加拉斯The Romance of a Busy Broker 证券经纪人的浪漫故事

2021年1月20日发(作者：heard)
The Romance of a Busy Broker
证券经纪人的浪漫故事

欧亨利

2009-01-22 06:59:55
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The Romance of a Busy Broker
（
O·
Henry
）

___________________________________________
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 his employer 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 or lockets. She
had not the air of being about to accept an invitation to
luncheon. Her dress was grey and plain, but it fitted her
figure with fidelity and discretion. In her neat black turban
hat was the gold-green wing of a macaw. On this morning
she was softly and shyly radiant. Her eyes were dreamily
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 at that 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 on his crowded
desk. His keen grey eye, impersonal and brusque, flashed
upon her 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 to get another
one. I notified the agency yesterday afternoon to send 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. The broker's
hour is not only crowded, but the minutes and seconds are
hanging to all the straps and packing both front and rear
platforms.
And this day was Harvey Maxwell's busy day. The
ticker began to reel out jerkily its fitful coils of tape, the
desk telephone had a chronic attack of buzzing. Men
began to throng into the office and call at him over the
railing, jovially, sharply, viciously, excitedly. Messenger
boys ran in and out with messages and telegrams. The
clerks in the office jumped about like sailors during a storm.
Even Pitcher's face relaxed into something resembling
animation.
On the Exchange there were hurricanes and landslides
and snowstorms and glaciers and volcanoes, and those
elemental disturbances were reproduced in miniature in
the broker's offices. Maxwell shoved his chair against the
wall and transacted business after the manner of a toe
dancer. He jumped from ticker to 'phone, from desk to door
with the trained agility of a harlequin.
In the midst of this growing and important stress the
broker became suddenly aware of a high-rolled fringe of
golden hair under a nodding canopy of velvet and ostrich
tips, an imitation sealskin sacque and a string of beads as
large as hickory nuts, ending near the floor with a silver
heart. There was a self-possessed young lady connected
with these accessories; and Pitcher was there to construe
her.
Lady from the Stenographer's Agency to see about the
position, said Pitcher.
Maxwell turned half around, with his hands full of
papers and ticker tape.
What position he asked, with a frown.
Position of stenographer, said Pitcher. You told me
yesterday to call them up and have one sent over this
morning.
You are losing your mind, Pitcher, said Maxwell. Why
should I have given you any such instructions Miss Leslie
has given perfect satisfaction during the year she has been
here. The place is hers as long as she chooses to retain it.
There's no place open here, madam. Countermand that
order with the agency, Pitcher, and don't bring any more of
'em in here.
The silver heart left the office, swinging and banging
itself independently against the office furniture as it
indignantly departed. Pitcher seized a moment to remark
to the bookkeeper that the old man seemed to get more
absent-minded and forgetful every day of the world.
The rush and pace of business grew fiercer and faster.
On the floor they were pounding half a dozen stocks in
which Maxwell's customers were heavy investors. Orders
to buy and sell were coming and going as swift as the flight
of swallows. Some of his own holdings were imperilled,
and the man was working like some high-geared, delicate,
strong machine--strung to full tension, going at full speed,
accurate, never hesitating, with the proper word and
decision and act ready and prompt as clockwork. Stocks
and bonds, loans and mortgages, margins and
securities--here was a world of finance, and there was no
room in it for the human world or the world of nature.
When the luncheon hour drew near there came a slight
lull in the uproar.
Maxwell stood by his desk with his hands full of
telegrams and memoranda, with a fountain pen over his
right ear and his hair hanging in disorderly strings over his
forehead. His window was open, for the beloved janitress
Spring had turned on a little warmth through the waking
registers of the earth.
And through the window came a wandering-- perhaps a
lost--odour--a delicate, sweet odour of lilac that fixed the
broker for a moment immovable. For this odour belonged
to Miss Leslie; it was her own, and hers only.
The odour brought her vividly, almost tangibly before
him. The world of finance dwindled suddenly to a speck.
And she was in the next room--twenty steps away.
By George, I'll do it now, said Maxwell, half aloud. I'll
ask her now. I wonder I didn't do it long ago.
He dashed into the inner office with the haste of a short
trying to cover. He charged upon the desk of the
stenographer.
She looked up at him with a smile. A soft pink crept
over her cheek, and her eyes were kind and frank. Maxwell
leaned one elbow on her desk. He still clutched fluttering
papers with both hands and the pen was above his ear.
Miss Leslie, he began hurriedly, I have but a moment to
spare. I want to say something in that moment. Will you he
my wife I haven't had time to make love to you in the
ordinary way, but I really do love you. Talk quick,