V
Mrs. Summer did not go on into Butler’s office. She had not been waiting to see him, but was here in answer to a summons from Mr. Eddington, and she was intercepted by Eddington himself, who took her aside, talking;
“I’m sorry about all this.” He indicated Butler’s office. “We’re letting him go. We’ve only recently discovered that he fired you practically on his own whim. Why, the number of your ideas we’re using——We never considered letting you go. Things have been so mixed up.”
“I came to see you yesterday,” Mrs. Summer said. “I was all in and there was no one in the office at the moment. I must have fainted in the chair, because it was an hour later when I remembered anything, and then I was too tired to do anything except go home.”
“We’ll see about all this,” Eddington said grimly. “We’ll——It’s one of those things——” He broke off. The office was suddenly full of confusion; there was a policeman and, behind him, many curious peering faces. “What’s the matter? … Hello, there seems to be something wrong here. What is it, officer?”
Comments
The story was written in June 1931, probably in Switzerland. This story was the first in which Fitzgerald treated the Depression scene in response to the Post’s request for stories with American settings.
Published in The Saturday Evening Post magazine (5 September 1931).
