Question

What was different about pitcher that morning when Maxwell entered the office?

Answer 1

Explanation:

Pitcher, confidential clerk in the office of Harvey Maxwell, broker, allowed a look of mild interest and surprise to visit his usually expressionless countenance when hisemployer briskly entered at half past nine in company with his young lady stenographer. With a snappy "Good-morning, Pitcher," Maxwell dashed at his desk as though he were intending to leap over it, and then plunged into the great heap of letters and telegrams waiting there for him.The young lady had been Maxwell's stenographer for a year. She was beautiful in a way that was decidedly unstenographic. She forewent the pomp of the alluring pompadour. She wore no chains, bracelets orlockets. She had not the air of being about to accept an invitation to luncheon. Her dresswas grey and plain, but it fitted her figure with fidelity and discretion. In her neat black turban hat was the gold-green wing ofa macaw. On this morning she was softly and shyly radiant. Her eyes weredreamily bright, her cheeks genuine peachblow, her expression a happy one, tinged with reminiscence.Pitcher, still mildly curious, noticed a difference in her ways this morning. Instead of going straight into the adjoining room, where her desk was, she lingered, slightly irresolute, in the outer office. Once she moved over by Maxwell's desk, near enough for him to be aware of her presence.The machine sitting atthat desk was no longer a man; it was a busy New York broker,moved by buzzing wheels and uncoiling springs."Well--what is it? Anything?" asked Maxwell sharply. His opened mail lay like a bank of stage snow onhis crowded desk. His keen grey eye, impersonal and brusque, flashed uponher half impatiently."Nothing," answered the stenographer, moving away with a little smile."Mr. Pitcher," she said to the confidential clerk, did Mr. Maxwell say anything yesterday about engaging another stenographer?""He did," answered Pitcher. "He told me toget another one. I notified the agency yesterday afternoon tosend over a few samples this morning.It's 9.45 o'clock, and not a single picture hat or piece of pineapple chewing gum has showed up yet.""I will do the work as usual, then," said the young lady, "until some one comes to fill the place." And she went to her desk at once and hung the black turban hat with the gold-green macaw wing in its accustomed place.He who has been denied the spectacle of a busy Manhattan broker during a rush of business is handicapped for the profession of anthropology. The poet sings of the"crowded hour of glorious life."