(xx) Christmas Suggestions for the Boss

Well sir, it's late afternoon as our scene opens now, and here in the living room of a small house halfway up in the next block we find Mr. and Mrs. Victor Cook. Vic is established at the library table apparently occupied with a piece of office work.

Say it is just this moment arrived home from a downtown shopping expedition. And the master of the menage is saying, No, Sadie, you pretty good of you. Well, I thought it was Russian here. I called you in manly pear shaped tunes.

Tunes. Mom, I wasn't paying much attention. What are you doing? A little extra quick, you're task. Call up a chair if you have nothing better to do than help me. Well, huh, huh. No, I mean it.

I can use assistance. Can't you do office work? Well, strictly speaking, this isn't office work. Here, I'll hold you up a chair while you're taking off your hat. Oh, I'm not much good at figures, you know.

No figures involved. No figures involved. This is simply a job of tabulation, and two persons can handle it more efficiently than One day. I bumped into your cham where she can fish again from Michigan, Michigan, Michigan, downtown.

Mm-hmm. How was he? Oh, kind of loony. And what, wait? Oh, and he saw me and recognized me. He stopped dead in his tracks, clicked his heels together, swept off his hat, bowed almost to the ground and said, Madame, Madame, my pleasure, Madame.

That's old world courtesy. Something all right. What's this now? Sit down, and I'll tell you. I feel good to sit down. I've been on my feet ever since noon. You know, perhaps you remember my tenors the other day that the guy's down at the office shoved the problem of the boss's Christmas present in my lap again this year.