New Britain Herald Newspaper, January 27, 1926, Page 4

|]'ll'"' ||‘ APTER 1 RAND glanced up from the neat little array of papers on the desk in front of him, and coughed, 1t was a gentle sort of cough. A quict, almost orderly little cough, quite in keeping with Henry Rand and his immediate surroundings. At its sound the stenog- iapher half-way across the room halted in her typing and picked up her notebook. When ever Henry Rand coughed Miss I'ry knew she was to take more dictation. “Miss Fry, bring cil, please.” “Yes, Mr, Rand.” Miss Fry seated beside him, Henry Rand leaned back in his swivel chair, took off his spee- tacles and polished them care- fully with his handkerchief. Then he as carefully replaced them, clasped his hands with the tips of his thumbs and forefingers together and ve- flectively studied the ceiling, “Take a letter, Miss Fray, to Mrs. Philip A, Ward—the address is on this report. Dear Madam:” Henry Rand paused and cleared his throat. “Ahem.” like the cough, it was deliv- ered quietly and without os- tentation. Miss Fry, recogniz- ing it as part of the ritual of dictation to which she was a party a dozen or more time day, smothered a yawn and poiged her pencil over her note- book. “Dear your pen- Madam: We are pleased to inform you that we are extending you the con- venience of a charge account.” “Form A,” murmured Miss Fry, almost inaudibly. “Did you say something, Miss Fr, Miss I blushed. “I was just vepeating, Mr. Rand.” “Oh. All right. Ahem. Please be assured that Royal Brothers consider it a privilege to re- ceive the favor of your patron- age. We hope vou will find the occasion to make frequent use of your account.” Ilenry Rand cleaved throat again. “A . Let me see, Miss Fr tead that last sentence again Miss Fry, without glancing at her notes, smilingly recited: *“\We hope you will find the oc- casion to make frequent use of your account.” “That's right, Miss Fry. Just close it respectfully yours. That's all! By the way, does something amuse you?” “Oh no, sir. T was just won- dering,” she paused in the act of gathering up her notebook, “T was just wondering whether —do mind if 1 make a sug- gestion “Certainly not. Glad to have you. What is it? Miss Fry’s smile had vanish- ed. She blused and studied the floor. “Well, it's wrd to die- tation. T believe there's a way for vou to save a lot of your time—and mine, too.” “Al, indeed. And what this plan?” Henry Rand smiled heni on his stenographer and n ped his hands with the t finger his tips together. “Well, ¢ tation could be done away with if ‘d ad letters. For instance, | regard the Jet- ter you just dictat Form A. You use Form A whenever vou tell somebody their cood bit of your dic- form 1 anpli- been vou turn them . When some- Vs end them up 1 drummed o around t crow | drumming “How long | here, Miss Fry? been NEW Mary Lowell “About two years, 1d.” “Two years. Well, Miss Fry. I have been with th ment store for thirty years and ten of them I have spent as manager of the credit depart- ment. I have been dictating let- ters just like that for ten years and T see no good reason for stopping now.” “I'm sorry, Mr. Rand.” “No need to be.” He waved his hand magnanimously. “Your plan is perhaps more ef- ficient, but T prefer to keep the personal touch in my corres- pondence.” Miss TFry departed. After Jimmy Rand finishing the letter already in her typewriter she inserted fresh paper and, without glancing at her notes other than to verify name and ad- dress, she very swiftly and ac- curately finished Henry Rand's most recent letter, This done, she laid her let- rs in a neat pile on Rand's sk for his signature. The clock told her it was ten minutes to five. She opened a drawer in her desk, drew a vanity case out of her bag and left the room. .« In the washroom, be- tween dabs with the lipstick, he addressed her neighbor: “Giee, Edna, T think Mr. Rand s awfully old-fashioned. But iust the same, I think he's an old peach. office Emerging from the Roya rother tore, Henry Rand used long enough to buv a and then walked treet car stop. he waited hardly a fizure to attention in a crowd. under medium height: built; round, ruddy overcoat of a neutral protected him k wind; a black sat evenly on newspaper over to the There He wa command A little his to a stled over ably , he glanced headlines, a sensationally car groaned with is left ol at the front skipping over played divorce, and turned promptly to the editorial page. When he got off, half an hour later he thrust the folded paper in his overcoat pocket and set off brigkly down the street. He threw his chest out, tilted his head back and inhaled deeply. Then he exhaled very slowly. Henry Rand was indulging in his daily bid for health. Three blocks from the car line he turned off the sidewalk in front of a little white house of “Duteh Colonial” design. A walk made of planks some two feet in width marred the ap- pearance of an otherwise per- fect lawn and contrasted shavp- v with the neat cement walks on his next door neighbors. As 1e opened the front door he pulled out his watch. “Right on time, Martha,” he announced as he hung hat and coat in the closet off the vesti- bule. He limped into the citchen, “Quarter to six,” he proclaimed. “Old Reliable him- self.” “Just chase yourself out the kitchen, Ilenry Rand. You're in the way Martha tand was stooping before the 2as oven, basting a roast. She Kept right on, without once turning her head. Henry Rand bent over and kissed her on the car. Tt dis- arranged her neatly arranged hair, sandy colored but streak- ed here and there with gray “Where's Janet?” he asked. “She's in the dining room setting the table, or was a few minutes ago. Don't bother me.” The sound of a piano, well played, came from the living room. “She's probably forgotten to set the table,” grumbled Henry Rand's wife. *I suppose I'll have to do it myself.” Henry Rand had walked into the dining room. *“No such thing,” he called back. “The table's all set. My dear, you'd do well to have a little more confidence in the members of your family.” He walked through the wide doorway between dining and living rooms. The girl at the piano looked up to receive hie paternal kiss. “Hello, Dad.” “Evenin’, Janet, what's this vou'e playi MacDowell's Woodland Sketehes? Some- thing new Sounds like good stuff.” His daughter rose from the piano bench to take off her apron that coverved her dress. When she stood, her gray eyes, set wide apart, were quite on a level with her father's. Her dark brown hair was hobbed and curly, her face quite devoid of color except for the redness lips. Her straight nose enhanced the seriousness of hei face, of She smiled. “Yes, it is well thought of, and quite difficult to play, if yvou ask me.” Hen Rand patted her should. “Nothing's too difti- cult for you, honey. Schubert, Lizst, Rachmaninoft en this guy, what's his name? “1 hope you're not referring to Brahms, Dad.” e BRITAIN “That's the bird.” She made a mock curtsy. “Thank you, kind sir. Suppose vou study MacDowell while | help mother,” “Jimmy home yet 2" he ealled after her, “Nope.” The front door banged shut. “T am, too,” came a loud voice from the hall. “Dinner ready ?” “You'll wash wour face and hands before you sit down to the table, James Rand.” 1t was Martha calling from the kitchen, “How old do you think T am, Mother, seven?” A tall, broad- shouldered young man, gray- eved and straight-nosed as his sister, leaped into the kitchen, seized his mother in his arms and kissed her. He ducked to avoid her slap, and plumped into Janet, who seized him by the hair. “Cut it out, Sis, or I'll muss you permanent wave.” e ran t her, shouted a greeting at his father and dashed up the stairs. In the bath room he divested himself of his shirt and dili- gently scrubbed his face and hands. The athletic-cut under- wear revealed slim but power- fully muscled arms. His face dried, he rubbed his fingers ex- perimentally over his lean jaw, and fingered a close-cropped brown mustache, “Good enough,” he remark- ed. Retreating to his bed room he cavefully combed and brush- ed his hair, parting it on the side. Like his sister’s, his hair was brown, but it was quite straight and eame down on the forehead in a “widow’s peak.’ By the time he had put on a clean shirt dinner was on the table and the rest of the Rand family waiting. Henry Rand, liminary “ahem,” saia grace. He said it rather pompously, in a slow, measured voice, hang- ing on ecach syllable as if he were reluctant to finish “Well, 1 see the sheik is all slicked up.” Janet, turning to- ward her brother, made a ges- ture as if she were smoothing down her hair. “Don't be young, Rand,” retorted Jimmy. “If the young man would time his a 1 a few minutes earlier, remarked Henry Rand, “he wouldn’t have to break his neck to clean up in time for dinner.” “Oh you and your punctuali- ty,” retorted Jimmy, his mouth filled with baked potato. “Punctuality,” answered the clder Rand, a virtue. T have never been late for work in my life, except on the few occa- sions when the street cars were tied up. Light-thirty finds me at my desk. And qu finds me home. I li served at six, and whoever late should go hungry.” “Twenty-nine years of it,” observed Mrs, Rand. A fleeting smile lighted up her sharp fea- tures. She turned her pale blue s toward Jimmy. “1 some- times wonder what form of with a pre- Miss DAILY HERALD, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY murder vour father would com mit on me if 1 happened to be late with his dinner. “Twenty-nine years, eh,” mussed Jimmy. “And 1 hop vou haven't forgotten that memorable day 27 vears ago to norrow, The elder Rand paused in the act of buttering a piece ol hread. “Your birthday, to be sure. My, how time does fly. T'wenty-seven years ago tomor row, my son, vou came into the world a squalling, rved {1ced- Jimmy threw up his hand in mock hoiror, “Spare the hor- rible details, dad. I've heard all this for the last 15 years that I know o “And 30 years ago tomo) row,” resumed Henry Rand, *1 first went to work for Royal Brothers. T'm getting old,” He smoothed his bald spot. His gray eyes—they were Jimmy's and Janet's eyes — twinkled merrily behind his spectacles. “1 started in men's furnish- ings.” Henry Rand laid down his knife. “They still remember around the store how 1 used to inger Jovingly over the socks and ties and shirts that T sold. They tell me that 1 almost 1ated to turn them over to a customer.” ‘hey would call t »sychology today,” cut in Jim- my. “In the automobile game, for instance, that sort of stuff would come under the chapter heading that deseribes the creating in the mind of the cus- tomer of the desire to huy.” “There was no such thing as psychology then,” went on lenry Rand. “The word was unknown. But they tell me 1 was a prefty good salesman. | used to put in as mueh effort on the sale of a 15-cent hand- kerchief as I did in sclling a suit of clothes.” “That's where vou were wrong, dad. That shows you didn't have the proper sense of values. Do you suppose I'd work as hard to sell one of our four-cylinder jobs as 1 would to put over a Manchester eight-in- line”” “You should, absoiutely.” “Not on your life, dad. When T sell a hig one T clean up sev- eral hundred dollars. The com- misgion on the other is only about a fourth. Tell me, would vou work as hard for threc thousand a year as you woul? for ten?” “Stop vour eternal arguing,” cut in Mrs. Rand. She turned to Jimmy. “You and your father are at it from morning till night and neither one ever admits the other is right.” She sighed. I suppose you inherit your father's obstina- hat sales T'he discussion has gone far enough anyway,” chimed in Janet. “What kind of a party do you intend to celebrate with, Jimmy ?” *“Oh, T almost forgot,” brother answered. “T've got tickets for a show. We'll all have dinner here and go down her “Get here quick,” said the voice in Jimmy's ear. Your father has just been found dead in a roomi” 9" aly 1926, Olga Maynard town in a cang.” “You old sport,” Janet. “What theate “None of your business, And I've got a ticketfor Barry, too. I suppose you'll have no troubio dragging the young man along.” Janet blushed. laughed “Barry Colvin,” obser elder Rand with emphs amighty fine young man. lighted a cigar. “Who said he wasn't?” torted Jimmy. “T think he’s very ambitious. He will make a name for him- self as a lawyer. You mark my words.” Mrs. Rand’s mouth set in a firm straight line as she spoke. “If 1 were as sure Jimmy would pick as nice a girl to marry as Janet has a man, I'd be satisfied.” Tenry Rand spoke with a heavy air of a Judge. “You let James be,” snapped his wife. She lowered her head to stare down at her napkin, “James will be getting married soon enough without any en- couragement from you.” There W tears in her eyes. They came so easily to her, Jimmy rose. He walked over to his mother and patted her shoulder. Not a chance, mother. Not a chance. I'm sticking by vou till we're on casy street.” He lit a cigarctte and strolled into the living room. “A little music, Sis,” he commanded. Tet's see what we've been spending good money on les- sons for.” “When T've finished helping mother with the dishes,” Janet agreed. Henry Rand and found comfortable chairs in the living room. The elder Rand was enjoying Jhe third of his three cigars a day, lingering over it like an epicure. “How's business, Jimmy ?” Jimmy extinguished his cigarette. sold a car today. T'm flush.’ “Good. money ?” “Absolutely. Kept out enough for board and spending change. The rest is salted in the old sock.” “Thrift,” observed his fath- er, “is a great virtue.” “Like punctuality, laughed Jimmy. “Quit talking platitudes, dad. Do you know what T wish you'd let me do with some of my heavy roll?” No. What?” “1 wish you'd led me rip out that old board walk in front and put in a cement walk. | caught my shoe in it this eve- ning coming in. Some day T'll break a leg. Besides, it looks like the devil.” “If you can make that, James,” called Martha Rand from the dining room, “you’ll be doing more than I've been able to do.” “The board stays.’ Henry Rand spoke positively. “It may not be scrumptious to look at but it suits my old- fashioned notions. T like it.” The doorbell rang. Jimmy od the | i He ro- his son “Did you bank the eh?” him do walk walked to the hall and - flung open the door. “Attorney Colvin himself. laughed Jimmy as he ushered in the visitor, “Good evenin', Jimes,” re- torted Barry Colvin, He enter- ed the living room. “Good eve- ning, Mr. Rand.” 0 He stood erect without his overcoat, a stocky, well-knit figure with curly black hair parted in the middle. His nose was of the pug variety. His lips were parted in a broad grin that showed flaghing white teeth. He stood framed in the door- way between the living and din- ing room to greet Mrs. Rand Lieut. O'Day and Janet, “We'll be finished in just a minute, Barry,” called Janet Bar Colvin aceepted the chair offered by Jimmy. “How's the law business, Barry ?” ask- ed Henry Rand. “Iair, thanks, Mr. Rand. It's quite a pull o started but I] suppose I oughtn't to com- plain. “It takes a lot of work to get started right in anything, Bar- 1y, observed Jimmy. “Hard work never hurt any- one,” put in his father. “I" certainly had plenty of it.” R It was exactly five o'clock on twenty-seventh birthday when Jimmy Rand looked at his watch, walked into the manager’s office of the Man- chester Auto Sales Company and decided to call it a day, See you in the morning, Mr. 3 . I'm celebrating my birthday by being punctual for dinner tonight.” The manager {turned his head away from his work. “Ad- mirable of you, Rand. I hope the folks won't get heart fail- ure.” “There're apt to, laughed Jimmy. “There’s no telling how some people will react to violent shocks. It's nice of you to let me use the demon- trator tonight, too, Mr. Train.” “Not at all, Rand. It would be pretty hard to squeeze five into your roadster.” Jimmy climbed his at that,” into the Janet bugy in the kitehen, handsome whirred. s expertly and “demonstrator,” a sedan, The starter He shifted gea was off, It was precisely fives when he entered the home to find his mother forty tand and he “For once,” announced triumphantly after greeting his mother and pinching Janet's cheek, “I've beaten dad home for dinner.” “T suppose that's what brought this miserable rain,” observed Janet sarcastically. Jimmy strode to the front windows. Outside it was almost. completely dark. A cold No- vember rain was falling, whip- ped by a strong wind that stung to the very bones, “Not exactly cheerful weath- er to celebrate the twenty- seventh anniversary of the ad- vent of the well-known Mr. James Rand,” he remarked. He went back to the kitchen. “Quarter to six and after, mother, Where's the punetual Mr. Rand this evening? You remember he said those who were late should go hungry.” Footsteps were heard outside the front door, “That's youi father now, maybe,” hazarded Mrs. Rand. The doorbell rang. “No, it must be Barry.” Tt was Barry Colvin, Jimm) took his hat and coat. “Just in time for dinner, Barry, but dad’s late. Can you beat it?" ““There must have been at cast four street cars derailed, then,” laughed Barry. “Either that or an earthquake.” Mrs. Rand called from the kitchen. “James, will you come here a moment,” “Sure, what is it?” He was here on the run. g “Do you suppose anything could have happened to your ather? Traffic is real heavy now and he might have been knocked down by an automo- ile.” “Not a chance, mother, He most likely is caught in a street car tie-up, This weather is enough to cause a lot of them.” Mrs. Rand went to the kitchen window and peered out. It was quite dark. From he living room came the strains of Rachmaninoff’s Pre- ude, Jimmy's and Barry's avorite. Barry and Janet were there together. The window anes rattled with the sudden gust of wind. “What time is it, James?” Mrs. Rand's manner was agi- tated as she kept opening the oven door to look at the roast chicken which was long since cooked and which she was keeping warm. Jimmny glanced at his wateh. “Rix-thirty. Gosh, that's not late, mother. He'll be here any minute now.” “1 wish you'd call the store, James.” “All right, T will, but T hard- ly think he’s there.” He went to the hall. Before he could pick up the receiver the phone bell rang. “‘Hello,” he said, sharply. ““Hello,” came the voice over the phone, a man's brusque voice, “isthis the home of Ilenry Rand?” e¥es “Who is this speaking 2" “‘James Rand, his son.” “Well, this is a police officer speaking from the Canfield hotel. Get here quick. Your father has just been found dead in a room.” (To Be Continued) Blames Whiskers Nand Singh, formerly an Dast Indian professor at Marquette Uni- versity, Milwaukee, announced on his arrival in London that American women do not like whiskers. They admire the Oriental eyes, but his beard prevented him from getting un American wife, he says.