Next to his desk was Miss Trixie’s rolltop desk. Old newspapers filled every half-opened drawer. Among the little spherical formations of lint under the desk a piece of cardboard had been wedged under one corner to make the desk level. In place of Miss Trixie, a brown paper bag filled with old pieces of material, and a ball of twine occupied the chair. Cigarette butts spilled out of the ashtray on the desk. This was a mystery which Mr. Gonzalez had never been able to solve, for Miss Trixie did not smoke. He had questioned her about this several times, but had never received a coherent answer. There was something magnetic about Miss Trixie’s area. It attracted whatever refuse there was in the office, and whenever pens, eyeglasses, purses, or cigarette lighters were missing they could usually be found somewhere in her desk. Miss Trixie also hoarded all of the telephone books, which were stored in some cluttered drawer in her desk.

Mr. Gonzalez was about to search Miss Trixie’s area for his missing stamp pad when the door of the office opened and she shuffled in, scuffing her sneakers across the wooden floor. She had with her another paper bag that seemed to contain the same assortment of material and twine, aside from the stamp pad which was sticking out of the top of the bag. For two or three years Miss Trixie had been carrying these bags with her, sometimes accumulating three or four by the side of her desk, never disclosing their purpose or destination to anyone.

“Good morning, Miss Trixie,” Mr. Gonzalez called in his effervescent tenor. “And how are we this morning?”

“Who? Oh, hello, Gomez,” Miss Trixie said feebly and drifted off toward the ladies’ room as if she were tacking into a gale. Miss Trixie was never perfectly vertical; she and the floor always met at an angle of less than ninety degrees.

Mr. Gonzalez took the opportunity of her disappearance to retrieve his stamp pad from the bag and discovered that it was covered with what felt and smelled like bacon grease. While he was wiping his stamp pad, he wondered how many of the other workers would appear. One day a year ago only he and Miss Trixie had shown up for work, but that was before the company had granted a five-dollar monthly increase. Still, the office help at Levy Pants often quit without even telephoning Mr. Gonzalez. This was a constant worry, and always after Miss Trixie’s arrival he watched the door hopefully, especially now that the factory was supposed to begin shipment of its spring and summer line. The truth of the matter was that he needed office help desperately.

Mr. Gonzalez saw a green visor outside the door. Had Miss Trixie gone out through the factory and decided to reenter through the front door? It was like her. She had once gone to the ladies’ room in the morning and been found by Mr. Gonzalez late that afternoon asleep on a pile of piece goods in the factory loft. Then the door opened, and one of the largest men that Mr. Gonzalez had ever seen entered the office. He removed the green cap and revealed thick black hair plastered to his skull with Vaseline in the style of the 1920s. When the overcoat came off, Mr. Gonzalez saw rings of fat squeezed into a tight white shirt that was vertically divided by a wide flowered tie. It appeared that Vaseline had also been applied to the moustache for it gleamed very brightly. And then there were the unbelievable blue and yellow eyes laced with the finest tracing of pinkish veins. Mr. Gonzalez prayed almost audibly that this behemoth was an applicant for a job. He was impressed and overwhelmed.

Ignatius found himself in perhaps the most disreputable office that he had ever entered. The naked light bulbs that hung irregularly from the stained ceiling cast a weak yellow light upon the warped floorboards. Old filing cabinets divided the room into several small cubicles, in each of which was a desk painted with a peculiar orange varnish. Through the dusty windows of the office there was a gray view of the Poland Avenue wharf, the Army Terminal, the Mississippi, and, far in the distance, the drydocks and the roofs of Algiers across the river. A very old woman hobbled into the room and bumped into a row of filing cabinets. The atmosphere of the place reminded Ignatius of his own room, and his valve agreed by opening joyfully. Ignatius prayed almost audibly that he would be accepted for the job. He was impressed and overwhelmed.

“Yes?” the dapper man at the clean desk asked brightly.

“Oh. I thought that the lady was in charge,” Ignatius said in his most stentorian voice, finding the man the only blight in the office. “I have come in response to your advertisement.”

“Oh, wonderful. Which one?” the man cried enthusiastically. “We’re running two in the paper, one for a woman and one for a man.”

“Which one do you think I’m answering?” Ignatius hollered.

“Oh,” Mr. Gonzalez said in great confusion. “I’m very sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I mean, the sex doesn’t matter. You could handle either job. I mean, I’m not concerned with sex.”

“Please forget it,” Ignatius said. He noticed with interest that the old woman was beginning to nod at her desk. Working conditions looked wonderful.

“Come sit down, please. Miss Trixie will take your coat and hat and put them in the employees’ locker. We want you to feel at home at Levy Pants.”

“But I haven’t even spoken with you yet.”

“That’s all right. I’m sure that we’ll see eye to eye. Miss Trixie. Miss Trixie.”

“Who?” Miss Trixie cried, knocking her loaded ashtray to the floor.

“Here, I’ll take your things.” Mr. Gonzalez was slapped on the hand when he reached for the cap, but he was permitted to have the coat. “Isn’t that a fine tie. You see very few like that anymore.”

“It belonged to my departed father.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mr. Gonzalez said and put the coat into an old metal locker in which Ignatius saw a bag like the two beside the old woman’s desk. “By the way, this is Miss Trixie, one of our oldest employees. You’ll enjoy knowing her.”

Miss Trixie had fallen asleep, her white head among the old newspapers on her desk.

“Yes,” Miss Trixie finally sighed. “Oh, it’s you, Gomez. Is it quitting time already?”

“Miss Trixie, this is one of our new workers.”

“Fine big boy,” Miss Trixie said, turning her rheumy eyes up toward Ignatius. “Well fed.”

“Miss Trixie has been with us for over fifty years. That will give you some idea of the satisfaction that our workers get from their association with Levy Pants. Miss Trixie worked for Mr. Levy’s late father, a fine old gentleman.”

“Yes, a fine old gentleman,” Miss Trixie said, unable to remember the elder Mr. Levy at all anymore. “He treated me well. Always had a kind word, that man.”

“Thank you, Miss Trixie,” Mr. Gonzalez said quickly, like a master of ceremonies trying to end a variety act that had failed horribly.

“The company says it’s going to give me a nice boiled ham for Easter,” Miss Trixie told Ignatius. “I certainly hope so. They forgot all about my Thanksgiving turkey.”

“Miss Trixie has stood by Levy Pants through the years,” the office manager explained while the ancient assistant accountant babbled something else about the turkey.

“I’ve been waiting for years to retire, but every year they say I have one more to go. They work you till you drop,” Miss Trixie wheezed. Then losing interest in retirement, she added, “I could have used that turkey.”

She began sorting through one of her bags.

“Can you begin work today?” Mr. Gonzalez asked Ignatius.

“I don’t believe that we have discussed anything concerning salary and so forth. Isn’t that the normal procedure at this time?” Ignatius asked condescendingly.

“Well, the filing job, which is the one you’ll have because we really need someone on the files, pays sixty dollars a week. Any days that you are absent due to sickness, et cetera, are deducted from your weekly wage.”