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come when … but that day was far in the future when Art revealed a true side to his face, unlimbering himself of the waste baskets of the past.
     
MEMO:
My childhood.
    I developed acrophobia, or fear of high places, as soon as I walked. When I was nearly two, my father one day decided to cure me of my irrational fear by making me climb up a tall (12 to 14 foot) stepladder to the top, and there sit until I stopped screaming.
    – Masterson
     
    Section V: Art Speaks
     
    Art was in charge of firing, which consisted of simply filling out a pink slip and putting it into a pay envelope. Henry envied Art this power, the power of dealing effectively with papers. Alone of all the clerks, Art could see the real consequences of his work. He was an old, trusted employee who had been with the firm since its inception.
    In fact, as he confided at lunch one day, he was its inceptor, and Masterson’s father.
    ‘Does he know you are alive?’ asked Henry, incredulous that this harmless, friendly, frail, thin, likeable old man had created both an empire and its frightening emperor.
    ‘Yes.’ Art took a small bite of his hamburger and mangled it in the wrinkled depths of his mouth contentedly. With a fine jasper hand he flicked greasy crumbs from his tie. ‘Yes, I built the whole shebang, and I nursed it all through the Great Depression, too. It was hard going, let me tell you, but on the other hand, I had all that cheap labour in
long
supply. Ten cents an hour, in the good old days, would buy you an unemployed architect. And I could hit them if I liked, without some damned nosy Labor Board coming around asking questions.’
    He shook his wattles wistfully. ‘Yes, sir, ten cents an hour. And they were
loyal
, mind you. I had men staying on ten, fifteen years. It was the war ruined all that. I have always been against war, and if you talk at me until you are blue in the face, I’ll not change my opinion. War destroys stability. Nowadays, the young men only work for you a year or so, then they run off to get drafted, with not a care for the future of the firm.’
    Section VI: Masterson on Tour
     
    Shortly after lunch was the time when Mr. Masterson made his afternoon tour. He paced the aisle, holding his fat, hairless hands carefully away from his sides, fingers together and slightly cupped, thumbs braced, as though he were gripping the wheels of a wheelchair. In the watery glass panels on his face, two pale creatures darted back and forth.
    Masterson’s finger suddenly stabbed the table of one draughtsman with a sound like a thrown knife. He screamed. ‘Arrowheads! I said no arrowheads! Take them out! I distinctly said no arrowheads! When I come back here in an hour, I don’t want to see a single arrowhead! No arrowheads! Can’t you understand plain English?’
    The man did not understand a word he was saying, but he realized erasures were in order, and nodded. He bent lower over his board, and the electric eraser trembled in his hand.
    Masterson passed on to the next man. ‘What’s
that
number?’ Stab. ‘It looks like a three, for Christ’s sake.’
    ‘It is a three, sir.’
    ‘Well, it don’t look enough like a three, then. Take it out and do it over.’
    Smiling, the man obeyed. Masterson’s doughy features began to glow. ‘Take out
all
your numbers and do them over. Make them all look like threes.’
    He came at last to a deaf-mute, Hrothgar.
    ‘What do you call this? A centreline? And this? If these are centrelines, let’s make them look like centrelines, huh?’
    Hrothgar looked hurt, but moved to obey.
    ‘And I told you before I wanted more space in there and there. Why don’t you
listen
when I’m talking to you?’
    ‘Nggyah-ngg!’ protested the victim.
    ‘Don’t you talk back to me that way!’
    Section VII: Questions
     
    From the office came the sound of a knife being thrown with great force and apparent hate. Perhaps it was as Ed said, that arbitrary power corrupts arbitrarily.
    Masterson screamed