Sound of the Trumpet Read Free Page B

wouldn’t need to commit yourself in her presence. She knows the score.”
    “You haven’t told her anything about this affair, have you?”
    “What do you take me for? I should say not. But I’ve tried her out already on so many other jobs, I know just how she’ll react, and this would be right up her alley. She’d eat it up. She’s plenty proud of her past record.”
    “I see,” said the grim, heavy voice of the boss. “But I tell you, this is no lady’s job. It wouldn’t be permitted.”
    “Okay! But I’d like you to meet the lady now she’s in the vicinity. You’ll need her sometime, even if you don’t need her now.”
    “Well,” said Weaver after an instant’s pause, “I’ll be at the restaurant at the corner of Tenth and Harper at twelve sharp tomorrow. If she’s there, all right, and if not, that’s the end. This, you understand, is a man’s job. Get to work on your man as soon as possible. I’ll have the job rounded up for him by morning. That’s all!” And the boss hung up.
    But about that time Kurt Entry lurched across the pile of rubble at the curb and fell into step behind the young man John Sargent, whom he had been watching carefully for the last hour.
    And a little later a girl in a grubby room of a cheap hotel received a phone call.
    “That you, Erda?”
    “The same.”
    “We’ll make it twelve sharp tomorrow. Tenth and Harper.”
    “Very well. Any special line?”
    “Nothing new yet.”
    “Okay!”

Chapter 2
    L isle went through the outer room where stenographers and clerks were already hard at work. She smiled at one and another of them, and they all smiled back as if they liked her. She had a habit of making even a smile seem an honor.
    Lisle had not long to wait. Her mother soon came out of her father’s inner office, and they started out together on their shopping expedition.
    “I think we had better go to the tailor’s first, dear, and get that fitting out of the way, don’t you?” said her mother. “There may be some changes to make, and I don’t want him to be held up getting your suit done. You might need it in a hurry. There is liable to be a change in the weather any time now. Also, you will have to decide on the fur for your collar, you know. Really, I think, dear, that it is smarter to have fur on your collar this year, don’t you? It’s a bit more feminine, and I don’t want you to look as if you were in uniform, not
all
the time, anyway. You’re too young to affect that style.”
    “Yes, I like the fur, Mother. It’s certainly more comfortable in the fall before it’s time to put on a whole fur coat. But there isn’t any special hurry about it, is there? I thought you wanted to see those gloves that were advertised in the paper this morning, and they might be all gone if we don’t go to Hayden’s first.”
    “That’s true, too, but after all, there are always gloves of one kind or another. I think we ought to get this fitting out of the way at once. You see, Victor telephoned after you went down to the car to say he would meet us at Hayden’s for lunch at noon. We must get there soon after twelve so we could go to lunch together.”
    “Oh!” said Lisle, a kind of blank dismay in her voice. “I thought this was going to be a shopping excursion. Why did he have to barge in? I do hate to have to select things with somebody standing around watching, criticizing, trying to advise. It always upsets my judgment and I take anything, whether I like it or not. Victor always thinks he knows it all and insists that I do as he suggests.”
    Her mother looked at her in surprise.
    “Why, my dear! I didn’t know you felt that way. He asked if he might come, and I supposed, of course, that it would be the thing you would want, especially since he may receive his commission as an officer any day now and will probably soon be called away. I couldn’t say no, he seemed so eager about it. I didn’t think you would want to be rude to him.”
    “Of course