U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [141]
She liked Morton, the cockney valet, too, because he always spoke to her so respectful y. Every morning he'd come and report on how J. Ward was feeling, " 'E looks pretty black this mornin', Miss Wil iams," or, " 'E was whistlin' while 'e was shavin'. Is 'e feelin' good?
Rath-er." When they got to the Pennsylvania Station, New York, she had to stay with Morton to see that the box of files was sent to the office at 100 Fifth Avenue and not out to Long Island where J. Ward's home was. She saw Morton off in a Pierce Arrow that had come al the way in from Great Neck to get the baggage, and went alone to the office in a taxicab with her typewriter and the papers and files. She felt scared and excited looking out of the taxicab window at the tal white buildings and the round water-tanks against the sky and the puffs of steam way up and the sidewalks crowded with people and al the taxicabs and trucks and the shine and jostle and clatter. She wondered where she'd get a room to live, and how she'd find friends and where she'd eat. It seemed terribly scary being al alone in the big city like that and she wondered that she'd had the nerve to come. She decided she'd try to find Alice a job and that they'd take an apartment together, but where would she go tonight?
When she got to the office, everything seemed natural and reassuring and so handsomely furnished and polished
-330-so bright and typewriters going so fast and much more stir and bustle than there'd been in the offices of Dreyfus and Carrol ; but everybody looked Jewish and she was afraid they wouldn't like her and afraid she wouldn't be able to hold down the job. A girl named Gladys Compton showed her her desk,
that she said had been Miss Rosenthal's desk. It was in a little passage just outside J. Ward's private office oppo-site the door to Mr. Robbins' office. Gladys Compton was Jewish and was Mr. Robbins' stenographer and said what a lovely girl Miss Rosenthal had been and how sorry they al were in the office about her accident and Janey felt that she was stepping into a dead man's shoes and would have a stiff row to hoe. Gladys Compton stared at her with resentful brown eyes that had a slight squint in them when she looked hard at anything and said she hoped she'd be able to get through the work, that sometimes the work was simply kil ing, and left her.
When things were closing up at five, J. Ward came out of his private office. Janey was so pleased to see him stand-ing by her desk. He said he'd talked to Miss Compton and asked her to look out for Janey a little at first and that he knew it was hard for a young girl finding her way around a new city, finding a suitable place to live and that sort of thing, but that Miss Compton was a very nice girl and would help her out and he was sure everything would work out fine. He gave her a blue-eyed smile and handed her a closely written packet of notes and said would she mind coming in the office a little early in the morning and having them al copied and on his desk by nine o'clock. He wouldn't usual y ask her to do work like that but al the typists were so stupid and everything was in confusion owing to his absence. Janey felt only too happy to do it and warm al over from his smile.
She and Gladys Compton left the office together.
Gladys Compton suggested that seeing as she didn't know
-331-the city hadn't she better come home with her. She lived in Flatbush with her father and mother and of course it wouldn't be what Miss Wil iams was accustomed to but they had a spare room that they could let her have until she could find her way around and that it was clean at least and that was more than you could say about many places. They went by the station to get her bag. Janey felt relieved not to have to find her way alone in al that crowd. Then they went down into the subway and got on an expresstrain that was packed to the doors and Janey didn't think she could stand it being