She appeared at once and
quietly, her notebook and pencil ready, took a place at his side. "Run
this out, please, Mrs. Wald," and an involved financial transaction
followed. What he wanted to ascertain was, with a preferred stock
bearing eight per cent at a stated capitalization, and the gift of a
bonus of common, share for share, how much pie would remain to be cut
up between a Mr. Hadly, Sanford, and himself? The woman worked rapidly,
in long columns of minute neat figures. "About thirty-four thousand
dollars, each, Mr. Randon," she announced almost directly. "Is that
close enough; or do you want it to the fraction?"
"Good enough; send Miss Mathews in."
Almost anyone on his staff, Lee reflected, knew more about the
processes of his business than he did; he supplied the energy, the
responsibility of the decisions, more than the brains of his
organization; and it perfected the details. The stenographer, Miss
Mathews, was very elaborately blonde, very personable; and, dictating
to her, Lee Randon remembered the advice given him by a large wielder
of labor and finance. "Lee," he had said, touching him with the
emphasis of a finger, "never play around with an employee or a client."
He, John Lenning Partins, had been a man of eccentric humors, and--like
all individuals who supported heavy mental burdens, inordinately taxed
their brains--he had his hours, unknown to the investing public, of
erratic, but the word was erotic, conduct.
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