The Efficiency Expert

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

"The Efficiency Expert" by Edgar Rice Burroughs is a novella written in 1919 and published in 1921. Jimmy Torrance, a celebrated college athlete, rejects his father's business offer to prove himself independently in Chicago. Struggling through numerous failed jobs, he befriends a pickpocket and eventually becomes an efficiency expert at a factory. There he uncovers embezzlement, meets a young woman named Elizabeth, and becomes entangled in a web of crime that leads to murder and false accusations.