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Monday there had been a mere look-in at the office, with Tully saying "Sir"; with Breede exploding fragments of words to a middle-aged and severely gowned woman stenographer who was more formidable than a panorama of the Swiss Alps, and who plainly made Breede uncomfortable; and with Bulger saying, "Never fooled your Uncle Cuthbert for a minute.
A bell clanged twice, the plate was swept with a stubby broom, the home team scurried to their places. "There he is!" exclaimed Breede; "that's him!" Breede leaned out over the railing and pointed to the Greatest Pitcher the World Has Ever Seen. Bean sat coolly back. The Pitcher scanned the first rows of faces in the grandstand.
"I got a whole lot of margins or whatever you call 'em around at that broker's. Maybe he wouldn't mind letting me know." "Stock'll be up t' six hundred before week's out; net you 'round four hund' thous'n'," exploded Breede in his most vicious manner. "Four hundred thousand margins?" He wanted to be cautious. "Dollars, dammit!" shouted Breede. Bean was able to remain cool.
That amount of money would have meant nothing to him back on the Nile. Why should it now? "It wasn't the money I was after," he began, loftily. "Hanh!" "Principle of the thing!" concluded Bean. Breede had lost control of his capable under jaw. It sagged limply. At last he spoke, slowly and with awe in his tone. "You don't puzzle me any more." He shook his head solemnly. "Not any more. I know now!"
He thought he would have said this; the masks were very soon bound to be off Breede and himself. The flapper might start the trouble any minute. But Breede had given him no chance for that lovely speech. No good saying it unless you were nagged. He became aware that the "Federal people" Markham had mentioned were gathering in Breede's room. Several of them brushed by him.
His own had cost sixty-five. He despised Breede for a petty economist. Breede glanced up from his papers to encounter in Bean's eyes only a look of respectful waiting. "Take letter G.S. Hubbell gen' traffic mag'r lines Wes' Chicago dear sir your favour twen'th instant " The words came from under that unacceptable moustache of Breede's like a series of exhausts from a motorcycle.
The Great Reorganizer knew it not, but he no longer looked at Bunker Bean. Instead, he was trying to shrivel with his glare a veritable king of old Egypt who had enjoyed the power of life and death over his remotest subject. Bean did not shrivel. Breede glared his deadliest only a moment. He felt the sway of the great Ram-tah without identifying it.
But most unaccountably, as he gazed, it seemed to him that the great Ram-tah had opened those long-closed eyes; opened them full for a moment; then allowed the left eye to close swiftly. The day began with placid routine. Breede did his accustomed two-hours' monologue. And no one molested Bean. No one appeared to know that he was other than he seemed, and that big things were going forward.
He had once done Breede's personal work, but had been banished to the outer office after Bean's first try-out. Breede had found some mysterious objection to him. Perhaps it was because Bulger would always look up with pleased sagacity, as if he were helping to compose Breede's letters. It may have been simple envy in Breede for his advanced dressing.
The old gentleman, whose young friend he was, began an anecdote, saying that of course he couldn't render the Irish dialect, also that if they had heard it before they were to be sure and let him know. Apparently no one had heard it before, although Breede left the table for the telephone. Bean kept the flapper's hand in his.
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