Edna Ferber: Fanny Herself

13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN (continued)

Ella Monahan said, "They'll make light of it--all but Fenger. That's their way."

Slosson drummed with his fingers all the time she was giving him the result of her work in terms of style, material, quantity, time, and price. When she had finished he said, "Well, all I can say is we seem to be going out of the mail order business and into the imported novelty line, de luxe. I suppose by next Christmas the grocery department will be putting in artichoke hearts, and truffles and French champagne by the keg for community orders."

To which Fanny had returned, sweetly, "If Oregon and Wyoming show any desire for artichokes and champagne I don't see why we shouldn't."

Fenger, strangely enough, said little. He was apt to be rather curt these days, and almost irritable. Fanny attributed it to the reaction following the strain of the Christmas rush.

One did not approach Fenger's office except by appointment. Fanny sent word to him of her return. For two days she heard nothing from him. Then the voice of the snuff-brown secretary summoned her. She did not have to wait this time, but passed directly through the big bright outer room into the smaller room. The Power House, Fanny called it.

Fenger was facing the door. "Missed you," he said.

"You must have," Fanny laughed, "with only nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine to look after."

"You look as if you'd been on a vacation, instead of a test trip."

"So I have. Why didn't you warn me that business, as transacted in New York, is a series of social rites? I didn't have enough white kid gloves to go round. No one will talk business in an office. I don't see what they use offices for, except as places in which to receive their mail. You utter the word `Business,' and the other person immediately says, `Lunch.' No wholesaler seems able to quote you his prices until he has been sustained by half a dozen Cape Cods. I don't want to see a restaurant or a rose silk shade for weeks."