CHAPTER V. THE SELF-STARTERThere is nothing in the sound of the shrill little bell to warn us of the import of its message. More's the pity. It may be that bore whose telephone conversation begins: "Well, what do you know to-day?" It may be your lawyer to say you've inherited a million. Hence the arrogance of the instrument. It knows its voice will never wilfully go unanswered so long as the element of chance lies concealed within it.Mrs. Emma McChesney heard the call of her telephone across the hall. Seated in the office of her business partner, T.A. Buck, she was...
Long Stories - Post by : vbhnl - Date : May 2012 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 2998
CHAPTER IV. THE MAN WITHIN HIMThey used to do it much more picturesquely. They rode in coats of scarlet, in the crisp, clear morning, to the winding of horns and the baying of hounds, to the thud-thud of hoofs, and the crackle of underbrush. Across fresh-plowed fields they went, crashing through forest paths, leaping ditches, taking fences, scrambling up the inclines, pelting down the hillside, helter-skelter, until, panting, wide-eyed, eager, blood-hungry, the hunt closed in at the death.The scarlet coat has sobered down to the somber gray and the snuffy brown of that unromantic garment known as the business suit. The...
Long Stories - Post by : simkl - Date : May 2012 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 1094
CHAPTER III. DICTATED BUT NOT READAbout the time that Jock McChesney began to carry a yellow walking-stick down to work each morning his mother noticed a growing tendency on his part to patronize her. Now Mrs. Emma McChesney, successful, capable business woman that she was, could afford to regard her young son's attitude with a quiet and deep amusement. In twelve years Emma McChesney had risen from the humble position of stenographer in the office of the T.A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company to the secretaryship of the firm. So when her young son, backed by the profound business knowledge gained in...
Long Stories - Post by : sbeard - Date : May 2012 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 1376
CHAPTER II. PERSONALITY PLUSThere are seven stages in the evolution of that individual whose appearance is the signal for a listless "Who-do-you-want-to-see?" from the white-bloused, drab-haired, anaemic little girl who sits in the outer office forever reading last month's magazines. The badge of fear brands the novice. Standing hat in hand, nervous, apprehensive, gulpy, with the elevator door clanging behind him, and the sacred inner door closed before him, he offers up a silent and paradoxical "Thank heaven!" at the office girl's languid "Not in," and dives into the friendly shelter of the next elevator going down. When, at that same...
Long Stories - Post by : gabby - Date : May 2012 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 2847
CHAPTER I. MAKING GOOD WITH MOTHERWhen men began to build cities vertically instead of horizontally there passed from our highways a picturesque figure, and from our language an expressive figure of speech. That oily-tongued, persuasive, soft-stepping stranger in the rusty Prince Albert and the black string tie who had been wont to haunt our back steps and front offices with his carefully wrapped bundle, retreated in bewildered defeat before the clanging blows of steel on steel that meant the erection of the first twenty-story skyscraper. "As slick," we used to say, "as a lightning-rod agent." Of what use his wares on...
Long Stories - Post by : add2it - Date : May 2012 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 1745
We laid Peter to rest in that noisy, careless, busy citythat he had loved so well, and I think his cynical lipswould have curled in a bitterly amused smile, and hissomber eyes would have flamed into sudden wrath if hecould have seen how utterly and completely New York hadforgotten Peter Orme. He had been buried alive ten yearsbefore--and Newspaper Row has no faith in resurrections. Peter Orme was not even a memory. Ten years is an age ina city where epochs are counted by hours.Now, after two weeks of Norah's loving care, I wasback in the pretty little city...
Long Stories - Post by : dockrue - Date : March 2011 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 1691
The shabby blue office coat hangs on the hook in thelittle sporting room where Blackie placed it. No onedreams of moving it. There it dangles, out at elbows,disreputable, its pockets burned from many a hot pipethrust carelessly into them, its cuffs frayed, its lapelsbearing the marks of cigarette, paste-pot and pen.It is that faded old garment, more than anythingelse, which makes us fail to realize that its owner willnever again slip into its comfortable folds. We cannotbelieve that a lifeless rag like that can triumph overthe man of flesh and blood and nerves and sympathies. With what contempt...
Long Stories - Post by : Bionic_Office - Date : March 2011 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 1660
"You who were ever alert to befriend a manYou who were ever the first to defend a man,You who had always the money to lend a manDown on his luck and hard up for a V,Sure you'll be playing a harp in beatitude(And a quare sight you will be in that attitude)Some day gratitude seems but a platitude,You'll find your latitude."From my desk I could see Peter standing in the doorway ofthe news editor's room. I shut my eyes for a moment. Then I opened them again, quickly. No, it was not adream. He was there, a...
Long Stories - Post by : clivejive - Date : March 2011 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 3131
A man's figure rose from the shadows of the porch andcame forward to meet us as we swung up to the curbing. I stifled a scream in my throat. As I shrank back intothe seat I heard the quick intake of Von Gerhard's breathas he leaned forward to peer into the darkness. A sickdread came upon me."Sa-a-ay, girl," drawled the man's voice, with afamiliar little cackling laugh in it, "sa-a-ay, girl, thepoliceman on th' beat's got me spotted for a suspiciouscharacter. I been hoofin' it up an' down this block likea distracted mamma waitin' for her daughter t'...
Long Stories - Post by : bridob - Date : March 2011 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 1229
Two days before the date set for Von Gerhard's departurethe book was finished, typed, re-read, packed, and sentaway. Half an hour after it was gone all its mostglaring faults seemed to marshall themselves before mymind's eye. Whole paragraphs, that had read quitereasonably before, now loomed ludicrous in perspective. I longed to snatch it back; to tidy it here, to take itin there, to smooth certain rough places neglected in myhaste. For almost a year I had lived with this thing, soclose that its faults and its virtues had becomeindistinguishable to me. Day and night, for many months,it...
Long Stories - Post by : sblackburn - Date : March 2011 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 1962
There was a week in which to scurry about for a new home. The days scampered by, tripping over one another in theirhaste. My sleeping hours were haunted by nightmares oflandladies and impossible boarding-house bedrooms. Columns of "To Let, Furnished or Unfurnished" ads filed,advanced, and retreated before my dizzy eyes. My timeafter office hours was spent in climbing dim stairways,interviewing unenthusiastic females in kimonos, andpeering into ugly bedrooms papered with sprawly andimpossible patterns and filled with the odors ofdead-and-gone dinners. I found one room less impossiblethan the rest, only to be told that the preference was tobe given...
Long Stories - Post by : malistor - Date : March 2011 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 2316
Consternation has corrugated the brows of the aborigines. Consternation twice confounded had added a wrinkle or twoto my collection. We are homeless. That is, we areKnapfless--we, to whom the Knapfs spelled home.Herr Knapf, mustache aquiver, and Frau Knapf, cheekbones glistening, broke the news to us one evening justa week after the exciting day which so changed Bennie'slife. "Es thut uns sehr, sehr leid," Herr Knapf hadbegun. And before he had finished, protesting Germangroans mingled with voluble German explanations. Theaborigines were stricken down. They clapped pudgy fiststo knobby foreheads; they smote their breasts, and madewild gestures...
Long Stories - Post by : jbarnes - Date : March 2011 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 1719
There followed a blessed week of work--a "human warious"week, with something piquant lurking at every turn. Aweek so busy, so kaleidoscopic in its quick succession ofevents that my own troubles and grievances were pushedinto a neglected corner of my mind and made to languishthere, unfed by tears or sighs.News comes in cycles. There are weeks when a cityeditor tears his hair in vain as he bellows for afirst-page story. There follow days so bristling withreal, live copy that perfectly good stuff which, in theordinary course of events might be used to grace thefront sheet, is sandwiched away between...
Long Stories - Post by : Webminer - Date : March 2011 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 1705
Some day the marriageable age for women will beadvanced from twenty to thirty, and the old maid linewill be changed from thirty to forty. When that timecomes there will be surprisingly few divorces. Thehusband of whom we dream at twenty is not at all the typeof man who attracts us at thirty. The man I married attwenty was a brilliant, morbid, handsome, abnormalcreature with magnificent eyes and very white teeth andno particular appetite at mealtime. The man whom I couldcare for at thirty would be the normal, safe andsubstantial sort who would come in at six o'clock,...
Long Stories - Post by : dereka - Date : March 2011 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 2731
In a corner of Frau Nirlanger's bedroom, sheltered fromdraughts and glaring light, is a little wooden bed,painted blue and ornamented with stout red roses that arefaded by time and much abuse. Every evening at eighto'clock three anxious-browed women hold low-spokenconclave about the quaint old bed, while its occupantsleeps and smiles as he sleeps, and clasps to his breasta chewed-looking woolly dog. For a new joy has come tothe sad little Frau Nirlanger, and I, quite by accident,was the cause of bringing it to her. The queer littleblue bed, with its faded roses, was brought down from theattic by...
Long Stories - Post by : ultimate_warrio - Date : March 2011 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 2708
Of Von Gerhard I had not had a glimpse since that eveningof my hysterical outburst. On Christmas day there hadcome a box of roses so huge that I could not find vasesenough to hold its contents, although I pressed intoservice everything from Mason jars from the kitchen tohand-painted atrocities from the parlor. After I hadgiven posies to Frau Nirlanger, and fastened a rose inFrau Knapf's hard knob of hair it bobbed inludicrous discomfort, I still had enough to fill thewashbowl. My room looked like a grand opera star'sboudoir when she is expecting the newspaper reporters. I reveled...
Long Stories - Post by : Kevin_McNally - Date : March 2011 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 2819
From husbands in general, and from oogly German husbandsin particular may Hymen defend me! Never again will Iattempt to select "echt Amerikanische" clothes for awoman who must not weary her young husband. But how wasI to know that the harmless little shopping expeditionwould resolve itself into a domestic tragedy, with HerrNirlanger as the villain, Frau Nirlanger as thepersecuted heroine, and I as--what is it in tragedy thatcorresponds to the innocent bystander in real life? Thatwould be my role.The purchasing of the clothes was a real joy. Nextto buying pretty things for myself there is nothing Ilike better...
Long Stories - Post by : Beier - Date : March 2011 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 2378
Two more aborigines have appeared. One of them is alady aborigine. They made their entrance at supper andI forgot to eat, watching them. The new-comers are fromVienna. He is an expert engineer and she is a woman ofnoble birth, with a history. Their combined appearanceis calculated to strike terror to the heart. He isdaringly ugly, with a chin that curves in under his lipand then out in a peak, like pictures of Punch. She worea gray gown of a style I never had seen before and neverexpect to see again. It was fastened...
Long Stories - Post by : franco - Date : March 2011 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 1864
I have visited Baumbach's. I have heard Milwaukeedrinking its afternoon Kaffee.O Baumbach's, with your deliciously crumbling buttercookies and your kaffee kuchen, and your thick cream, andyour thicker waitresses and your cockroaches, and yourdinginess and your dowdy German ladies and your black,black Kaffee,where in this country is there another likeyou!Blackie, true to his promise, had hailed me from thedoorway on the afternoon of the following day. In therush of the day's work I had quite forgotten aboutBlackie and Baumbach's."Come, Kindchen!" he called. "Get your bonnet on. We will by Baumbach's go, no?"Ruefully I gazed at the grimy cuffs of...
Long Stories - Post by : rucanunes - Date : March 2011 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 1348
I did not write Norah about Von Gerhard. After all, Itold myself, there was nothing to write. And so I wasthe first to break the solemn pact that we had made."You will write everything, won't you, Dawn dear?" Norah had pleaded, with tears, in her pretty eyes. "Promise me. We've been nearer to each other in theselast few months than we have been since we were girls. And I've loved it so. Please don't do as you did duringthose miserable years in New York, when you were fightingyour troubles alone and we knew nothing of it....
Long Stories - Post by : Richard_Cuss - Date : March 2011 - Author : Edna Ferber - Read : 1243
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Personality Plus - Chapter 5. The Self-Starter
