The Ghost Patrol and Other Stories by Sinclair Lewis

Author:Sinclair Lewis [Lewis, Sinclair]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Short Fiction
Publisher: Anncona Media AB
Published: 1917-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

VI

He told himself that she was supercilious, that she was uninteresting, that he did not like her. He admitted that his office had lost its exciting daily promise of romance — that he was tired of all offices. But he insisted that she had nothing to do with that. He had surrounded her with a charm not her own.

However neatly he explained things to himself, it was still true that an empty pain like homesickness persisted whenever he looked out of his window — or didn’t look out but sat at his desk and wanted to. When he worked late he often raised his head with a confused sense of missing something. The building across had become just a building across. All he could see in it was ordinary office drudges doing commonplace things. Even Mr. Simmons of the esthetic spectacles no longer roused interesting rage. As for Emily’s successor, Bates hated her. She smirked, and her hair was a hurrah’s nest.

March had come in; the streets were gritty with dust. Bates languidly got himself to call on Christine Parrish again. Amid the welcome narcissus bowls and vellum-backed seats and hand-tooled leather desk fittings of the Parrish library he was roused from the listlessness that like a black fog had been closing in on him. He reflected that Christine was sympathetic, and Emily merely a selfish imitation of a man. But Christine made him impatient. She was vague. She murmured: “Oh, it must be thrilling to see the street railways in all these funny towns.” Funny towns! Huh! They made New York hustle. Christine’s mind was flabby. Yes, and her soft shining arms would become flabby too. He wanted — oh, a girl that was compact, cold-bathed.

As he plodded home the shivering fog that lay over him hid the future. What had he ahead? Lonely bachelorhood — begging mere boys at the club to endure a game of poker with him?

He became irritable in the office. He tried to avoid it. He was neither surprised nor indignant when he overheard Crackins confide to his own stenographer: “The old man has an ingrowing grouch. We’ll get him operated on. How much do you contribute, Countess? Ah, we thank you.”

He was especially irritable on a watery, bleary April day when every idiot in New York and the outlying districts telephoned him. He thought ill of Alexander Graham Bell. The factory wanted to know whether they should rush the Bangor order. He hadn’t explained that more than six times before. A purchasing agent from out of town called him up and wanted information about theater-ticket agencies and a tailor. The girl in the outside office let a wrong-number call get through to him, and a greasy voice bullied: “Is dis de Triumph Bottling Vorks? Vod? Get off de line! I don’t vant you! Hang up!”

“Well, I most certainly don’t want you!” snapped Bates. But it didn’t relieve him at all.

“Tr-r-r-r!” snickered the telephone bell.

Bates ignored it.

“Tr-r-r-r-. R-r-r-r! Tr-r-r-r!”

“Yeah!” snarled Bates.

“Mr. Bates?”

“Yep!”

“Sarah Pardee speaking.”

“Who?”

“Why — why, Emily! You sound busy, though.

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