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Updated: June 1, 2025
From the narrow window of a small, close pen, a few feet within the door, a shipping-clerk, wearing a battered straw hat of the past summer, thrust out bills of lading to draymen and issued directions to a gang of German and Swedish roustabouts. "I have taken a great time to come," Mrs. Bates observed to herself.
"Foley, Nichols and two or three others. Will you take a hand in?" "Maybe; I'll see in a little while." "My night at the door," growled Springer. "I hate it." "Never mind; as long as we can't pay a porter some one has got to do it among us. I'll get my book," added the shipping-clerk, glancing at Richard. He entered the next room, closing the door carefully behind him.
"Why, I thought you had taken a vacation!" he exclaimed. "So I did for an hour," replied Richard, and without further words went on with his work. "Why, I thought " began the shipping-clerk. "What did you think?" demanded Frank, coming forward. "Why I I " stammered Norris. "What business is it of yours?" he added rudely. "You thought he was discharged," went on Frank.
"I don't smoke." "Try one. They are fine," went on the shipping-clerk, stopping to get a light. "No time like the present for making a beginning. I'm quite sure it won't make you sick." "I don't think I care to try," was all Richard could say; and he heartily wished Earle Norris would go his own way. "Oh, well, it's all right if you don't care to.
And only two years later, this vagrant, this white phantom, this reptile, was mistress of the house, and conquered hearts, turning a shipping-clerk, by the magic of her marble face, into his master's powerful enemy, into a millionaire, and causing the betrothed bridegroom to be false to his troth. What a wedding-day was that!
In the morning Richard went to work as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. It was not until after dinner that business called him down to the packing-room, and then there were several others besides Norris present. Yet the shipping-clerk evinced a strong desire to talk to Richard privately, and finally accosted him just as he was going up the stairs.
"However, her hopes were dashed, for twenty minutes later, barely long enough for the clerk to have got back to the shop, she was called to the telephone by a message, said to be from Litterny's, and a most polite and apologetic person explained over the line that a mistake had been made; that the diamonds had been addressed and sent to her by an error of the shipping-clerk; that they were not intended for Mrs.
Nelson, of Files & Nelson, wholesale grocers on Front Street, mentioned to me casually that he was looking for a shipping-clerk. Before the war the firm had done an extensive Southern trade, which they purposed to build up again now that the ports of the South were thrown open.
Upon one of the new boards he saw marked with the careless brush of some shipping-clerk, "Watkins & Co., Hartford, Conn." Again, as with the unstable lilac-bushes, his world spun about him; it drew in and darkened. He had the sensation of a grain of dust sucked down a vast black funnel. Outside the quiet room, the city went on its ruthless, noisy way.
While deeply engaged in reading the titles of a number of volumes in a certain window, he felt a light tap on his shoulder, and turning, found himself face to face with Earle Norris. The shipping-clerk was dressed in the height of style, including low cut shoes and carried a heavy gold-headed cane. "Hello, Dare!" he exclaimed pleasantly. "What brings you up here?"
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