Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 255, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1915 — GETTING USED TO HIM [ARTICLE]

GETTING USED TO HIM

ANONYMOUS.

“We are always badly disappointed when people fail to Justify the poor opinion we have formed of them,” said the self-made man, who had not turned out such a bad Job of it. “Now, there was Blodgett, for instance. “Blodgett,” continued the self-made man, “was a clerk in my office —a young fellow of about nineteen when he first went to work for me. I took a dislike to that boy Just as soon as 1 saw him. He was so aggravatingly cock-sure and self-possessed and so infallibly in the right. I don’t know why I hired him, except that he had unimpeachable recommendations and answered all tlfe questions I put to him with great intelligence —something of a ‘that’s easy’ air. He wrote a good hand, had a fair knowledge of bookkeeping and expressed his satisfaction with the small salary I offered him to choke him off. So I took him. “I sent out a column of estimates for him to copy the second morning. Five minutes later he was standing by my desk with the sheet in his hand. “ ‘What is it now?’ I snapped. “ ‘These estimates, sir— ’ he began. " ‘Copy ’em,’ I said. ‘Put the figures down in black and white on another sheet of paper—that’s what “copy” means. Do you think you can do that?” “ ‘Yes, sir,’ said Blodgett. “ ‘Well, do it, then,’ I said. ‘That’s all.’

“It was a good two-hours’ job, but he finished it in an hour and a half — very neatly, too. When he laid it on my desk he remarked that there were two errors in the basic figures that he thought it better to call my attention to, as they falsified the entire business. “He was everlastingly doing something like that. I sat for a year, as it were, with my finger on the buzzer, waiting for a good chance to fire him, but he never gave me the least excuse. As a matter of self-respect, I had to raise his salary twice. “Well, it happened one day that I missed some small change that I remembered to have laid on my desk. Later I lost some more. Suspecting principally the scrub women, I waited till a week after the last theft and then laid my trap. “I worked a little late that evening. I had not meant to, but I had a big contract on hand and it was a matter that nobody could attend to but I, so I stayed on after the office force had dispersed for the suburbs. I was busy for very nearly an hour and then I had to wait for a telephone call. While I was waiting I remembered that I had not attended to my detective -work, and I looked in my pocketbook for a bill. The smallest I had was a ten. I took that, marked it with red ink in one corner and laid it on the desk. Just then the telephone bell rang in the outer office. I left my room and entered the booth, closing the door behind me from habit. “I had got through with my man and was just hanging up the receiver when I heard a quick step in the corridor and Blodgett came in. He looked around quickly and then walked out of my range of vision, and in a moment or two 1 heard him go into my room. To say I was surprised is putting it mildly, but even then it never entered my head that he could be connected with anything like petty theft. He was actually leaving the office before I. recovered myself sufficiently to open the door of the telephone booth and call to him. “He was certainly surprised, but his nerve was good and he looked me in the eye as straight as he always did. ‘I remembered that the mails went out tonight for South America,' he said in response to my look, ‘so I came back to see if the Perez manifests weren’t ready to inclose. Burton had finished them and I put them in the letter you gave me to send. By the way, I took the liberty of going to your desk for stamps. I noticed it was open, and I supposed you intended to return so I didn’t shut it. I —' “ ‘Come into my room with me for a minute,’ I said shortly. And when I had got him inside I said: ‘Sit down.’ The ten-dollar bill was gone.

“My first feeling was one of triumph. I had got him at last. I had proved how unerring l)pd been my instinct of dislike. “I felt almost remorseful when I thought of the inevitable result of my denunciation. “Then I realized that my old dislike of the fellow was probably influencing me more than any feeling of obligar tion to society. I remembered that he had a mother. “I must have sat there for ten minutes considering and all that time he sat, cool and silent. Suddenly I made up my mind. i “ ‘Blodgett,’ I said, ‘did you see anything of a $lO bill on this teak what you were looking for stamps?* I fixed him with a, steady eye. , ■ “ ‘Yes, sir, - he answered, serenely. ‘You’ll see it tucked in the pigeonhole there to your right. It struck me —If you’ll excuse me, sir—as rather a careless way to be leaving money around.’ “It was the first time he had been really impertinent and I suppose there would hav*e been my excuse for diemissing him. I overlooked it, though. “Later he married my daughter. I didn’t want hi™ to, but he seemed determined to put me in the wrong if I refused my consent I’m getting used to him now, however/’ —Chicago Daily News,