J R

— Just leave it! leave it! don’t, hold things up…

— There goes a nickel.

— ten, eleven…

— A penny went back of that chair back there hey…

— Now are we all, J R? Come along you’ve got quite enough…

— This could I just have this too it says Investment Barometer…

— Take it along, take it… Crawley breathed heavily, blocking them packed in the small elevator and paused, as though to be certain the doors would close on them before turning with — get this money picked up in there, Shirley. And count it while you’re at it… bending for the dime gone under her chair as the doors closed on his tweed seat expanse, — should be twenty-two dollars and ninety cents…

They plummeted.

— I think I just need some air, said Mrs Joubert, and drew her fingertips across her forehead.

— Where we going now.

— Did we eat yet?

— Out this way everyone, into those two cars there.

— The big black ones?

— Why, do you see a red one dopey?

— Who’s that guy saluting to.

— That’s a chauffeur what do you think it is, that’s because we’re an owner now right Mrs Joubert?

— Look out. Sit on somebody else, will you?

— Where we going to eat?

— Boy hey look back there, that guy lying in that doorway? He didn’t have any hands, did you see him?

— Boy did you see his face?

— He didn’t have any either hey what’s that, a radio? Turn it.

— It’s a cigarette lighter, dopey.

— Push it.

— Where we going now.

— All right now, let’s just try to sit quietly and act a little more like…

— But Mrs Joubert he’s taking up the whole seat with all those papers and stuff how’s anybody supposed to sit anyplace…

— Let’s try to act a little more like grownup shareowners in a large corporation… She gathered her lap from the cascade threatening from the knees beside her — until we… get there… and she stared out of the window.

— Get where.

She stared out of the window until they got there.

— Hey look they beat us, they’re here already.

A piece of newspaper came blown ankle high along the curb and clung. — Six, seven… her pointing finger trembled, she kicked the bit of newspaper away, — eight…

— But that says Typhon International Building the company our stock is is…

— Just go in, go in! It’s the right place, hurry.

— More elevators.

— We’ll find our company on the fifteenth floor boys and girls. Push fifteen, someone…?

— Lemme push it.

— Hey listen. That music, hear that music? Where’s it coming from. Listen.

— What are we stopping for.

The doors opened silently. No one went and no one came. Nothing moved but notes of Dardanella. The doors closed.

— Can I stay on the elevator and listen to the music awhile Mrs Joubert?

— Here we are, now try to act…

— Hey look they beat us, they’re here already.

— Hey did you have music in your elevator too?

— And look hey, here comes that same little guy again.

Shooting rights and lefts as though fighting his way through a horde to receive them Davidoff burst upon the elevator bank putting on his jacket, closing the generous bills of his collar with the mean knot of the tie in a sweep of opening a door where there was none. — Your new bosses… his gesture ended in a fling toward a girl packed in yellow coming up behind, his expression in a wink — boys and girls, one of our topflight secretaries. Oh and Carol… he stopped short piling them up on his abrupt authority, — tell Mister Eigen I need him in the board room immediately and Carol, bring in a dozen copies of the Annual Report, I told Eigen to put a little kit together for these youngsters… he poised long enough to keep her off balance, and then — this way, he stepped out with a rewarding report each time a heel hit the hard floor, mounting the corridor to the door opened off it just short of where blue carpeting began, and they piled up at shore’s edge to crane for a glimpse of — my office in here… composition seated chairs vacantly attending the catercornered command of a paper-littered metal desk — oh and Florence, get a mailroom boy into the board room to run that projector, and those box lunches…

— Yes sir. I’m looking for the…

— And where’s Mister Eigen? I need him in the board room.

— He’s working on the new draft of Mister Moncrieff’s speech Mister Davidoff, he needs that corrected third draft…

— Check. If the fire bell rings I’ll be in the board room, right through here everybody… he turned and, in a single stride, dropped his stature into the blue that swallowed his course in silence toward the walnut bulwark ahead where he touched the metal doorknob and quaked, — not scared of a little static electricity…? he dipped and crested, swung the door, and they came through bobbing, streaming, running downwind in the seaway stretched before them where, dead ahead, beating his course close-hauled, hat turned up all round, white handkerchief puffed next to the hearing aid made fast to the leach of light gray flannel, the immaculate specter approaching eased off abruptly to make the walnut piling on a beam reach, luff unsteadily, and begin to gather sternway.