Work of Art by Sinclair Lewis

The manager of the Connecticut Inn was also the proprietor. He was a high-powered ant. He was a moral fellow who drank nothing but hot rum and who talked of closing up the bar, though he never went so far as to do it. He was named Wheelwright, and was known to the travelling-salesmen as 'Deacon' Wheelwright. He was not deliberately cruel, but he was a fusser, a nagger, a discusser, a reminder; he had regular habits and did not see why other people's regularities should not jibe with his own. And he hated to pay salaries.

The nearer he was to people, the more he was irritated by their loose ways, so that while he was on reasonably good terms with the cooks and waiters in the Back of the House, he was always rushing in the manner of an agitated hen at the clerks immediately under his eye, and the labour turnover in the Front Office was prodigious. So Myron had his chance at clerking.