Lem squares off and addresses me like I'm the Supreme Court.
"Years ago mebbe a ambitious young feller could start with a big corporation and work his way up," he begins, in a kind of loud voice, "But, gentlemen of the—eh—but, Gale, he kinnot do it now! If he's got any gumption at all, his ambition's killed when he applies for work. Have you ever saw the application blank a feller applyin' for the portfolio of, say, office clerk, has got to fill out for some of them big corporations? Well if you're the kind of a feller which wants to answer in detail questions so private that they'd make you smack down your best friend if he asked 'em, if you're that kind of a feller, I say to you this afternoon, why go ahead! If bein' asked to fill in rough sketches of your mother, your father, the status quo of your habits, conduct, religion and politics, any sicknesses you're addicted to, what debts you owe and why—if you're the kind of a feller which will supply all that personal information in return for a fifteen-dollar a week job, why do so. But not Lem Garfield—I think too much of my independence!"
He almost bellers the last part of it, slapping himself heartily on the chest, and as it is a hobby of mine never to attract no undue attention on the street, why I tried to quiet him down. Before I can say two and a half words though, Lem's got his second wind.
"It ain't the Big Boss which is responsible for that kind of a application blank," he goes on. "A application blank which loses them big, preedatory corporations plenty of good material every day in the shape of
