ted offices you ought to have the picture complete. You know what
assistant auditors are like.

Ernie ran true to type. And then some. I expect there was one or two
other things he might have been; such as manager of a gift shop, or
window dresser for the misses' department, or music teacher in a girls'
boarding school. But I doubt if he'd ever been such a success as he was
at the high desk. Seemed like he was born to be an assistant auditor. He
was holding the job when I first came to the Corrugated as sub office
boy; he still has it, and I can think of only one party that could pry
him loose from it--the old boy with the long scythe.

For one thing, Ernie gives all his time to being assistant auditor. Not
just office hours. I'll bet he's one even in his sleep. He looks the
part, dresses the part, thinks the part. He don't work at it, he lives
it. Talk about this four dimension stuff. Ernie gets along with two--up
the column from the bottom, and both ways from the decimal point.

Not such a bad-lookin' chap, Ernie, only a bit stiff from the waist up.
You know, like he had his spine in a cast. Then there's the neck-apple.
Ernie fits his into a high white wing collar and sets it off with a
black ascot tie and a pearl stickpin. Also he sports the only black
cutaway that's worn reg'lar into the General Offices. Oh, yes, Ernie
could go on at a minute's notice as best man or pall-bearer. I don't
mean he's often called on to be either. He only wears that costume
because that's his idea of how an assistant auditor should be arrayed.

One of these super-system birds, Ernie is. He could turn out an annual
report every Saturday if the directors asked for it. Never has to hunt
for a bunch of stray figures. He has everything cross-indexed neat and
accurate. He's that way about everything, always a spare umbrella and an
extra pair of rubbers in his locker, and he carries a pearl-handle
penknife in a chamois case.

But in spite of all that I'm sorry to state that around the Corrugated
Ernie is rated as a walking joke. We all josh him, even up to Old
Hickory Ellins. The only ones he ever seems to mind much though are the
lady typists. The hardest thing he does during the day is when he has to
walk past that battery of near-vamps, for they never fail to lay down a
rolling eye barrage that gets him pink in the ears.

Course, having noticed that, I generally use it as my cue for passing
pleasant words to Ernie. "Honest now," I'll as