CINDERELLA STORY
 

 By ALLEN KIM LANG
 
 What a bank! The First Vice-President was a cool cat—the elevator and the money operators all wore earmuffs—was just as phony as a three-dollar bill!
 
 
 [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
 
 

 I
 
 The First Vice-President of the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company, the gentleman to whom Miss Orison McCall was applying for a job, was not at all the public picture of a banker. His suit of hound's-tooth checks, the scarlet vest peeping above the vee of his jacket, were enough to assure Orison that the Taft Bank was a curious bank indeed. "I gotta say, chick, these references of yours really swing," said the Vice-President, Mr. Wanji. "Your last boss says you come on real cool in the secretary-bit."
 
 "He was a very kind employer," Orison said. She tried to keep from staring at the most remarkable item of Mr. Wanji's costume, a pair of furry green earmuffs. It was not cold.
 
 Mr. Wanji returned to Orison her letters of reference. "What color bread you got eyes for taking down, baby?" he asked.
 
 "Beg pardon?"
 
 "What kinda salary you bucking for?" he translated, bouncing up and down on the toes of his rough-leather desert boots.
 
 "I was making one-twenty a week in my last position," Miss McCall said.
 
 "You're worth more'n that, just to jazz up the decor," Mr. Wanji said.
"What you say we pass you a cee-and-a-half a week. Okay?" He caught Orison's look of bewilderment. "One each, a Franklin and a Grant," he explained further. She still looked blank. "Sister, you gonna work in a bank, you gotta know who's picture's on the paper. That's a hunnerd-fifty a week, doll."
 
 "That will be most satisfactory, Mr. Wanji," Orison said. It was indeed.
 
 "Crazy!" Mr. Wanji grabbed Orison's right hand and shook it with athletic vigor. "You just now joined up with our herd. I wanna tell you, chick, it's none too soon we got some decent scenery around this tomb, girlwise." He took her arm and led her toward the bank of elevators. The uniformed operator nodded to Mr. Wanji, bowed slightly to Orison. He, too, she observed, wore earmuffs. His were more formal than Mr. Wanji's, being midnight blue in color. "Lift us to five, Mac," Mr. Wanji said. As the elevator door shut he explained to Orison,
"You can make the Taft Bank scene anywhere between the street floor and floor five. Basement and everything higher'n fifth floor is Iron Curtain Country far's you're concerned. Dig, baby?"
 
 "Yes, sir," Orison said. She was wondering if she'd be issued earmuffs, now that she'd become an employee of this most peculiar bank.
 
 The elevator opened on five to a tiny office, just large enough to hold a single desk and two chairs. On the desk were a telephone and a microphone. Beside them was a double-decked "In" and "Out" basket.
"Here's where you'll do your nine-to-five, honey," Mr. Wanji said.
 
 "What will I be doing, Mr. Wanji?" Orison asked.
 
 The Vice-President pointed to the newspaper folded in the "In" basket.
"Flip on the microphone and read the paper to it," he said. "When you get done reading the paper, someone will run you up something new to read. Okay?"
 
 "It seems a rather peculiar job," Orison said. "After all, I'm a secretary. Is reading the newspaper aloud supposed to familiarize me with the Bank's operation?"
 
 "Don't bug me, kid," Mr. Wanji said. "All you gotta do is read that there paper into this here microphone. Can do?"
 
 "Yes, sir," Orison said. "While you're here, Mr. Wanji, I'd like to ask you about my withholding tax, social security, credit union, coffee-breaks, union membership, lunch hour and the like. Shall we take care of these details now? Or would you—"
 
 "You just take care of that chicken-flickin' kinda stuff any way seems best to you, kid," Mr. Wanji said.
 
 "Yes, sir," Orison said. This laissez-faire policy of Taft Bank's might explain why she'd been selected from the Treasury Department's secretarial pool to apply for work here, she thought. Orison McCall, girl Government spy. She picked up the newspaper from the "In" basket, unfolded it to discover the day's Wall Street Journal , and began at the top of column one to read it aloud. Wanji stood before the desk, nodding his head as he listened. "You blowing real good, kid," he said.
"The boss is gonna dig you the most."
 
 Orison nodded. Holding her newspaper and her microphone, she read the one into the other. Mr. Wanji flicked his fingers in a good-by, then took off upstairs in the elevator.
 
 

 
 By lunchtime Orison had finished the Wall Street Journal and had begun reading a book an earmuffed page had brought her. The book was a fantastic novel of some sort, named The Hobbit . Reading this peculiar fare into the microphone before her, Miss McCall was more certain than ever that the Taft Bank was, as her boss in Washington had told her, the front for some highly irregular goings-on. An odd business for a Federal Mata Hari, Orison thought, reading a nonsense story into a microphone for an invisible audience.
 
 Orison switched off her microphone at noon, marked her place in the book and took the elevator down to the ground floor. The operator was a new man, ears concealed behind scarlet earmuffs. In the car, coming down from the interdicted upper floors, were several gentlemen with briefcases. As though they were members of a ballet-troupe, these gentlemen whipped off their hats with a single motion as Orison stepped aboard the elevator. Each of the chivalrous men, hat pressed to his heart, wore a pair of earmuffs. Orison nodded bemused acknowledgment of their gesture, and got off in the lobby vowing never to put a penny into this curiousest of banks.
 
 Lunch at the stand-up counter down the street was a normal interlude. Girls from the ground-floor offices of Taft Bank chattered together, eyed Orison with the coolness due so attractive a competitor, and favored her with no gambit to enter their conversations. Orison sighed, finished her tuna salad on whole-wheat, then went back upstairs to her lonely desk and her microphone. By five, Orison had finished the book, reading rapidly and becoming despite herself engrossed in the saga of Bilbo Baggins, Hobbit. She switched off the microphone, put on her light coat, and rode downstairs in an elevator filled with earmuffed, silent, hat-clasping gentlemen.
 
 What I need, Orison thought, walking rapidly to the busline, is a double Scotch, followed by a double Scotch. And what the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company needs is a joint raid by forces of the U.S. Treasury Department and the American Psychiatric Association. Earmuffs, indeed. Fairy-tales read into a microphone. A Vice-President with the vocabulary of a racetrack tout. And what goes on in those upper floors? Orison stopped in at the restaurant nearest her apartment house—the Windsor Arms—and ordered a meal and a single Martini. Her boss in Washington had told her that this job of hers, spying on Taft Bank from within, might prove dangerous. Indeed it was, she thought. She was in danger of becoming a solitary drinker.
 
 Home in her apartment, Orison set the notes of her first day's observations in order. Presumably Washington would call tonight for her initial report. Item: some of the men at the Bank wore earmuffs, several didn't. Item: the Vice-President's name was Mr. Wanji: Oriental? Item: the top eight floors of the Taft Bank Building seemed to be off-limits to all personnel not wearing earmuffs. Item: she was being employed at a very respectable salary to read newsprint and nonsense into a microphone. Let Washington make sense of that, she thought.
 
 

 
 In a gloomy mood, Orison McCall showered and dressed for bed. Eleven o'clock. Washington should be calling soon, inquiring after the results of her first day's spying.
 
 No call. Orison slipped between the sheets at eleven-thirty. The clock was set; the lights were out. Wasn't Washington going to call her? Perhaps, she thought, the Department had discovered that the Earmuffs had her phone tapped.
 
 "Testing," a baritone voice muttered.
 
 Orison sat up, clutching the sheet around her throat. "Beg pardon?" she said.
 
 "Testing," the male voice repeated. "One, two, three; three, two, one. Do you read me? Over."
 
 Orison reached under the bed for a shoe. Gripping it like a Scout-ax, she reached for the light cord with her free hand and tugged at it.
 
 The room was empty.
 
 "Testing," the voice repeated.
 
 "What you're testing," Orison said in a firm voice, "is my patience. Who are you?"
 
 "Department of Treasury Monitor J-12," the male voice said. "Do you have anything to report, Miss McCall?"
 
 "Where are you, Monitor?" she demanded.
 
 "That's classified information," the voice said. "Please speak directly to your pillow, Miss McCall."
 
 Orison lay down cautiously. "All right," she whispered to her pillow.
 
 "Over here," the voice instructed her, coming from the unruffled pillow beside her.
 
 Orison transferred her head to the pillow to her left. "A radio?" she asked.
 
 "Of a sort," Monitor J-12 agreed. "We have to maintain communications security. Have you anything to report?"
 
 "I got the job," Orison said. "Are you ... in that pillow ... all the time?"
 
 "No, Miss McCall," the voice said. "Only at report times. Shall we establish our rendezvous here at eleven-fifteen, Central Standard Time, every day?"
 
 "You make it sound so improper," Orison said.
 
 "I'm far enough away to do you no harm, Miss McCall," the monitor said.
"Now, tell me what happened at the bank today."
 
 Orison briefed her pillow on the Earmuffs, on her task of reading to a microphone, and on the generally mimsy tone of the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company. "That's about it, so far," she said.
 
 "Good report," J-12 said from the pillow. "Sounds like you've dropped into a real snakepit, beautiful."
 
 "How do you know ... why do you think I'm beautiful?" Orison asked.
 
 "Native optimism," the voice said. "Good night." J-12 signed off with a peculiar electronic pop that puzzled Orison for a moment. Then she placed the sound: J-12 had kissed his microphone.
 
 Orison flung the shoe and the pillow under her bed, and resolved to write Washington for permission to make her future reports by registered mail.
 
 

 II
 
 At ten o'clock the next morning, reading page four of the current Wall Street Journal , Orison was interrupted by the click of a pair of leather heels. The gentleman whose heels had just slammed together was bowing. And she saw with some gratification that he was not wearing earmuffs. "My name," the stranger said, "is Dink Gerding. I am President of this bank, and wish at this time to welcome you to our little family."
 
 "I'm Orison McCall," she said. A handsome man, she mused. Twenty-eight? So tall. Could he ever be interested in a girl just five-foot-three? Maybe higher heels?
 
 "We're pleased with your work, Miss McCall," Dink Gerding said. He took the chair to the right of her desk.
 
 "It's nothing," Orison said, switching off the microphone.
 
 "On the contrary, Miss McCall. Your duties are most important," he said.
 
 "Reading papers and fairy-tales into this microphone is nothing any reasonably astute sixth-grader couldn't do as well," Orison said.
 
 "You'll be reading silently before long," Mr. Gerding said. He smiled, as though this explained everything. "By the way, your official designation is Confidential Secretary. It's me whose confidences you're to keep secret. If I ever need a letter written, may I stop down here and dictate it?"
 
 "Please do," Orison said. This bank president, for all his grace and presence, was obviously as kookie as his bank.
 
 "Have you ever worked in a bank before, Miss McCall?" Mr. Gerding asked, as though following her train of thought.
 
 "No, sir," she said. "Though I've been associated with a rather large financial organization."
 
 "You may find some of our methods a little strange, but you'll get used to them," he said. "Meanwhile, I'd be most grateful if you'd dispense with calling me 'sir.' My name is Dink. It is ridiculous, but I'd enjoy your using it."
 
 "Dink?" she asked. "And I suppose you're to call me Orison?"
 
 "That's the drill," he said. "One more question, Orison. Dinner this evening?"
 
 Direct, she thought. Perhaps that's why he's president of a bank, and still so young. "We've hardly met," she said.
 
 "But we're on a first-name basis already," he pointed out. "Dance?"
 
 "I'd love to," Orison said, half expecting an orchestra to march, playing, from the elevator.
 
 "Then I'll pick you up at seven. Windsor Arms, if I remember your personnel form correctly." He stood, lean, all bone and muscle, and bowed slightly. West Point? Hardly. His manners were European. Sandhurst, perhaps, or Saint Cyr. Was she supposed to reply with a curtsy? Orison wondered.
 
 "Thank you," she said.
 
 He was a soldier, or had been: the way, when he turned, his shoulders stayed square. The crisp clicking of his steps, a military metronome, to the elevator. When the door slicked open Orison, staring after Dink, saw that each of the half-dozen men aboard snapped off their hats (but not their earmuffs) and bowed, the earmuffed operator bowing with them. Small bows, true; just head-and-neck. But not to her. To Dink Gerding.
 
 

 
 Orison finished the Wall Street Journal by early afternoon. A page came up a moment later with fresh reading-matter: a copy of yesterday's Congressional Record . She launched into the Record , thinking as she read of meeting again this evening that handsome madman, that splendid lunatic, that unlikely bank-president. "You read so well , darling," someone said across the desk.
 
 Orison looked up. "Oh, hello," she said. "I didn't hear you come up."
 
 "I walk ever so lightly," the woman said, standing hip-shot in front of the desk, "and pounce ever so hard." She smiled. Opulent, Orison thought. Built like a burlesque queen. No, she thought, I don't like her. Can't. Wouldn't if I could. Never cared for cats.
 
 "I'm Orison McCall," she said, and tried to smile back without showing teeth.
 
 "Delighted," the visitor said, handing over an undelighted palm. "I'm Auga Vingt. Auga, to my friends."
 
 "Won't you sit down, Miss Vingt?"
 
 "So kind of you, darling," Auga Vingt said, "but I shan't have time to visit. I just wanted to stop and welcome you as a Taft Bank co-worker. One for all, all for one. Yea, Team. You know."
 
 "Thanks," Orison said.
 
 "Common courtesy," Miss Vingt explained. "Also, darling, I'd like to draw your attention to one little point. Dink Gerding—you know, the shoulders and muscles and crewcut? Well, he's posted property. Should you throw your starveling charms at my Dink, you'd only get your little eyes scratched out. Word to the wise, n'est-ce pas ?"
 
 "Sorry you have to leave so suddenly," Orison said, rolling her Wall Street Journal into a club and standing. "Darling."
 
 "So remember, Tiny, Dink Gerding is mine. You're all alone up here. You could get broken nails, fall down the elevator shaft, all sorts of annoyance. Understand me, darling?"
 
 "You make it very clear," Orison said. "Now you'd best hurry back to your stanchion, Bossy, before the hay's all gone."
 
 "Isn't it lovely, the way you and I reached an understanding right off?" Auga asked. "Well, ta-ta." She turned and walked to the elevator, displaying, Orison thought, a disgraceful amount of ungirdled rhumba motion.
 
 The elevator stopped to pick up the odious Auga. A passenger, male, stepped off. "Good morning, Mr. Gerding," Miss Vingt said, bowing.
 
 "Carry on, Colonel," the stranger replied. As the elevator door closed, he stepped up to Orison's desk. "Good morning. Miss McCall," he said.
 
 "What is this?" Orison demanded. "Visiting-day at the zoo?" She paused and shook her head. "Excuse me, sir," she said. "It's just that ... Vingt thing...."
 
 "Auga is rather intense," the new Mr. Gerding said.
 
 "Yeah, intense," Orison said. "Like a kidney-stone."
 
 "I stopped by to welcome you to the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company family, Miss McCall," he said. "I'm Kraft Gerding, Dink's elder brother. I understand you've met Dink already."
 
 "Yes, sir," Orison said. The hair of this new Mr. Gerding was cropped even closer than Dink's. His mustache was gray-tipped, like a patch of frosted furze; and his eyes, like Dink's, were cobalt blue. The head, Orison mused, would look quite at home in one of Kaiser Bill's spike-topped Pickelhauben ; but the ears were in evidence, and seemed normal. Mr. Kraft Gerding bowed—what continental manners these bankers had!—and Orison half expected him to free her hand from the rolled-up paper she still clutched and plant a kiss on it.
 
 

 
 Instead, Kraft Gerding smiled a smile as frosty as his mustache and said, "I understand that my younger brother has been talking with you, Miss McCall. Quite proper, I know. But I must warn you against mixing business with pleasure."
 
 Orison jumped up, tossing the paper into her wastebasket. "I quit!" she shouted. "You can take this crazy bank ... into bankruptcy, for all I care. I'm not going to perch up here, target for every uncaged idiot in finance, and listen to another word."
 
 "Dearest lady, my humblest pardon," Kraft Gerding said, bowing again, a bit lower. "Your work is splendid; your presence is Taft Bank's most charming asset; my only wish is to serve and protect you. To this end, dear lady, I feel it my duty to warn you against my brother. A word to the wise...."
 
 " N'est-ce pas? " Orison said. "Well, Buster, here's a word to the foolish. Get lost."
 
 Kraft Gerding bowed and flashed his gelid smile. "Until we meet again?"
 
 "I'll hold my breath," Orison promised. "The elevator is just behind you. Push a button, will you? And bon voyage ."
 
 Kraft Gerding called the elevator, marched aboard, favored Orison with a cold, quick bow, then disappeared into the mysterious heights above fifth floor.
 
 First the unspeakable Auga Vingt, then the obnoxious Kraft Gerding. Surely, Orison thought, recovering the Wall Street Journal from her wastebasket and smoothing it, no one would convert a major Midwestern bank into a lunatic asylum. How else, though, could the behavior of the Earmuffs be explained? Could madmen run a bank? Why not, she thought. History is rich in examples of madmen running nations, banks and all. She began again to read the paper into the microphone. If she finished early enough, she might get a chance to prowl those Off-Limits upper floors.
 
 Half an hour further into the paper, Orison jumped, startled by the sudden buzz of her telephone. She picked it up. " Wanji e-Kal, Datto. Dink ger-Dink d'summa. "
 
 Orison scribbled down this intelligence in bemused Gregg before replying, "I'm a local girl. Try me in English."
 
 "Oh. Hi, Miss McCall," the voice said. "Guess I goofed. I'm in kinda clutch. This is Wanji. I got a kite for Mr. Dink Gerding. If you see him, tell him the escudo green is pale. Got that, doll?"
 
 "Yes, Mr. Wanji. I'll tell Mr. Gerding." Orison clicked the phone down. What now, Mata Hari? she asked herself. What was the curious language Mr. Wanji had used? She'd have to report the message to Washington by tonight's pillow, and let the polyglots of Treasury Intelligence puzzle it out. Meanwhile, she thought, scooting her chair back from her desk, she had a vague excuse to prowl the upper floors. The Earmuffs could only fire her.
 
 Orison folded the paper and put it in the "Out" basket. Someone would be here in a moment with something new to read. She'd best get going. The elevator? No. The operators had surely been instructed to keep her off the upstairs floors.
 
 But the building had a stairway.
 
 

 III
 
 The door on the sixth floor was locked. Orison went on up the stairs to seven. The glass of the door there was painted black on the inside, and the landing was cellar-dark. Orison closed her eyes for a moment. There was a curious sound. The buzzing of a million bees, barely within the fringes of her hearing. Somehow, a very pleasant sound.
 
 She opened her eyes and tried the knob. The door opened.
 
 Orison was blinded by the lights, brilliant as noonday sun. The room extended through the entire seventh floor, its windows boarded shut, its ceiling a mass of fluorescent lamps. Set about the floor were galvanized steel tanks, rectangular and a little bigger than bathtubs. Orison counted the rows of tanks. Twelve rows, nine tiers. One hundred and eight tanks. She walked closer. The tubs were laced together by strands of angel-hair, delicate white lattices scintillating with pink. She walked to the nearest of the tubs and looked in. It was half full of a greenish fluid, seething with tiny pink bubbles. For a moment Orison thought she saw Benjamin Franklin winking up at her from the liquid. Then she screamed.
 
 

 
 The pink bubbles, the tiny flesh-colored flecks glinting light from the spun-sugar bridges between the tanks, were spiders. Millions upon millions of spiders, each the size of a mustard-seed; crawling, leaping, swinging, spinning webs, seething in the hundred tanks. Orison put her hands over her ears and screamed again, backing toward the stairway door.
 
 Into a pair of arms.
 
 "I had hoped you'd be happy here, Miss McCall," Kraft Gerding said. Orison struggled to release herself. She broke free only to have her wrists seized by two Earmuffs that had appeared with the elder Gerding. "It seems that our Pandora doesn't care for spiders," he said. "Really, Miss McCall, our little pets are quite harmless. Were we to toss you into one of these tanks...." Orison struggled against her two sumo -sized captors, whose combined weights exceeded hers by some quarter-ton, without doing more than lifting her feet from the floor. "... your flesh would be unharmed, though they spun and darted all around you. Our Microfabridae are petrovorous, Miss McCall. Of course, once they discovered your teeth, and through them a skeleton of calcium, a delicacy they find most toothsome, you'd be filleted within minutes."
 
 "Elder Compassion wouldn't like your harming the girl, Sire," one of the earmuffed sumo -wrestlers protested.
 
 "Elder Compassion has no rank," Kraft Gerding said. "Miss McCall, you must tell me what you were doing here, or I'll toss you to the spiders."
 
 "Dink ... Dink!" Orison shouted.
 
 "My beloved younger brother is otherwise engaged than in the rescue of damsels in distress," Kraft said. "Someone, after all, has to mind the bank."
 
 "I came to bring a message to Dink," Orison said. "Let me go, you acromegalic apes!"
 
 "The message?" Kraft Gerding demanded.
 
 "Something about escudo green. Put me down!"
 
 

 
 Suddenly she was dropped. Her mountainous keepers were on the floor as though struck by lightning, their arms thrown out before them, their faces abject against the floor. Kraft Gerding was slowly lowering himself to one knee. Dink had entered the spider-room. Without questions, he strode between the shiko-ing Earmuffs and put his arms around Orison.
 
 "They can't harm you," he said. She turned to press her face against his chest. "You're all right, child. Breathe deep, swallow, and turn your brain back on. All right, now?"
 
 "All right," she said, still trembling. "They were going to throw me to the spiders."
 
 "Kraft told you that?" Dink Gerding released her and turned to the kneeling man. "Stand up, Elder Brother."
 
 "I...."
 
 Dink brought his right fist up from hip-level, crashing it into Kraft's jaw. Kraft Gerding joined the Earmuffs on the floor.
 
 "If you'd care to stand again, Elder Brother, you may attempt to recover your dignity without regard for the difference in our rank." Kraft struggled to one knee and remained kneeling, gazing up at Dink through half-closed eyes. "No? Then get out of here, all of you. Samma! "
 
 Kraft Gerding arose, stared for a moment at Dink and Orison, then, with the merest hint of a bow, led his two giant Earmuffs to the elevator.
 
 "I wish you hadn't come up here, Orison," Dink said. "Why did you do it?"
 
 "Have you read the story of Bluebeard?" Orison asked. She stood close to Dink, keeping her eyes on the nearest spidertank. "I had to see what it was you kept up here so secretly, what it was that I was forbidden to see. My excuse was to have been that I was looking for you, to deliver a message from Mr. Wanji. He said I was to tell you that the escudo green is pale."
 
 "You're too curious, and Wanji is too careless," Dink said. "Now, what is this thing you have about spiders?"
 
 "I've always been terrified of them," Orison said. "When I was a little girl, I had to stay upstairs all day one Sunday because there was a spider hanging from his thread in the stairway. I waited until Dad came home and took it down with a broom. Even then, I didn't have appetite for supper."
 
 "Strange," Dink said. He walked over to the nearest tank and plucked one of the tiny pink creatures from a web-bridge. "This is no spider, Orison," he said.
 
 She backed away from Dink Gerding and the minuscule creature he cupped in the palm of his hand. "These are Microfabridae, more nearly related to shellfish than to spiders," he said. "They're stone-and-metal eaters. They literally couldn't harm a fly. Look at it, Orison." He extended his palm. Orison forced herself to look. The little creature, flesh-colored against his flesh, was nearly invisible, scuttling around the bowl of his hand. "Pretty little fellow, isn't he?" Dink asked.
"Here. You hold him."
 
 "I'd rather not," she protested.
 
 "I'd be happier if you did," Dink said.
 
 

 
 Orison extended her hand as into a furnace. Dink brushed the Microfabridus from his palm to hers. It felt crisp and hard, like a legged grain of sand. Dink took a magnifier from his pocket and unfolded it, to hold it over Orison's palm.
 
 "He's like a baby crawdad," Orison said.
 
 "A sort of crustacean," Dink agreed. "We use them in a commercial process we're developing. That's why we keep this floor closed off and secret. We don't have a patent on the use of Microfabridae, you see."
 
 "What do they do?" Orison asked.
 
 "That's still a secret," Dink said, smiling. "I can't tell even you that, not yet, even though you're my most confidential secretary."
 
 "What's he doing now?" Orison asked, watching the Microfabridus, perched up on the rear four of his six microscopic legs, scratching against her high-school class-ring with his tiny chelae.
 
 "They like gold," Dink explained, peering across her shoulder, comfortably close. "They're attracted to it by a chemical tropism, as children are attracted to candy. Toss him back into his tank, Orison. We'd better get you down where you belong."
 
 Orison brushed the midget crustacean off her finger into the nearest tank, where he joined the busy boil of his fellows. She felt her ring. It was pitted where the Microfabridus had been nibbling. "Strange, using crawdads in a bank," she said. She stood silent for a moment. "I thought I heard music," she said. "I heard it when I came in. Something like the sighing of wind in winter trees."
 
 "That's the hymn of the Microfabridae," Dink said. "They all sing together while they work, a chorus of some twenty million voices." He took her arm. "If you listen very carefully, you'll find the song these little workers sing the most beautiful music in the world."
 
 Orison closed her eyes, leaning back into Dink's arms, listening to the music that seemed on the outermost edge of her hearing. Wildness, storm and danger were its theme, counterpointed by promises of peace and harbor. She heard the wash of giant waves in the song, the crash of breakers against granite, cold and insatiable. And behind this, the quiet of sheltered tide-pools, the soft lub of sea-arms landlocked.
"It's an ancient song," Dink said. "The Microfabridae have been singing it for a million years." He released her, and opened a wood-covered wooden box. He scooped up a cupful of the sand inside.
"Hold out your hands," he told Orison. He filled them with the sand.
"Throw our singers some supper for their song," he said.
 
 Orison went with her cupped hands to the nearest tank and sprinkled the mineral fishfood around inside it. The Microfabridae leaped from the liquid like miniature porpoises, seizing the grains of sand in mid-air.
"They're so very strange," Orison said. At the bottom of the tank she thought she saw Ben Franklin again, winking at her through the bubbling life. Nonsense, she thought, brushing her hands.
What is the plot of the story?
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af155caa61514dd9b3bfe0a82a06500f
Orison McCall is applying for a job at the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company. She is a government spy who has been selected from the Treasury Department to work at the bank. The man who she meets for the job is Mr. Wanji, the First Vice President. He dresses strangely compared to the regular banker. Mr. Wanji also speaks to Orison in strange slang and leaves her with the job of reading newspapers into a microphone. She takes her lunch break at noon, eats a tuna salad on whole-wheat, and returns to reading at her desk until five. Orison gets the job and notes that the bank is very bizarre. All of the workers wear earmuffs, and her only task is to read into a microphone. After her dinner, she goes home and waits to receive a call from Washington. At eleven-thirty, she receives a call from Monitor J-12 from the Department of Treasury. He asks Orison for a report but flirts with her slightly by calling her beautiful and kissing the microphone. The next morning, the bank President Dink Gerding personally welcomes her. She notes that he is as crazy as the rest of the bank, and he asks her out for dinner even though they have just met. Once Orison begins reading a copy of yesterday’s Congressional Record, Auga Vingt silently comes and introduces herself. She threatens Orison to stay away from Dink, to which Orison agrees and tells her to leave. Then, Kraft Gerding introduces himself to her, and she threatens to quit because of how crazy this bank is. Orison then receives a call from Wanji, and he tells her to tell Dink that escudo green is pale. Although she is banned from taking the elevator to the upper floor, she takes the stairs to the seventh floor instead and is greeted by the sight of millions of spiders in pink liquid. Kraft threatens to toss her into the tank, but then Dink comes and rescues her. He crashes his fist into Kraft’s jaw, and the perpetrators leave him and Orison alone. He explains to her that the creatures are Microfabridae and are more closely related to shellfish than spiders. She holds one, and Dink says that the company is raising them in secret because it does not have a patent. He lets her listen to the hymn of the Microfabridae and feed the tiny creatures. Orison swears that she can see Benjamin Franklin winking at her, but she believes it is nonsense. 

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1beb2477563a425899279c3f978d3ad0
Orison is having an interview for the position of secretary in Taft Bank with its vice-president Mr. Wanji. The least is talking slang and wears furry earmuffs and a scarlet vest, not reminding a banker at all. Orison's job is to read into a microphone whatever she is given. After the first day, the new employee is feeling very confused with her tasks, her boss, everyone in the office wearing earmuffs and forbidden upper floors. Turns out she is to spy for Washington in this bank and she writes down her observations. Orison gets a food and a drink and heads home, waiting for a call from Washington. As she doesn't get it, she goes to bed and suddenly hears a voice.   They establish an every day time for the talks and Orison tell everything she saw. The person on the other end, J-12, flirts with her and hangs up. Next morning in the office orison meets the bank president, a handsome young man Dink Gerding. He praises her efforts and asks on a dinner that night. Later, an extravagant woman, Auga, comes in. She shortly warns orison against touching 'her' Dink, following it by serious threats. Right after Kraft Gerding, Dink's elder brother, comes to welcome Orison. He warns her against mixing work and pleasure as well, which makes Orison ask him to leave. Soon she gets a call from Mr. Wangi speaking a strange language. She decides to go up via stairway. On the seventh floor she finds a huge room full of tanks and sees green liquid with pink bubbles inside. The bubbles turn out to be millions of spiders and Orison screams rushing back. There she is captured by Kraft and two earmuffs, who ask about the reasons for her entering the room. Suddenly, Dink enters and frees her, he beats his brother, who knelt to Dink's rank, and everyone leaves except Orison and Dink. The least shows her Microfabridae and gives one to hold, explaining he is no spider, after Orison describes her intrusion as an act of curiosity. Dink embraces Orison and they listen for the singing of little creatures for a while, then they feed them and leave. 
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The story talks about a spy named Miss Orison McCall, and her weird investigation object, the Taft Bank. In the beginning Orison tries to get a job in this bank. She is interviewed by the bank’s vice president, Mr. Wanji, who acts like a racetrack tout. Though Orison’s new job has a higher salary than the previous one, her job is very simple. She only has to read newspapers and fairy-tales to a microphone every day. After finishing a day of work at the Taft Bank, Orison reports what she saw to Washington. Since there has not been any calls, she decides to go to sleep. However, as she lies down, a radio in her pillow talks to her. She is surprised, but agrees to report to the pillow at 11:15 every day from then on. Easy work and high salary, suspicious earmuffs for some of the workers, restricted floors, they all make the bank seems oddly strange. The next day, Orison meets Mr. Dink Gerding who seems to have an interest in Orison and asks her out for dinner. Orison agrees. However, both Mr. Kraft, the elder brother of Dink, and Auga Vingt, who thinks that Dink is hers, warned Orison to keep a distance from Dink.

Later, Mr. Wanji calls Orison and wants her to bring a message to Dink. This gives Orison a vague excuse to explore the higher floors. Through a stairway, Orison goes to the 6th floor, but the door is locked. The door to the 7th floor is not. She pushes through the door and enters. She first thinks that she sees Benjamin Franklin. She got so scared that she screams. Then, mistakenly thinks that the Microfabridae are spiders, which Orison was afraid of, she screams again. Then, the appearance of Kraft and two other men with earmuffs make Orison unable to leave. Kraft threatens Orison. Luckily, Dink appears and saves her from the situation. Orison learns about Microfabridae, which are useful for a secret developing commercial process. Whereas, they are secretly fed by the bank because of the problem of patent.
106
fa10b8a659364c9dabed9bfe9f2bbefc
Orizon McCall has an interview with Vice-President, Mr. Wanji of the Taft National Bank and Trust Company for the new position of secretary in the company. He takes her inside the elevator of the building, where he tells her she is not to go past the fifth floor of the building. He takes her to her office on the fifth floor where she will be working. He tells her that her job is to read the paper, as well as different books into a microphone. It is then revealed that the real reason for Orizon's application for this position was to spy on the bank for the government. Mr. Wanji leaves her. Orizon reads into the microphone all morning, then breaks for lunch. She sees more men with earmuffs on the elevator, coming down from the upper floors. She comes back after lunch, and then heads home. 
Orizon arrives home in her apartment, where she waits for Washington to call her, asking for an initial report. At eleven thirty, she decides to go to bed, after having not received any call. Just then, an invisible voice breaks out in the room. It is coming from her pillow, a speaker hiding in it. It belongs to Monitor J-12 from the agency, asking her if she has anything to report. She briefs him on her findings from the day. The next day, Orizon is back in her office, where she meets the president of the bank, Dink Gerding. He tells her she is to be his confidential secretary. He asks her out to dinner and dancing, which she accepts. He leaves, getting in the elevator. Orizon is visited by Kraft Gerding, Dink's older brother, who also warns her not to get involved with Dink. 
Orizon continues to read, when half an hour later, she gets a call from Mr. Wanji. He tells her to pass on a message to Mr. Dink Gerding. She decides to use the excuse of passing on this message to Dink as a reason to explore the upper floors. She opens the door to an expansive room, flooded with light. There are steel tanks all around, filled with green fluid with tiny pink bubbles. She then realises that the pink bubbles are spiders. She screams, and backs into the arms of Kraft. His two men take her by the wrists. He threatens to throw her into the spider tanks if she doesn't tell him what she's doing there. She tells him she has a message for Dink. Dink enters the room, and the two men, including Dink's brother, drop to the floor. Dink goes to her, soothing her, then punches Kraft. He orders the three men to leave. He tells her that the spiders are not spiders at all. They are tiny frustrations called Microfabridae, who eat stone and metal. He tells her he can't explain what they do, as it's confidential. They listen as the tiny creatures sing. 
Describe the setting of the story
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af155caa61514dd9b3bfe0a82a06500f
The location is primarily set at the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company. Orison’s office is on the fifth floor, and it is a tiny space just large enough to hold a single desk and two chairs. There is also a telephone, a microphone, and a double-decked basket. The basket is an “In” and “Out” basket for the papers she will read. There is also an elevator, and there are always operators in earmuffs present. Although she is not allowed onto the upper floors by elevator, the building has a staircase that leads up to the upper levels. The sixth floor is locked, but the seventh floor has a glass door that is painted black and a cellar-dark landing. Inside, there is a mass of fluorescent lamps on the ceiling and boarded shut windows. One hundred and eighty steel tanks line the floor. The tanks are half-full with greenish fluid and laced together by angel-hair, delicate white lattices sparkling with pink. 

From the outside of the building, there is a stand-up counter down the street to eat. There is also a restaurant near Orison’s apartment called the Windsor Arms, where she grabs a meal and a single Martini. Her apartment is described as having a place to shower in and a bed. There is also a pillow, and it is where Monitor J-12 communicates with her. 

105
1beb2477563a425899279c3f978d3ad0
The story starts in a cabinet in Taft Bank with Mr. Wanji, a weirdly dressed up for a banker man, talking to a new employee. Then the two move to the elevators with an operator wearing earmuffs similar to the ones Mr. Wanji has. They enter a tiny office with a single desk, a telephone and a microphone - Orison's new workplace. Later, she goes outside for lunch, meeting a couple more people with earmuffs on. her way from the office. She has lunch in a stand-up place down the street and returns to her tiny office. In the end of the day Orison heads home and stops in a restaurant for food and a drink. After she returns to her apartment waiting for a call from Washington. Home she hears a voice from an unknown monitor in her pillow. Next morning she comes to her office again and has a couple visitors. When they enter the elevator they all keep bowing making the atmosphere rather continental. She goes up through the stairway and enters a huge room on the seventh floor. There are a plenty of tanks and she sees green liquid with pink bubbles in one. The bubbles turn out to be spiders.
103
343246a40e6545ad8b67f963563d1a49
The story focuses on a strange bank which has a total of 14 floors including the basement. Apparently, people without earmuffs can only go to ground floor to fifth floor. Some people who have high ranks, like the President Mr. Dink Gerding and his elder brother Mr. Kraft Gerding can go to the higher floors. Also, this building has an elevator and a stairway. Different operators with earmuffs will be on duty in the elevator. The sixth floor cannot be visited by the stairway since it is locked, but the seventh floor can. On the seventh floor, the bank hides the Microfabridae for a developing commercial process. 
106
fa10b8a659364c9dabed9bfe9f2bbefc
The story is set in the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company. Orizon is taken up to her office in a lift. Her office on on level five of the building. It is particularly small, having one single desk and two chairs. On the desk is a microphone. Adjacent to the microphone is a basket that is checked with "in" and "out". She gets off the elevator at the lobby to go for lunch. She eats lunch at the stand up counter down the street. She decides to explore the upper levels. When she arrives on level seven, she notices how dark it is. There is a glass door, painted black on the inside. The landing on the outside is pitch black. The huge room spread across the entire seventh floor, it's windows being worded shit. The ceiling is covered in fluorescent lamps. There are twelve rows on steel tanks, with nine tiers to each. Lacing between each tank are delicate strands of angel hair. There is a greenish fluid on each tank, with tiny pink bubbles. 
What are the Microfabridae, and what characteristics do their music have?
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af155caa61514dd9b3bfe0a82a06500f
The Microfabridae are tiny, flesh-pink-colored creatures that resemble shellfish. They are stone and metal eaters. These creatures are completely harmless and have six microscopic legs. Orison notices that they feel like a legged grain of sand, crisp and hard. She finds that it is similar to a baby crawdad, to which Dink agrees that the Microfabridae are similar to a sort of crustacean. The creatures also take a liking to gold. 

When all of the Microfabridae sing together, it is a chorus of around twenty million voices. Orison notes that their singing sounds like the sighing of the wind in winter trees. When she listens to them sing again, it sounds like wilderness, storm, and danger. However, there also exists sounds of promises of peace and harbor that act as a counterpoint. She also hears the sound of waves and the crash of breakers against granite throughout this million-year-old song. 

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1beb2477563a425899279c3f978d3ad0
At first, Orison considers them pink bubbles, then. they remind spiders, turns out they are closer to shellfish. They are harmless because they eat stone and metal. They are used for commercial processes, though the bank doesn't have a patent for their use. While they are working, they sing, and their music seems the most beautiful in the world. They eat something like sand - the mineral fish food. They are kept in secret on the sixth floor and their job remain unknown, though it seems that Orison saw Benjamin Franklin in the liquid of their tanks. 
103
343246a40e6545ad8b67f963563d1a49
Microfabridae are little pink creatures fed by the bank secretly on the 7th floor. The bank put them into tubs with greenish fluid. They are closer related to shellfish than to spiders, and they have six microscopic legs. Also, they feel crisp and hard to touch. Microfavridae are normally harmless, but when they discover calcium, stone or metal, especially gold, they will be attracted to eat it. When they work, they will sing together. When they are in the liquid, they will leap from the liquid like miniature porpoises to get food like sand in mid-air.
106
fa10b8a659364c9dabed9bfe9f2bbefc
The Microfabridae are tiny little crustaceans that share a lot of the characteristics of spiders. They are small flesh coloured creatures that eat stone and metal. They are harmless to any living thing. The bank uses them in commercial processing. They have six, microscopic legs. Dink tells Orizon how they like gold, attracted to it by chemical tropism. Dink tells Orizon how the Microfabridae sing together while working. The theme of their music is of wildness, storm and danger, with counterpoints of peace and harbour. In their song Orizon can hear giant waves against granite rock. Behind this harshness, she can hear quiet tide pools. Dink tells her their song is ancient, they have been singing it for millions of years. 

Who is Dink Gerding, and what are his characteristics?
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af155caa61514dd9b3bfe0a82a06500f
Dink Gerding is the eccentric president of the bank. He is a tall, handsome man, and Orison assumes that he is around twenty-eight the first time she meets him. He has an older brother named Kraft, but he is higher in power than his brother. When Dink first meets Orison, he is courteous and personally welcomes her to the office. However, he is also rather confident. Dink casually asks her out for dinner despite never meeting her before, and he even offers to dance. However, it is noted that Dink has some form of military experience as a soldier. His shoulders are square, and the crisp clicking of his steps is similar to a military metronome. Nevertheless, Dink is protective of Orison; this is especially shown during the confrontation with his brother. He is also gentle to her around the Microfabridae and is extremely happy when she takes an interest in holding one. 

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1beb2477563a425899279c3f978d3ad0
Dink Gerding is the president of Taft Bank. He is a tall handsome man, he is young and full of grace. He is confident and direct as he almost immediately asks Orison on a date, being very convincing. He has muscles and European manners. He also has some connection to military, probably a former soldier. He doesn't look like a bank president, he is respected by everyone and his appearance impresses Orison deeply. Dink is also the highest in rank, which is why everyone bows to him - they have some sort of hierarchy. Even his elder brother kneels to him and has to obey. Dink is rather mild, he saves Orison from his brother and tells as much as he could about the secret Microfabridae. 
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Mr. Dink Gerding is the President of the bank, who has the highest rank. He does not wear earmuffs. To Orison’s mind, he is a handsome, tall, good-mannered and straightforward man. When Orison first meets him, Dink acts like a solider, such as his crisp clicking steps. Also, he does not hide his interest on Orison. Though they just meet and introduced themselves to each other, Dink directly asks Orison out for a dinner together.
106
fa10b8a659364c9dabed9bfe9f2bbefc
Dink Gerding is the president of the bank where Orizon is spying on. He is a handsome, gentlemanly fellow, who walks with a very purposeful stride, his leather heels clicking as he walks. He bows at Orizon when they first meet, showing his old fashioned manners, something Orizon thinks he must've picked up in Europe, or perhaps more likely, the military. He looks to be around twenty eight, and very tall. Orizon notices how "kooky" he is due to his demeanour. He asks her to call him Dink instead of "Sir", unusual for a boss who has never met his employee. He then shows his forwardness by asking her out immediately. Later, when Orzion is being threatened by Kraft, Dink comes to her rescue. He holds Orizon, punching Kraft in the face, showing his chivalry. He is understanding when Orizon explains why she is on the upper floors, and shows his kindness when he helps her get over her fear of the Microfabridae. 
Who is Mr. Wanji, and what are his characteristics?
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af155caa61514dd9b3bfe0a82a06500f
Mr. Wanji is the Vice-President of the bank and the first person Orison meets. His fashion choice is not the same as a public picture banker. When she first applies for her job, he wears a hound’s-tooth check suit and a scarlet vest. He also wears a pair of furry green earmuffs even though it is not cold. To top off his outfit, he matches it with a pair of rough-leather desert boots. Orison does not know his ethnicity, but she guesses if he is Oriental based on his name. He speaks strangely too, and Orison finds herself unable to understand him unless he says in plain English. It is a very casual form of speech with lots of slang mixed in. Later, when he calls Orison, he speaks in a completely different language. Mr. Wanji is loud and carefree, as he did not hesitate to give Orison more money than supposedly her last job paid. When she asks him about tax numbers and social security information, he waves it off as if it is nothing. He is very carefree, too, sending Orison to deliver a message to Dink when she is supposed not ever be allowed to the upper floors. 
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1beb2477563a425899279c3f978d3ad0
Mr. Wanji is the vice-president of Taft Bank. He is dressed up in a weird way, nothing like a banker - scarlet vest, hound's-tooth suit, furry green earmuffs. He talks in some sort of a jargon and doesn't want to bother himself with additional tasks, he is rather relaxed. He talks some strange unknown language with other workers. Dink considers him careless. He seems not strict and indifferent, his talk is emotional and contented, overall he seems funny. 
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343246a40e6545ad8b67f963563d1a49
Mr. Wanji is the First Vice-President of the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company. He is also the one who interviews Miss Orison McCall and gives her the job of reading newspapers and story books. He is an energetic man who talks like a racetrack tout. Also, Mr. Wanji does not like to deal with small details, so he gives Orison much freedom to decide things like lunch union, withholding tax, and social security. He is careless as well. He called Orison by mistake, so he directly let Orison to tell Dink a message. But he does not tell her where to find Dink, which gave Orison a vague excuse to explore the upper floors that she is restricted to enter.
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fa10b8a659364c9dabed9bfe9f2bbefc
Mr. Wanji is the Vice President of William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company. He is very unusual in the way he dresses. The way he speaks is even more peculiar, it being something like English, but not quite, almost like he speaks in code. He calls Orizon ``baby", noting how attractive she is, obviously showing his built in misogyny through his objectification of a female employee. He then later calls Orizon, once again speaking in even stranger code, asking her to relay a message to Dink. He is a very mysterious and zany character. 
