r some such mixture, aren't they? I just happened
to think of the boy who used to deliver our paper on Norris Street, in
Winnebago, Wisconsin. He covered his route on roller skates. It saved
him an hour. Why don't you put roller skates on your stock boys and
girls?"

Fenger stared at her. You could almost hear that mind of his
working, like a thing on ball bearings. "Roller skates." It wasn't an
exclamation. It was a decision. He pressed a buzzer--the snuff-brown
secretary buzzer. "Tell Clancy I want him. Now." He had not glanced
up, or taken his eyes from Fanny. She was aware of feeling a little
uncomfortable, but elated, too. She moved toward the door. Fenger stood
at his desk. "Wait a minute." Fanny waited. Still Fenger did not speak.
Finally, "I suppose you know you've earned six months' salary in the
last five minutes."

Fanny eyed him coolly. "Considering the number of your stock force, the
time, energy, and labor saved, including wear and tear on department
heads and their assistants, I should say that was a conservative
statement." And she nodded pleasantly, and left him.

Two days later every stock clerk in the vast plant was equipped with
light-weight roller skates. They made a sort of carnival of it at first.
There were some spills, too, going around corners, and a little too much
hilarity. That wore off in a week. In two weeks their roller skates were
part of them; just shop labor-savers. The report presented to Fenger was
this: Time and energy saved, fifty-five per cent; stock staff decreased
by one third. The picturesqueness of it, the almost ludicrous simplicity
of the idea appealed to the entire plant. It tickled the humor sense in
every one of the ten thousand employees in that vast organization. In
the first week of her association with Haynes-Cooper Fanny Brandeis was
actually more widely known than men who had worked there for years. The
president, Nathan Haynes himself, sent for her, chuckling.

Nathan Haynes--but then, why stop for him? Nathan Haynes had been
swallowed, long ago, by this monster plant that he himself had
innocently created. You must have visited it, this Gargantuan thing that
sprawls its length in the very center of Chicago, the giant son of
a surprised father. It is one of the city's show places, like the
stockyards, the Art Institute, and Field's. Fifteen years before,
a building had been erected to accommodate a prosperous mail order
business. It had been built large and roo