TheLadder/tools/story-to-pack/probe/torchy/claude/batches/NOTES-0-18.md

Notes: Torchy stories 0-18, volume 1 (Torchy, 1911), chunks 0-245, 246 records

I wrote these by reading every scene myself. No inference was used, and I did no grouping. Below are the recurring situations I noticed, as input for the grouping pass. The chunk ids are examples, not complete lists.

Recurring situations

1. Keeping the door: judging who gets past. He blocks a confident stranger who turns out to be the boss's son (18-19). He mocks a gawky visitor who turns out to be family (105-107). He nearly shoos off a shabby man who holds a valuable option (202-204). He will not give a friend's address to a powerful visitor (195-196). In story 0 he takes the door himself, locking the other applicants out (2-3).
2. A petty supervisor who resents him, and whom he needles. The fussy secretary wanted a meeker boy (16-17). He hopes to see Torchy fired (19, 154, 156). He lectures him on the company he keeps (119). He tries to keep him in the office (236). He bullies others too (31, 203). This supervisor is also the butt: he secretly gambles the firm's bonds (81-93), and he does the dirty job an honest clerk refused (189).
3. Called in to be fired, and kept for his cheek or his frankness. The boss's son keeps him (19-21). The top boss keeps him after he gossiped about the boss's swearing (154-156). He bypassed the secretary and is praised for it (205). He expects the sack over the car prank (64-66). He takes the blame for borrowing the boss's office (40). This is the commonest turn.
4. Private errands for the boss's family, outside any job description. He rescues the heir's bet from a game warden (21-27). He escorts the daughter to a matinee (43-44). He babysits a troublesome cousin (111). He carries the mail to the boss at a rest home (157). He tracks down the truant heir (165-170). He fetches a romantic guest for the daughter's friend (215-229). He meets the daughter's ship (237-238).
5. Shielding a boss's relative from a swindler, a scandal or a lapse. He exposes the fake drama teacher (46-53). He whisks the "jailbird" brother away from the wedding (75-80). He quietly gets the heir's forgotten contracts filed (170, 176). He removes an unwanted guest (116-117).
6. Loyalty to a discredited boss. He defends his vanished first boss against the marshal (12-14). Years later he rescues the same man from a mob of cheated investors and vouches for him to the top boss (122-128).
7. Covering for a superior who did wrong. He holds back the embezzled bonds, and pays for the secretary's child's shoes (86-93). He covers the heir's absence (170, 176). He covers for an absent superior to the man's family (85).
8. Championing an overlooked colleague, and talking the boss into promoting him. The college man stuck at filing (29-40). He shames the same friend out of resigning (98). He wins the friend a senior post (200-201). The meek old clerk (177-188). The sick inventor's option (203-205).
9. An order to do something crooked, and the honest refusal. The old clerk will not falsify the books and resigns instead (183-188). Torchy fears the clerk is being set up as scapegoat (183). A superior steals from the safe and begs not to be reported (91-92).
10. Bluffing and impersonation to get past a barrier. He locks out rival applicants (2). He borrows the boss's office to impress visitors (35-39). He poses as a bank messenger to reach a mobbed man (124). He claims an uncle on the police (144). He sends a fake message to lure a guard (26) and forges a telegram to get himself sent on an errand (237). He poses as still working for the paper (51).
11. Calling on old friends from the bottom rung. A messenger boy lures the warden away (26) and forges the telegram (237). A former messenger now on the street tips him about a wildcat stock (88). A sports columnist gets his friend in to see a foreign buyer (100-101).
12. Out of place among the rich. In borrowed finery at a wedding (74). Working the cloakroom at a society dance (133), then dancing in borrowed evening dress (136-138). Stared at by a school full of girls (168-172). Dragging a country guest into a society crush (222-227). Being dined by a wealthy old widow (148-150).
13. A sweetheart far above him. He meets the heiress at the dance (134-139) and again at the school (172-176). He keeps her photograph and daydreams of rising to meet her as an equal (230-233). She has a titled rival (234, 240-241), and there is a stolen moment (242-243). His friend loves and marries a senator's daughter on modest pay (190-194). Lower down, a flashier colleague takes his office sweetheart (130-132).
14. Appearances that deceive, and snobbery punished. The "society" typist is a self-made Midwesterner (54-67). The "jailbird" is a prison chaplain (75-80). The "humble fisherman" is a society painter (218-228). The shabby visitor holds a prize (202-205). The office joke is the most honest man there (177-188).
15. Wealthy relatives against a marriage. The groom's aunt digs up scandal to stop a wedding (69-73). The senator inspects his new son-in-law's cramped flat and pay (195-199).
16. A boss's private weakness exposed. The top boss's swearing is reported to his pious cousin (153-155). The strict rest-home keeper runs a secret poker game, and the boss joins it (162-163).
17. Out of a job or a home. Starting over after his first employer turns out crooked (0, 13-14). Thrown out by his landlady, then taken in by the boss's cousin after a fight in her parlour (140-151).
18. Newly promoted and sure he is out of his depth. The college friend fails his first big assignment, is shamed out of quitting, and forces his chance (96-104).

Torchy's standing, per story

He is head office boy through the whole volume. His formal rank never changes: low in every story. What grows is his pull. From story 1 the boss's son trusts him. From story 12 the top boss asks for him by name. By stories 14-15 the top boss acts on his advice about staffing. So the grouping pass may want two readings: rank (all low) and influence (rising).

Story	Title	Standing	Note
0	Getting in with the Glory Be	low	talks his way into an office-boy job at a mail-order swindle; jobless at the end
1	A Jolt for Piddie	low	new gate boy; wins the heir's trust
2	Meeting up with the Great Skid	low	gets a colleague noticed
3	Frosting the Profess	low	messenger to the boss's home; befriends the daughter
4	Where Mildred Got Next	low	a prank leads to a match
5	Shunting Brother Bill	low	usher at the wedding
6	Keeping Tabs on Piddie	low	holds his superior's fate in his hands
7	A Whirl with Kazedky	low	coach to a promoted friend
8	Down the Bumps with Cliffy	low	minder to the boss's cousin
9	Backing out of a Fluff Riot	low	rescues his old boss
10	Rung in with the Gold Spooners	low	cloakroom stand-in at a society ball
11	Landing on a Side Street	low	homeless; taken in by the boss's cousin
12	First Aid for the Main Stem	low	the top boss asks for him personally
13	In on the Oolong	low	trusted to find the heir
14	Batting it up to Torchy	low	the top boss takes his advice
15	Throwing the Line to Skid	low	gets a friend a senior post
16	Touching on Tink Tuttle	low	goes around the secretary to the boss
17	Getting Hermes on the Bounce	low	errand for the daughter's friend
18	When Miss Vee Threw the Dare	low	forges a message to get sent out

Things the grouping pass should know

• Story 16 ends darkly. The dying inventor refuses a fortune and flies out to sea at dawn, meaning not to come back (213-214). It is the one tragic story in the volume.

• The split drops a short tail from three stories. These are stories 2, 12 and 16. I did not redo the split, as instructed, but the dropped text matters:

  • Story 2 loses the heir agreeing to promote the clerk, so chunk 40 ends on "what would you suggest?"
  • Story 12 loses the boss saying he will give the rest home a pipe organ.
  • Story 16 loses a closing jab at the secretary.

  split_gutenberg.py probably discards a short final paragraph run.

• Chunk 245 is not story text. It is the publisher's advertisements, and chunk 244 also ends with advertisement text after the story's last line. The predicament for 245 says so. Leave 245 out of every group.

• Many predicaments use "the boss's heir", "the boss's relative" or "a supervisor". Those are the role words this corpus runs on: the son, the daughter, the cousins, and the private secretary who sits between Torchy and the top.

• Torchy's slang hides a good deal. He calls the fake mine "on the level" and his crooked first boss "square". The summaries say plainly that the first employer was a mail-order swindle (0-14) and that the later investment firm was fleecing small savers (121-127).