The message fell onto my desk. Still using only my one free hand, I picked it up and unrolled it laboriously. On the paper were written two neat, concise words.
Hurry up.
‘Oh thank you!’ I shouted at the closed door to Mr Ambrose’s office. ‘Thank you so very much!’
With a grunt I deposited the gigantic box on my desk and began to look through it.
After ten more minutes of ceaseless searching, I raised my head from the dusty intestines of box 37XV227, holding my trophy aloft.
‘Yes!’
Now that I had invested so much trouble into finding it, I couldn’t help wondering what file 227B actually was. I took a quick peep - only to be confronted by endless columns of meaningless numbers. This was what I had spent half an hour of my precious life on? Ah, who cared what was in it! What mattered was that I had found it, finally!
Triumphantly I marched to Mr Ambrose’s door, knocked, and shoved the thin file under the door. On the other side, I could hear the scrape of a chair being moved, and then footsteps. And oh, what footsteps they were - only Mr Ambrose could manage to make his step sound cool and disinterested.
I didn’t wait to listen for more, though. Right now, I was so exhausted that I didn’t care what he did with the bloody file. I just went to my desk, collapsed into my chair, closed my eyes and breathed a deep sigh of relief.
A plink from the wall made me open my eyes again. Frowning, I picked up the metal cylinder and opened it. What now?
Be quicker next time.
Rikkard Ambrose.
For a moment, I could hardly believe the words in front of my eyes. But only for a moment. Then, I saw red. Fuming, I grabbed my fountain pen and composed the following message in my best chicken scratch:
Dear Mr Ambrose,
If you want me to be quicker at finding your files, maybe you should explain the sorting system to me.
Yours (as your secretary, whether you like it or not)
Lilly Linton
I stuffed it into the tube and pulled the lever. The reply came only a minute later:
Mr Linton,
If you are not able to comprehend a perfectly logical system of sorting files, then what makes you think you are suitable for the position of private secretary? Maybe you should resign.
Rikkard Ambrose
Ha! You would just love that, wouldn’t you? And what… perfectly logical? So far nothing I had seen of the supposed ‘system’ was perfectly logical, rather perfectly chaotic. How could anyone figure it out by themselves?
Fear suddenly lanced through my heart. What if he sacked me? The possibility hadn’t occurred to me until now, because he had promised to give me the job and could not break his word. But knowing the kind of man he was, I doubted very much he would still feel honour-bound to keep me if I didn’t come up to scratch. On the contrary, he would probably be delighted to throw me out at the first opportunity.
Resolving then and there not to give him that satisfaction, I got up and plunged myself into the jungle that was Mr Simmons' filing system.
*~*~**~*~*
When the next message landed with a plink on my desk, I sat there, awaiting it with a serene smile.
With a flourish, I opened the message container and studied the message inside.
Mr Linton,
Bring me file 146K. Be quicker this time.
Rikkard Ambrose
I got up, walked over to one of the shelves, took out a box, opened it, took out file 146K, closed the box again, put it back on the shelf, walked to the door with the file in hand and slid it through the slit between door and floor. Then I knocked at the door and purred:
‘Your file, Sir.’
I heard him getting up and without a word taking it from the floor. All the while I stood leaning against the door, my ear pressed to the wood, grinning like an idiot and feeling like a genius.
This time, nothing came out of the hole in the wall. No message. No complaint. No scolding note. I did a little happy dance in the middle of the room. Yay! He had nothing to complain about. And I bet the fact was riling him up good and proper.
Not long after, both files were returned in the same manner I had forwarded them. Attached to the top was a note.
Mr Linton,
Bring me file 188Q.
Not a word about being quicker. If that was at all possible, my grin widened a little bit more. Quickly I scurried over to the shelves and, after depositing the returned files in their correct place, went to the next box and got him the wished-for documents.
The following hours passed in a whirl of fetched and returned files, and curt little notes exchanged via the pneumatic tubes. If he actually read half of the files I fetched for him, I’d eat my uncle’s big top hat. He seemed determined to make me mess up, to pressure me so that he would be able to find some fault with me and have an excuse to sack me.
And in every single note he sent he kept calling me Mister Linton.