THE GIFTIE GIEN
By Malcolm Jameson
Illustrated by Kramer
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Unknown Worlds April 1943.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It was five o'clock. The girls were getting ready to go home and thecity salesmen were beginning to come trooping in. Mr. J. C. Chisholm,sales manager of the Pinnacle Office & Household Appliance Corp.,folded his pudgy hands across his ample middle and sat back in hischair to watch the daily ritual going on beyond the clear-glasspartition that separated his office from the salesmen's room. A blandsmile was on his pink face and a stranger might have said that heappeared to be beaming with satisfaction and good will. At any rate,the smile was there, and, as a matter of fact, Mr. Chisholm was quitesatisfied with himself. There was not the slightest doubt in hismind—and the incoming orders up to that hour were added proof ofit—that he was the best little old sales manager POHAC had ever had.Consequently, he viewed the activities beyond the partition with theutmost amiability.
Miss Maizie Delmar, his secretary, sat beside him, her notebook on herknee and her pencil poised in anticipation of any weighty utterance hemight see fit to make. Not that she expected to take any notes for thenext ten minutes, for she knew her boss quite as well as he thought heknew everybody else. This was the "psychic hour," as she causticallyreferred to it when outside the smothering confines of POHAC's. Itamused Mr. Chisholm to display his keen powers of observation and hisuncanny judgment of people. So she waited with a hard, set face forhis first prediction. She knew that he would look at her from time totime to get her reaction, but she was ready for that. She had a littlefrozen smile and a gleam to put into her tired eyes that she couldflash on and off like a light, but she reserved those until they weredemanded.
"Har-rum," he observed, "Miss Carrick has now finished dabbing hernose. In exactly forty-three seconds she will fold her typewriter underand slam the lid. Then she will go to the window and look at the sky.It is cloudy, so she will put on her galoshes and take an umbrella."
He started his stop watch. Miss Delmar sighed inaudibly and waited. Ofcourse he was right. Miss Carrick was an elderly and sour spinster anddecidedly "set in her ways." She was as predictable as sunset and thetides.
"Forty-four seconds," he announced, triumphantly, snapping off thewatch at the bang of the desk top. "Don't tell me. I know these peoplelike a book. Nobody can slip anything over old J.C."
Miss Trevelyan was the next subject for prophecy. She had awell-established routine that was almost as rigid as that of MissCarrick, though she was of a different type. Miss Trevelyan was ababy-doll beauty of the Betty Boop variety and with the voice to match.At the moment she was regarding herself anxiously in a ridiculouslysmall compact mirror, tilting her head this way and that with quickbirdlike jerks so as to better scrutinize nose, cheeks, eyes and ears.After that, as J.C. gleefully foretold, would come the powdering, thelip-sticking, the eyebrow-brushing—in the order named—and eventuallyan elaborate tucking-in of imaginary wisps of vagrant hair. J.C.didn't miss a bet.
Then three salesmen came in. Jake Sarrat, the big, jovial ace of thewholesale district, slapped the other two on the back, hurled hisbrief case and kit into a desk drawer, made a brief phone call, andthen went out. Old Mr. Firrel wore his usual somber, tired look, andwalked slowly to the bare table they had let him use. He unbent hislanky