Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/74



week went by like a shot. On Sunday night the glory that was a very stagy Rome burned down for the last time beneath the gridiron of the old Burbank Theater. On Monday morning no odor of grease paint and no noxious smell of stewing glue, which proclaims the scene painter at his work, was in the nostrils of John. Instead, the clack of typewriters, the tinkle of telephone bells, the droning voices of dictators, and the shuffling feet of office boys filled his ears.

As if to completely re-merge the man in his environment, Robert Mitchell came walking in, tossed a bundle of papers upon the desk, fixed the rate clerk with a shaft of his blue eye, and commanded drily:

"Ursus! Make a set of tariffs embracing our new lines to correspond with the commodity tariffs of the San Francisco and El Paso."

John colored slightly at the thrust of that name Ursus, but looked Mr. Mitchell fairly and meekly in the eye and answered:

"Yes, sir."

"Have them effective July 1st," concluded the General Freight Agent, as he turned away.

Burman, the lordly through rate clerk, lowered his sleek face behind his books and snickered. John shot a scowl at Burman and then for a few minutes hunched his shoulders over the documents in the case.

The California Consolidated was being consolidated