Page:The Blacker the Berry - Thurman - 1929.djvu/102

 being practical only at such fleeting moments when she would wonder,—would she be able to take dictation at the required rate of speed?”—would her fingers be nimble enough on the keyboard of the typewriter? Oh, bother. It wouldn’t take her over one day to adapt herself to her new job.

A street crossing. Traffic delayed her and she was conscious of a man, a blurred tan image, speaking to her. He was ignored. Everything was to be ignored save the address digits on the buildings. Everything was secondary to the business at hand. Let traffic pass, let men aching for flirtations speak, let Seventh Avenue be spangled with forenoon sunshine and shadow, and polka-dotted with still or moving human forms. She was going to have a job. The rest of the world could go to hell.

Emma Lou turned into a four-story brick building and sped up one flight of stairs. The rooms were not numbered and directing signs in the hallway only served to confuse. But Emma Lou was not to be delayed. She rushed back and forth from door to door on the first floor, then to the second, until she finally found the office she was looking for.

Angus and Brown were an old Harlem real estate firm. They had begun business during the first decade of the century, handling property for a while in New York’s far-famed San Juan Hill district. When