At ten o'clock the next morning, reading page four of the current Wall Street Journal, Orison was interrupted by the click of a pair of leather heels. The gentleman whose heels had just slammed together was bowing. And she saw with some gratification that he was not wearing earmuffs. "My name," the stranger said, "is Dink Gerding. I am President of this bank, and wish at this time to welcome you to our little family."
"I'm Orison McCall," she said. A handsome man, she mused1. Twenty-eight? So tall. Could he ever be interested in a girl just five-foot-three? Maybe higher heels?
"We're pleased with your work, Miss McCall," Dink Gerding said. He took the chair to the right of her desk.
"It's nothing," Orison said, switching off the microphone.
"On the contrary, Miss McCall. Your duties are most important," he said.
"Reading papers and fairy-tales into this microphone is nothing any reasonably astute2 sixth-grader couldn't do as well," Orison said.
"You'll be reading silently before long," Mr. Gerding said. He smiled, as though this explained everything. "By the way, your official designation is Confidential3 Secretary. It's me whose confidences you're to keep secret. If I ever need a letter written, may I stop down here and dictate4 it?"
"Please do," Orison said. This bank president, for all his grace and presence, was obviously as kookie as his bank.
"Have you ever worked in a bank before, Miss McCall?" Mr. Gerding asked, as though following her train of thought.
"No, sir," she said. "Though I've been associated with a rather large financial organization."
"You may find some of our methods a little strange, but you'll get used to them," he said. "Meanwhile, I'd be most grateful if you'd dispense5 with calling me 'sir.' My name is Dink. It is ridiculous, but I'd enjoy your using it."
"Dink?" she asked. "And I suppose you're to call me Orison?"
"That's the drill," he said. "One more question, Orison. Dinner this evening?"
Direct, she thought. Perhaps that's why he's president of a bank, and still so young. "We've hardly met," she said.
"I'd love to," Orison said, half expecting an orchestra to march, playing, from the elevator.
"Then I'll pick you up at seven. Windsor Arms, if I remember your personnel form correctly." He stood, lean, all bone and muscle, and bowed slightly. West Point? Hardly. His manners were European. Sandhurst, perhaps, or Saint Cyr. Was she supposed to reply with a curtsy? Orison wondered.
"Thank you," she said.
He was a soldier, or had been: the way, when he turned, his shoulders stayed square. The crisp clicking of his steps, a military metronome, to the elevator. When the door slicked open Orison, staring after Dink, saw that each of the half-dozen men aboard snapped off their hats (but not their earmuffs) and bowed, the earmuffed operator bowing with them. Small bows, true; just head-and-neck. But not to her. To Dink Gerding.
Orison finished the Wall Street Journal by early afternoon. A page came up a moment later with fresh reading-matter: a copy of yesterday's Congressional Record. She launched into the Record, thinking as she read of meeting again this evening that handsome madman, that splendid lunatic, that unlikely bank-president. "You read so well, darling," someone said across the desk.
Orison looked up. "Oh, hello," she said. "I didn't hear you come up."
"I walk ever so lightly," the woman said, standing7 hip-shot in front of the desk, "and pounce8 ever so hard." She smiled. Opulent, Orison thought. Built like a burlesque9 queen. No, she thought, I don't like her. Can't. Wouldn't if I could. Never cared for cats.
"I'm Orison McCall," she said, and tried to smile back without showing teeth.
"Delighted," the visitor said, handing over an undelighted palm. "I'm Auga Vingt. Auga, to my friends."
"Won't you sit down, Miss Vingt?"
"So kind of you, darling," Auga Vingt said, "but I shan't have time to visit. I just wanted to stop and welcome you as a Taft Bank co-worker. One for all, all for one. Yea, Team. You know."
"Thanks," Orison said.
"Common courtesy," Miss Vingt explained. "Also, darling, I'd like to draw your attention to one little point. Dink Gerding—you know, the shoulders and muscles and crewcut? Well, he's posted property. Should you throw your starveling charms at my Dink, you'd only get your little eyes scratched out. Word to the wise, n'est-ce pas?"
"Sorry you have to leave so suddenly," Orison said, rolling her Wall Street Journal into a club and standing. "Darling."
"So remember, Tiny, Dink Gerding is mine. You're all alone up here. You could get broken nails, fall down the elevator shaft10, all sorts of annoyance11. Understand me, darling?"
"You make it very clear," Orison said. "Now you'd best hurry back to your stanchion, Bossy12, before the hay's all gone."
"Isn't it lovely, the way you and I reached an understanding right off?" Auga asked. "Well, ta-ta." She turned and walked to the elevator, displaying, Orison thought, a disgraceful amount of ungirdled rhumba motion.
The elevator stopped to pick up the odious13 Auga. A passenger, male, stepped off. "Good morning, Mr. Gerding," Miss Vingt said, bowing.
"Carry on, Colonel," the stranger replied. As the elevator door closed, he stepped up to Orison's desk. "Good morning. Miss McCall," he said.
"What is this?" Orison demanded. "Visiting-day at the zoo?" She paused and shook her head. "Excuse me, sir," she said. "It's just that ... Vingt thing...."
"Auga is rather intense," the new Mr. Gerding said.
"Yeah, intense," Orison said. "Like a kidney-stone."
"I stopped by to welcome you to the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company family, Miss McCall," he said. "I'm Kraft Gerding, Dink's elder brother. I understand you've met Dink already."
"Yes, sir," Orison said. The hair of this new Mr. Gerding was cropped even closer than Dink's. His mustache was gray-tipped, like a patch of frosted furze; and his eyes, like Dink's, were cobalt blue. The head, Orison mused, would look quite at home in one of Kaiser Bill's spike-topped Pickelhauben; but the ears were in evidence, and seemed normal. Mr. Kraft Gerding bowed—what continental14 manners these bankers had!—and Orison half expected him to free her hand from the rolled-up paper she still clutched and plant a kiss on it.
Instead, Kraft Gerding smiled a smile as frosty as his mustache and said, "I understand that my younger brother has been talking with you, Miss McCall. Quite proper, I know. But I must warn you against mixing business with pleasure."
Orison jumped up, tossing the paper into her wastebasket. "I quit!" she shouted. "You can take this crazy bank ... into bankruptcy15, for all I care. I'm not going to perch16 up here, target for every uncaged idiot in finance, and listen to another word."
"Dearest lady, my humblest pardon," Kraft Gerding said, bowing again, a bit lower. "Your work is splendid; your presence is Taft Bank's most charming asset; my only wish is to serve and protect you. To this end, dear lady, I feel it my duty to warn you against my brother. A word to the wise...."
"N'est-ce pas?" Orison said. "Well, Buster, here's a word to the foolish. Get lost."
Kraft Gerding bowed and flashed his gelid smile. "Until we meet again?"
"I'll hold my breath," Orison promised. "The elevator is just behind you. Push a button, will you? And bon voyage."
Kraft Gerding called the elevator, marched aboard, favored Orison with a cold, quick bow, then disappeared into the mysterious heights above fifth floor.
First the unspeakable Auga Vingt, then the obnoxious17 Kraft Gerding. Surely, Orison thought, recovering the Wall Street Journal from her wastebasket and smoothing it, no one would convert a major Midwestern bank into a lunatic asylum18. How else, though, could the behavior of the Earmuffs be explained? Could madmen run a bank? Why not, she thought. History is rich in examples of madmen running nations, banks and all. She began again to read the paper into the microphone. If she finished early enough, she might get a chance to prowl those Off-Limits upper floors.
Half an hour further into the paper, Orison jumped, startled by the sudden buzz of her telephone. She picked it up. "Wanji e-Kal, Datto. Dink ger-Dink d'summa."
Orison scribbled19 down this intelligence in bemused Gregg before replying, "I'm a local girl. Try me in English."
"Oh. Hi, Miss McCall," the voice said. "Guess I goofed20. I'm in kinda clutch. This is Wanji. I got a kite for Mr. Dink Gerding. If you see him, tell him the escudo green is pale. Got that, doll?"
"Yes, Mr. Wanji. I'll tell Mr. Gerding." Orison clicked the phone down. What now, Mata Hari? she asked herself. What was the curious language Mr. Wanji had used? She'd have to report the message to Washington by tonight's pillow, and let the polyglots21 of Treasury22 Intelligence puzzle it out. Meanwhile, she thought, scooting her chair back from her desk, she had a vague excuse to prowl the upper floors. The Earmuffs could only fire her.
Orison folded the paper and put it in the "Out" basket. Someone would be here in a moment with something new to read. She'd best get going. The elevator? No. The operators had surely been instructed to keep her off the upstairs floors.
But the building had a stairway.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
mused
|
|
| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
astute
|
|
| adj.机敏的，精明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
confidential
|
|
| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
dictate
|
|
| v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
dispense
|
|
| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
pounce
|
|
| n.猛扑；v.猛扑，突然袭击，欣然同意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
burlesque
|
|
| v.嘲弄，戏仿；n.嘲弄，取笑，滑稽模仿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
shaft
|
|
| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
annoyance
|
|
| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
bossy
|
|
| adj.爱发号施令的，作威作福的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
odious
|
|
| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
continental
|
|
| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
bankruptcy
|
|
| n.破产；无偿付能力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
perch
|
|
| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
obnoxious
|
|
| adj.极恼人的，讨人厌的，可憎的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
asylum
|
|
| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
scribbled
|
|
| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
goofed
|
|
| v.弄糟( goof的过去式和过去分词 )；混；打发时间；出大错 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
polyglots
|
|
| n.通晓多种语言的人( polyglot的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
22
treasury
|
|
| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |