"Maybe I'll bring back a new shipping clerk." He had almost left; in the girl's ears his voice receded. "Ever seen out there? Filthy as a pigsty. Rubbish everywhere. I'm taking the panel truck."

"Go up El Camino," Mary Anne said.

"Whatsat?" Bolden halted, cocking his head.

"El Camino. It's slower but a lot safer."

Muttering, Bolden slammed the door. She heard the panel truck start up and move off into traffic ... it didn't really matter. She began examining her shorthand notes. The noise of the power saws filtered through the walls into the office; and there was a series of taps as the shipping clerk pounded at his chrome tables.

"He's right," she said. "Jake, I mean."

"Who in the world is Jake?" Mrs. Bolden asked.

"The shipping clerk." They didn't even know his name. He was a pounding machine ... a faulty pounding machine. "There has to be litter around a shipping bench. How can you wrap without litter?"

"It's not for you to decide." Mrs. Bolden put down her adding-machine tape and turned toward her. "Mary, you're old enough to know better-talking this way, as if you're in charge."

"I know. I was hired to take dictation, not to tell you how to run your business." She had heard it before, a number of times. "Right?"

"You can't work in the business world and behave this way,"

Mrs. Bolden said. "You've got to learn that. You simply must have respect for those above you."

Mary Anne listened to the words, and wondered what they meant. They seemed to be important to Mrs. Bolden; the heavyset old woman had become upset. It amused her a little, because it was so silly, so unimportant.

"Don't you want to know things?" she asked curiously. Apparently they didn't. "The men found a rat in the fabric shed. Maybe rats have been eating the fabric rolls. Wouldn't you want to find out? I should think you'd want somebody to tell you."