“No, Jim,” said Evelyn. “I haven’t heard of it.” She studied a leaflet with keen interest while she went on: “But it would be just a waste of time, I wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“No one would stand a chance against you,” Jim asserted, and turned to one of the older girls in the office. “Rose, what’d you think?”

“It’s as good as her money!”

“No, really—” Evelyn began.

“No mock modesty,” Jim ordered with affected sternness. Tor the sake of the office you’ll have to enter.”

“Of course you will,” Rose said.

“It would be crazy not to,” put in a typist who had been studying the leaflet over Evelyn’s shoulder. “Here, Jackie, come and tell us what you think . . . Look, you don’t have to have a perm, you just have to have a set at one of these hairdressers, and they say they’ve members all over London . . . The one near Villiers Street is the best for you, obviously . . . George! Come and let us know what you think .. .”

Jim strolled away from the crowd round Evelyn’s desk, and went to his own, in a corner. He was Deputy Office Manager, Buying and Accounts Departments of Jepsons, Mail Order Suppliers to The World. It was a quarter past two, and he ought to have stopped the discussion and got everyone back to a machine, a file or an order book, but Jepsons believed that a policy of reasonable latitude witIthe staff was wise policy. In five minutes all of the staff of this office, thirty-two people in all, were busy. It was true that Evelyn had the leaflet on her desk, but she began to type out orders from rough notes he or the Buyer had made at a bewildering speed; in front of a typewriter, she became a part of the machine. So did several of the other girls. The clatter of machines, the rustle of papers, the occasional bang of a filing drawer, the ringing of a telephone, the footsteps of clerks with roving commissions, turned this into just another afternoon.