Explore "In Caverns Below" by Stanton A. Coblentz on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The duties and obligations of my new position were formidable -- if one looked at them merely on paper. I was the official possessor of seven titles and sub-titles, from Supervising Engineer to Sub-Director of the Airways; I was the occupant of a capacious suite of rooms, with a huge private office importantly marked "Hours by appointment only"; I had the promised two thousand employees, from office girls to "Ventilating Linemen," all of them strictly at my bid and call; and I was provided with whole libraries of literature and a list of "55 everyday rules," which, I was told, I must scrupulously follow.
However, I hardly glanced at these rules, and never so much as turned the pages of the instruction books; for I found that my assistants, at less than a tenth of my salary, did all the work, while my only task of any consequence was to sign my pay-check every five "wakes. " This, naturally, left me with much time upon my hands; yet I did not waste my hours, but devoted them to enlarging my knowledge of the ventilation system, until there was no man in all Wu who understood the apparatus so thoroughly as I. It was not to be long before I should put my information to use.