UNSUSTAINED APPLICATION

“Mr. Kendrick, do you understand typewriting?”

Judge Gray’s assistant looked up, a slight surprise on his face.  “No, sir, I do not,” he said.

“I am sorry.  These sheets I am sending to the Capitol to be looked over and criticised ought to be typewritten.  I could send them downtown, but I want the typist here at my elbow.”

He sat frowning a little with perplexity, and presently he reached for the telephone.  Then he put it down, his brow clearing.  “This is Saturday,” he murmured.  “If Roberta is at home—­”

He left the room.  In five minutes he was back, his niece beside him.  Richard Kendrick had not set eyes upon her for a fortnight; he rose at her appearance and stood waiting her recognition.  She gave it, stopping to offer him her hand as she passed him, smiling.  But, this little ceremony over, she became on the instant the business woman.  Richard saw it all, though he did his best to settle down to his work again and pursue it with an air of absorption.

Roberta went to a cupboard which opened from under bookshelves, and drew therefrom a small portable typewriter.  This she set upon a table beside a window at right angles from Richard and all of twenty feet away from him; she could hardly have put a greater distance between them.  The Judge drew up a chair for her; she removed the cover from the compact little machine, and nodded at him.  He placed his own chair beside her table and sat down, copy in hand.

“This is going to be a rather difficult business,” said he.  “There are many points where I wish to indicate slight changes as we go along.  I can’t attempt to read the copy to you, but should like to have you give me the opening words of each paragraph as you come to it.  I think I can recall those which contain the points for revision.”

The work began.  That is to say, work at the typewriter side of the room began, and in earnest.  From the first stroke of the keys it was evident that the Judge had called to his aid a skilled worker.  The steady, smooth clicking of the machine was interrupted only at the ends of paragraphs, when the Judge listened to the key words of the succeeding lines.  Roberta sat before that “typer” as if she were accustomed to do nothing else for her living, her eyes upon the keys, her profile silhouetted against the window beside her.

As far as the mechanical part of the labour was concerned, Richard had never seen a task get under way more promptly nor proceed with greater or smoother dispatch.  As he sat beside his own window he nearly faced the pair at the other window.  Try as he would he could not keep his mind upon his work.  It was a situation unique in his experience.  That he, Richard Kendrick, should be employed in serious work in the same room with the niece of a prosperous and distinguished gentleman, a girl who had not hesitated to learn a trade in which she had become proficient, and that the three of them should spend the morning in this room together, taking no notice of each other beyond that made necessary by the task in hand—­it was enough to make him burst out laughing.  At the same time he felt a genuine satisfaction in the situation.  If he could but work in the same room with her every day, though she should vouchsafe him no word, how far from drudgery would the labour be then removed!