Here's somebody wants a finishing superintendent for a string music instrument factory, and a business manager and electrical engineer in this one. What's an efficiency expert?"
"Oh, he's a fellow who gums up the works, puts you three weeks behind in less than a week and has all your best men resigning inside of a month.
I know, because my dad had one at his plant a few years ago."
The girl looked at him for a moment. "Your father is a business man?" she asked, and without waiting for an answer, "Why don't you work for him?"
It was the first reference that Jimmy had ever made to his connections or his past.
"Oh," he said, "he's a long way off and--if I'm no good to any one here I certainly wouldn't be any good to him."
His companion made no comment, but resumed her reading of the advertisement before her:
WANTED, an Efficiency Expert--Machine works wants man capable of thoroughly reorganizing large business along modern lines, stopping leaks and systematizjng every activity. Call International Machine Company, West Superior Street. Ask for Mr. Compton.
"What do you have to know to be an efficiency expert?" asked the girl.
"From what I saw of the bird I just mentioned the less one knows about anything the more successful he should be as an efficiency expert, for he certainly didn't know anything. And yet the results from kicking everybody in the plant out of his own particular rut eventually worked wonders for the organization. If the man had had any sense, tact or diplomacy nothing would have been accomplished."
"Why don't you try it?" asked the girl.
Jimmy looked at her with a quizzical smile. "Thank you," he said.
"Oh, I didn't mean it that way," she cried. "But from what you tell me I imagine that all a man needs is a front and plenty of punch. You've got the front all right with your looks and gift of gab, and I leave it to Young Brophy if you haven't got the punch."
"Maybe that's not the punch an efficiency expert needs," suggested Jimmy.
"It might be a good thing to have up his sleeve," replied the girl, and then suddenly, "do you believe in hunches?"
"Sometimes," replied Jimmy.
"Well, this is a hunch, take it from me," she continued. "I'll bet you can land that job and make good."
"What makes you think so? "asked Jimmy.
"I don't know," she replied, "but you know what a woman's intuition is."
"I suppose," said Jimmy, "that it's the feminine of hunch. But however good your hunch or intuition may be it would certainly get a terrible jolt if I presented myself to the head of the International Machine Company in this scenery. Do you see anything about my clothes that indicates efficiency?"
"It isn't your clothes that count, Jimmy," she said, "it's the combination of that face of yours and what you've got in your head.
You're the most efficient looking person I ever saw, and if you want a reference I'll say this much for you, you're the most efficient waiter that Feinheimer ever had. He said so himself, even after he canned you."
"Your enthusiasm," said Jimmy, "is contagious. If it wasn't for these sorry rags of mine I'd take a chance on that hunch of yours."
The girl laid her hand impulsively upon his.
"Won't you let me help you?" she asked. "I'd like to, and it will only be a loan if you wanted to look at it that way. Enough to get you a decent-looking outfit, such an outfit as you ought to have to land a good job. I know, and everybody else knows, that clothes do count no matter what we say to the contrary. I'll bet you're some looker when you're dolled up! Please," she continued "just try it for a gamble?"
"I don't see how I can," he objected. "The chances are I could never pay you back, and there is no reason in the world why you should loan me money. You are certainly under no obligation to me."
"I wish you would let me, Jimmy," she said. "It would make me awfully happy!"
The man hesitated.
"Oh," she said, "I'm going to do it, anyway. Wait a minute," and, rising, she left the table.
In a few minutes she returned. "Here," she said, "you've got to take it," and extended her hand toward him beneath the edge of the table. "I can't," said Jimmy. "It wouldn't be right."
The girl looked at him and flushed.
"Do you mean," she said, "because it's my--because of what I am?"
"Oh, no," said Jimmy; "please don't think that!" And impulsively he took her hand beneath the table. At the contact the girl caught her breath with a little quick-drawn sigh.
"Here, take it!" she said, and drawing her hand away quickly, left a roll of bills in Jimmy's hand.
