and making 1t clear to them that l want exactly what I ordered?" kept all undue emphasis out of
 my voice and made by expression as l casual as I knew how. Yet I felt
 there was no mistaking my determin- ation to put the thing down as a blum
 der of the furniture people and a | blunder which I insisted on having | rectified. Max Hoad1ey'S reply l amazed me.
 Don't you like that Circassian | walnut stuff?'' asked Max Hoadley, 1 with the guflelessness of a. child. after 1 I'd asked hiIn to stop at the furniture | place and tell them to rectify their l mistake in delivering furniture other | than what I'd ordered for my office. You know you gave Haldane's and ! me as references when you picked out your office furnishings, and they l knew me, so they called me up about l the account. told them it was C. 1 K. and gilt-edged, and that I was kinda partners here-which is true l ain't tt?''
 Tn way I smiled, to avoid hu- l initiating him before Carlotta and l Miss May. Well, then. next thing was they 1 asked me if I'd mind coming, in and strengthening out a blunder their salesman had made in not keeping his records straight. He had your l order mixed up with another for @ building further downtown. So, as 8 choice between the oak stuff 1t appears now you ordered and these handsome walnut pieces, naturally
 I took the best. The best is none
 too good for you. and it won't hurt our firm to start innpressively. But what you say goes. and if you don't want me putting in I'll butt out" If we'd been alone I might have berated him soundly for his pre- sumption. But I couldn't bear to speak so coId1y while Carlotta flicked her eyes over him with a curt look of dislike as disconcerting and unfair as Jean1e's cool look of appraisal
 would have been. I didn't wish to
 humiliate a. man who'd meant to be
 kind nor to cheapen him in the eyes
 of two strangers. So I dealt gently
 with his awkward blundering.
 "Your mistake is natural enough. MT. Hoad1ey. But don't regard this
 precisely as a partnership. You're one of my clients. You're to get a
 percentage on the business we do
 with each client you bring to the
 A. L. Harrison organization, it Is
 true. And when our profits reach
 a certain amount you're to have a
 percentage on the rest. But we didn't
 say a word about your financing the
 organization. I prefer not to take
 over any unnecessary obligations.
 Debts are so-swamping to a new
 business, I'm sure we agree?'
 Sure replied Max Hoadley, slip
 ping into his coat and mopping his
 brow with an air of getting out of a
 suffocating place. 'sNo offense in-
 tended. I didn't understand that
 wasn't 9, partner. But I'm put In
 my place now-just a, client. Hope
 that's all right and no hard feelings
 where nothing was meant"
 F'That would be a handsome apolo-