Читать книгу Gobble-Up Stories - Oscar Mandel - Страница 18

HANK THE SALESMAN

Above all the salesmen working for him, the President of the company loved and prized a man whose name was Hank. Hank had eyes that made the ladies dream of naughty adventures in ancient Persia. Beneath his comely nose, a long black moustache pointed to the right and the left like a pair of wings. His hair was curly and neatly trimmed around his attentive ears, his cheekbones looked like small ruddy apples, and his arms seemed to have been forged to carry the helpless out of fire-swept buildings. He was, furthermore, a man of merry monologue who believed in the quality of the product his company sold (I have, alas, forgotten what this was) as devoutly as the Pope believes in the Trinity. As a result, he scoured his territory like a conqueror, selling more units of the product than anyone the company had ever employed. No wonder he was the President’s favorite, and the darling of all the Directors too.

And no wonder, either, that, one morning, as the meeting of the Board of Directors was getting under way, the Chairman confronted the President with rage rampaging in his face, gestures, and words. “The news has come to me,” he thundered, “that our President has fired Hank. Why, Mr. Weamish, did you fire Hank?”

The Board was dumbfounded. The President said nothing.

“Why, why, why?” the Chairman shouted. “What made you do it?”

And still the President was silent. But now the Board was finding its voice. “Confess,” said a cunning Director. “Wasn’t it envy? Was Hank too successful? Did he steal the sunlight from you?”

“Oh no!” cried the President. “I? I envy Hank, I who admired him so, I who gave him raise after raise?”

“What then?” asked another Director. “Did he debauch the typists?”

“He did,” replied the President, “but that was stipulated in his contract.” Several tears were beginning to sprout from his eyes.

“Did he peculate and malversate?” suggested another Director.

“Hank malversate or peculate? Hank? Oh Hank,” blubbered the President, “you who lunched on yogurt when you traveled in order to save the company’s pennies! I never knew a boy as honest as you, except my grandmother in Heaven.”

“Enough!” bawled the Chairman. “Mr. Weamish, you fired our most brilliant salesman, though you were aware that the competition was luring him with bonuses, stock options, and limousines. One last time, tell us the cause, or else you in turn—the rest is blank, but as you all know, my silences are even more terrible than my words.”

And indeed the President was trembling. “Mr. Oglethorpe,” he whispered, “forgive me, but you named the cause yourself.”

“Fiddlesticks! Where? When?”

“The offers from our competitors…every day a new one… oh, I was so afraid that he was going to leave us…so nervous, so terrified…”

“That you fired him?”

“That I fired him.”

And there my story ends. Hank, as you might guess, went on to sell innumerable units of the next product, while the President was condemned to wrap parcels with twine and tape in the stockroom. There, for years to come, he would impart to newcomers and old-timers alike his settled conviction that doing mischief in order to prevent it is a very sad mistake.