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"77/E LIMIT OT THE LINT”
By Odessa Strickland Payne and Lamar Strickland Payne
SHIRLEY BRYAN, stenographer for a great
Iron Corporation, is the first action on the scene.
The story begins with a suburban train pulling
cut from under the marble corridors of a grand
Terminal Station.
Barry Moore, Miss Bryan’s employer, plays
the role of “The Man of Iron.” He is trying to
build a collossal fortune.
Gregory Ford, a Harvard athlete, a Princeton
theologue, a multi-millionaire, is deeply interested
in the question, propounded by the Book of Job,
“If a man die, shall he live again?” because a
specialist has told him, his days are numbered.
Henry Brown, editor of the Water Oaks Ga
zette, is a discovery of Ford’s. He is a lover of
poetry, psychology, economy. He is an environ
ment-fighter of the best type.
Gregory Ford and his mother rent one-half
of the old colonial Bryan home, and wealth and
poverty are only across the hall from each other.
CHAPTER XVI.
NE day when Barry Moore was hurling
invectives through the languorous
warmth of the spring atmosphere, at
some one of the office force who had blun
dered, 'Shirley discovered suddenly that
she could not distinguish one letter on
her machine from another. The wrath
of the Man of Iron gave her the mental
impression of heavy blows. She fought
O
silently for a few moments for self control, and, af
ter her vision had cleared, she sat perfectly still
for so long that she attracted the attention of her
employer.
“Miss Bryan,” he inquired, tentatively, looking
with a thrill of admiration at her, for in her dain
tily embrodered light brown voile, she was a charm
ing vision, “what is the matter?”
“Nothing,” Shirley replied, with an expressive
glance of her dark eyes, “except that I am trying
to discover the language in which employees usually
resign. ”
It was the veiled hint of the thoroughbred and
Barry Moore recognized it.
He knew also that he faced a crisis, and he was
aware that if he wished to keep his best stenogra
pher he would have to think and act . . quickly!
Shirley Bryan touched more than one requirement
of his nature, in away that no other human being
had ever had the splendid courage to do. She was
intellectual, and that fact appealed to him; and she
was perfectly fearless when aroused. She was al
ways lady-like, not in any stereotyped way, yet he
had never known her to offend against any canon
of good taste. Moreover, she was making her fight
on such a slender margin; he was aware that her
family was dependent upon her work, and yet she
had dared to tell him to his face of the misuse he
was making of his talents and his influence. What
other girl would have taken such superb risk, for
right’s sake ? Who -would care, among his employes,
whether he went to Heaven or Hades? And, as the
answer came back, “Not one,” the mighty surge
of a new and overwhelming emotion, sweet and
warm as the Gulf Stream, swept over his iron sin
ews.
“State your objections,” he said to her at last,
in a controlled voice, “Miss Bryan, to being in my
employ. ’ ’
“First,” Shirley smiled faintly, “I do not enjoy
the daily dynamics considered necessary by you
for the running of the Iron Corporation. Second
ly,” with a broader smile, because she felt amused
at the statistical division in which she was indulg
ing, “the salary is altogether inadequate, since 1
frequently have to work sixteen hours a day, in
stead of eight.”
“I will promise you,” the Man of Iron affirmed,
slowly, “not to detain you again beyond five o’clock
in the afternoon. ’ ’ He looked at the faultless model
ing of bis bands interlaced on bis desk phone; “and.
The Golden Age for April 8, 1909.
SYNOPSIS
Mrs. Ford is a woman, “who has never had a
thrill.” Mrs. Bryan is a breeze of sunshine for
Shirley's sake, and she begins to draw young
Ford's confidence.
Then there is Little Nell, the child of wis
dom. And, on the horizon looms a girl, a
cousin of the Fords, Ethel, by name, who will
play a dramatic part as the story progresses.
There is a wreck of the Suburban train, of
which Mrs. Bryan has a physic vision. Her daugh
ter, Shirley, who is aboard, escapes unhurt, but
she measures up to her part as a heroine, by her
loving sympathy to those less fortunate.
Shirley Bryan is apparently interested in a
degree in both young men, though she is not
attached to either. She longs for the higher self
of Barry Moore to triumph, over his love for
money; and she desires that the young millionaire
may live, and disappoint the specialist who has
predicted for him an early demise.
in additon, I will increase your salary to sixty dol
lars a month.”
Then she let him know that she sometimes read the
newspapers.
“The head of the greatest corporation in the
world,” she suggested mildly, “pays his stenogra
pher one thousand dollars a month.”
Barry Moore frowned.
“The deuce!” he said, under his breath.
But Shirley became suddenly aware that the psy
chological moment had arrived. She could use it
for herself, and receive one hundred dollars a month,
or she had it in her power to turn it to a diviner
use. She became deadly pale, and then she lifted
her eyes, lustrous with inner conflict, appealingly
to his own.
“But what about the daily dynamics, Mr. Moore?
They hurt me infinitely worse than the meager salary
and the long hours. The loss of self-control is dan
gerous, you know, on any line. And while an evil
temper has been characterized by Drummond as the
vice of the virtuous, still it is none the less destruc
tive in its results.”
Barry Moore put his handsome head down on his
hand, as he asked:
“Do you wish me to act like a. Sunday school su
perintendent in business hours?”
“No, not exactly,” said Miss Bryan, for she was
not so obtuse as not to realize that she had won a
great victory. “But at least give to others the
courtesy that you demand for yourself.”
“All right,” he answered cheerily, “I’ll do my
best on the reformation line. Meantime,” he added,
with a dazzling smile, as he got to his feet, “you
had best allow Powhattan Horris to have your seat
at the machine for the next hour, while you look
over these letters and mark them for the department
to which they belong.”
The desk phone buzzed into the play.
“Yes. Long distance. Yes. Well, this is Mr.
Barry Moore. Miss Ethel Ford, eh? Why, pardon
me, but are you the Miss Ford I met at Palm Beach
last winter? You are? Charmed, of course, to re
new your acquaintance, I mean, beg pardon again,
your . . my acquaintance with you. You have
sad news for Miss Bryan ? What ? lam very, very
sorry. I have just tried to be slightly decent to her.
How did the accident happen?”
“The accident occurred this way,” Miss Ford re
plied from her end of the wire; “Little Nell was out
motoring with my cousin, Gregory Ford, and the
chauffeur, Manson, in turning a corner threw her
out. She has been unconscious ever since. We are
living at the Bryan home this winter, and, of course,
we are all deeply concerned.”
“Great Scott!” said Barry Moore, aside. “1
have played to Greed, and I have caught it square
in the neck. What Gregory Ford could do to this
Iron Corporation isn’t worth discussing.”
“Yes, Miss Ford,” he said graciously over the
wire, “I’l do my best not to alarm Miss Bryan.
I . . I . . if there is anything that the fam
ily needs in the city, please command me.”
“Thank you,” returned Miss Ford in a non-com
mittal tone. Then she rang off.
Barry Moore glanced down the long marble room,
with penetrating eyes, then he beckoned to a young
girl who wore a brown tailor-made suit, and whose
blue eyes and clear complexion seemed to give evi
dence of a bright and happy nature, and he signalled
her to the desk. He saw the fear in the blue eyes,
and he swore at himself silently for the cad that
he had been.
“Miss Webster,” said Barry Moore gently, “get
Miss Bryan to dine with you at the Y. W. C. A.
Hall today.”
Miss Webster collapsed on the lid of a near-by
desk.
“I have just had a telephone message,” Barry
Moore went on bravely, avoiding Miss Webster’s
curious glance, “.a sad telephone message from her
home; but I do not wish her to know about it until
train time. Do you understand?”
Miss Webster drew a long breath.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“You will oblige me, Miss Webster, if you will
not stare so, and try to get back to the office
promptly at one o’clock.”
Miss Webster got slowly off the desk.
“Mr. Barry Moore?”
“Yes.”
“Are you quite well?”
“Tes. Thank you very much for asking.”
Then Miss Webster suppressed a desire to ask
him for more information. Barry Moore turned
gravely to his correspondence, as if there was noth
ing unusual in his iron manners. He waited to see
if Shirley was going to ask about the message from
Water Oaks. But she had other things to think
about. She had withdrawn her attention from the
phone as soon as it rang, and something about the
letters had carried her into Barry Moore’s private
office. The joy of having her petitions answered
about the Man of Iron, even to a degree, gave her
a sort of ecstasy, which was half divine in itself.
He had been such a hard problem, a kind of un
scalable Alps in her personal landscape, and to have
him to come down to the circle of humanity, in the
twinkling of an eye, gave her some sort of a dim
comprehension of the power that moves the world.
When the whistles boasted that it was high noon,
Shirley was conscious of a spring mood, gay, glad,
gracious. She was so happy over Barry Moore’s
promise to cut out the dynamics, that she felt that
the raise in her salary was merely of incidental im
portance. Poor as she was, it was only the high
things of the moral world which could lift and
sweep her up into the heights of an exalted need.
She felt friendly toward everything. The spring
sky, the sunshine, even the hard, dust-bitten streets,
and all the world without took on the radiant colors
of her mental attitude. When Miss Webster and she
emerged into the swift currents of the streets, she
walked with such buoyant steps that Miss Webster
laughed for pure, light-hearted joy.
“I believe that your name is Breeze,” Miss Web
ster hinted.
“My mater calls me that,” Shirley confessed.
“Where are we going?”
“Over to the nicest place in the city for girls to
lunch. ”
****♦••♦
Ford looked out of his library window, with a
feeling of personal interest to which he had long
been a stranger. There was a flash of lark’s wings
between the magnolias, and the red and gold
heads of the tulips swayed softly, in a triangular
bed in the side yard. The orchard which bounded
his outlook on the left, had exchanged the pink glo
ries of the early spring for the deep green of April.
It stretched now like an emerald sea to the horizon.
It was the morning after Ford’s dramatic invasion
of the Gazette’s sanctum, and the awakening of
Henry Brown to the age in which he was supposed
to live. Brown had not slept much the previous
night. The dazzling light of a future which seemed
to offer rich and alluring compensation for all the
(Continued on Page Seven.)
