“Won’t be more than a few more minutes,” said Uhd, glancing up from the seemingly undiminished stack of paperwork on his desk.

Then, of course, there was the one time that he had been caught.   Jones had been thirteen at the time, and had been stealing comics from a local newsagency for over a month, when one day while he was slipping a pile of comics into his green vinyl school bag, he nearly jumped out of his skin, when a heavy hand descended onto his left shoulder.

“Can I have a look inside your bag please, young man?” had asked the tall, skeletally thin, grey-haired newsagent.

“Look inside my bag?” Jones had echoed, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.

“That’s right,” confirmed the old man, taking the bag from Jones and unzipping it to remove the nine Marvel Comics.

“What do we have here?” the old man had asked gleefully.

“I bought them in a shop down the road,” lied Jones.

“Then why do they have my stamp on them?”

Jones had had no answer for that.

“I’ve noticed comics disappearing from my shop more than once before.   But until now I didn’t know who to suspect.   I’m not going to go to the police –”   Jones had audibly breathed a sigh of relief — “but I don’t intend letting you off the hook either, young man.   I know your parents and they will be hearing about this!”

Jones had hurried to leave the newsagency.

“Oh, and young man,” the newsagent had called after him, “don’t ever set foot inside my agency again!”

For a month afterwards Jones had sweated, wondering when his parents would raise the subject.   But they never had.   He never knew whether it was because they had not known what to say, had known of his affliction and had realised that it was not his fault, or whether the old man had only been bluffing.

Ever since the day in the newsagency, Jones had lived in terror of the day when he would again feel the hand of doom descend upon his shoulder.   And at last the day had arrived, so Jones could forget all about the big promotion.

‘God how he must be laughing inside,’ thought Jones as he watched Uhd doing his paperwork.   ‘That bastard has done everything in his power to stop the big break from coming my way, ever since I started work here, fifteen years ago.   But this time there was nothing he could use against me…Until, like the weak fool I am, I had to go and hand it to him on a platter….

‘Oh well, if I’ve lost the big chance again, maybe I can at least hold onto my job, if I make a clean breast of it, explain about my illness, and offer to return the typewriter…If the bastard refuses to listen, I’ll go to see Gordon Koch.   If I can convince Gordon that it isn’t really my fault, he might agree to go over Uhd’s head and speak to the company president for me.

‘Yes, that’s what I’ll do,’ thought Jones.   He cleared his throat noisily to attract the Vice President’s notice, then said, “Mr…Mr. Uhd?”

“Er, yes, Jones,” said Lawrence Uhd, capping his ballpoint before place it onto his desk.   “I’m sorry to have kept you sitting there for so long, but there is a new man at your desk now, so the section won’t fall behind in its workload.”

“A…a n…new man?” stuttered Jones aloud, thinking to himself, ‘My God, the old bastard hasn’t even waited to hear my side of it, before making his move!   What’ll I do now?   Once word gets around I’ll never get another job as long as I live, unless I settle for factory work, paying half as much money for twice as much work!’

“Yes, that’s right,” confirmed Uhd, “you won’t be working there anymore, needless to say, after this.”

‘Needless to say,’ thought Jones, feeling sick to the stomach.

“I just wanted to tell you to your face….”

‘I’ll just bet you did, you old bastard!’ thought Jones.

“You’ve got the promotion!”

THE END