Octavus Roy Cohen

Name: Thirty-five Twenty-sevenths
Author: Octavus Roy Cohen

Thirty-five Twenty-sevenths (1917)

Summary

“Thirty-five Twenty-sevenths”, published in 1917, is a work by Octavus Roy Cohen. It explores elements such as Harrington, Summers and stenographers.

Quotes from Thirty-five Twenty-sevenths (Octavus Roy Cohen)

Octavus Roy Cohen, Thirty-five Twenty-sevenths (1917)

“ In a second, typebars were clicking against platens with a speed that the office had never before known; the filing clerks worked with lightning speed, the other office girls bustled about swiftly, intent on their tasks. The eyes of Cyrus J. Hawkins met those of Miss Marjorie Summers and a smile of mutual understanding passed between them. Somehow, all the girls felt that their victory was complete—that there was more for them in such magnanimity than there could ever be in a triumph which lost to the game little man his position. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Octavus Roy Cohen, Thirty-five Twenty-sevenths (1917)

“ The old fossil is doing us a dirty trick. Instead of standing right up to the boss, he's taking it out on us, and looking to each one to do two persons' work. But we've got the whip hand, because there's a certain amount of work that's got to be done, and if it isn't done the business goes to pot. And if he sees we aren't going to do it—or aren't doing it, as you may choose to express it—he's either got to make a firm stand with old man Harrington or else be fired, and me, I don't care which happens. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Octavus Roy Cohen, Thirty-five Twenty-sevenths (1917)

“ We've got things all our own way—but we've got to stand together."
And stand together they did—with a vengeance. The first day of open rebellion, Cyrus J. Hawkins believed the evidence of neither his sight nor his ears. The typewriters clicked all day long, but they lacked the frantic tattoo as the typebars cracked against platens. The letters and papers which came to his desk were faultlessly done but the quantity of work turned out by the seven typists assayed only about seventy-five per cent of the amount he had obtained under his slave-driving efficiency system. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Octavus Roy Cohen, Thirty-five Twenty-sevenths (1917)

“ Hawkins?"
"Certainly."
"You—" she flushed. "You are dependent on your—position here?"
"What do you mean?"
"It means more to you than—just a job?"
This time the man flushed and embarrassment showed on his face.
"We'll hardly discuss that, Miss Summers. Very often there are personal reasons to spur a man to greater effort than was intended for him by nature; reasons which are his, and are sacredly private. They exist, Miss Summers, even in the life of a crabbed, crusty old bachelor." ”

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Source: Wikisource

Octavus Roy Cohen, Thirty-five Twenty-sevenths (1917)

“ Just before the working hour struck next morning there was a second conference in the cloakroom of the women employees of the Harrington Machinery Company, Incorporated. And again Miss Marjorie Summers was spokesman. She excelled herself in her graphic description of the scene on the previous night, and by the time she finished, more than half of her hearers were weeping softly. The average woman is ninety per cent emotion and sentiment, anyway. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Octavus Roy Cohen, Thirty-five Twenty-sevenths (1917)

“ He was worried because he knew the man for whom he worked, and he knew that he had to make good on the task assigned him, else his years of faithful service would be discounted one hundred per cent and another man summarily seated in his chair. And Cyrus was being paid a very fair salary and he wished to retain it. Father Time was on his heels, and already he was approaching the fateful fifty mark;—the fiftieth year when a man loses a bit of fighting ambition and becomes content to hold a well-paying position. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Octavus Roy Cohen, Thirty-five Twenty-sevenths (1917)

“ They'll catch up with the work in no time—and everybody's happy!"
He faced the office as he walked back to his desk and he smiled again. He seemed twenty years younger. And the girls smiled with him. They were as content as he. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Octavus Roy Cohen, Thirty-five Twenty-sevenths (1917)

“ But, however unpleasant it is to do so, the devil must be accorded his due. Cyrus J. Hawkins, office and sales manager of the Harrington Machinery Company, Inc., had his hands full and then some. The trouble lay in Harrington senior, chief stockholder in the corporation. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Octavus Roy Cohen, Thirty-five Twenty-sevenths (1917)

“ Therefore it followed, as a matter of course, that Cyrus J. must get out of the minds and bodies of his twenty-seven accredited employees the work which ordinarily thirty-five could not have handled with any too great a degree of despatch. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Octavus Roy Cohen, Thirty-five Twenty-sevenths (1917)

“ And Miss Summers had guessed correctly when she asserted that he dared not discharge any of the insurrectoes}} because of the unthinkable waste in "breaking in" persons unfamiliar with the routine of the office. ”

Octavus Roy Cohen

Summary

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