Hammer and Anvil Part 69

"Because I am convinced of the fact," I answered.

"That is a piece of arrogance on your part, sir!" cried the engineer.

"You and the other gentlemen are not infallible, like the pope!" I retorted.

Here the men laughed loudly.

"We will speak of this matter again," said Herr Windfang.

"We will indeed," was my reply.

The irascible young man hurried out of the building in a rage, but the head-foreman shook me by the hand and said: "Thank you, Hartwig; you took him down handsomely;" and the men accompanied me across the yard, loudly taking my part, and giving me to understand that my cause was their own. Klaus and Kurt, who had come out of another shop, now joined me. They had heard of the little skirmish I had had with the Technical Bureau, and wanted to know the facts. I did not go into details, for I was eager to get home to maintain the gauntlet I had thrown. I had all the designs of the machine, in the construction of which I had helped throughout; the necessary works of reference were in my possession; my lamp was trimmed, and a little fire burning on my hearth, as the nights were still chilly.

So I spent all the cool spring night measuring, calculating, comparing, constructing, and when the first rosy morning clouds rose over the throng of roofs and chimneys I had found what I was seeking, and fixed it in irrefragable formulae and figures. There it lay upon my table in a careful drawing, with the measurements all noted, and there it stood fast in my head, and from my head a sense of triumph hurried to my heart, which began to beat violently. But I checked my rising pride by remembering that I owed it all to _him_, and I fancied I saw the face of my beloved teacher smiling upon me, and tears sprang to my eyes.

Then I went back to my room and slept an hour or so, as deeply and sweetly as I ever slept in my life.

"How is it, Malay?" asked my comrades when I appeared among them.

"How is it, Hartwig?" asked the head-foreman, who was again standing before the unlucky machine, without a smile this time.

"How is it, George?" asked Klaus and Kurt, coming over from their shop.

"I will show you," I said. I went up to the machine and gave a sort of little lecture, in which I set forth the result of my night's work in a way, as I think, both clear and connected, for they all listened with the most eager attention; and their faces grew brighter and brighter as I proceeded, until, when my demonstration was finished, Kurt clapped his hands, Klaus looked around with inexpressible pride, the men nodded to each other with expressive looks, and head-foreman Roland, with a really sunny smile under the thatch, shook my hand as he said:

"Go ahead, my son, go ahead; we will give it to them."

"Malay, you must come to the manager," said the office-messenger, coming up.

My audience exchanged expressive looks.

"Go ahead, my son!" said Herr Roland; "give it to them!"

The Manager, Herr Berg, a worthy, modest man, but of no great breadth of views, was alone in his office, which adjoined the Technical Bureau.

"I have heard, Hartwig," he said, "that you think you have discovered the error in the new machine. Although this appears rather more than doubtful to me, still men in your place now and then hit upon things which others search after in vain for days. I worked up from the ranks myself, and know that. What do you believe to be the difficulty?"

"I do not now _believe_ it, Herr Manager; I now _know_ it," I answered.

I said this firmly, but quite modestly, and took my calculation and drawing from my pocket and began to explain them to the manager. The matter was a tolerably complicated one, and so were the calculations, while the formulae that I had employed were by no means simple. In my eagerness I never thought that while I was displaying my knowledge so lavishly I was dropping the incognito I had maintained so long and so strictly, and was first made aware of it by the singular manner in which the manager was looking at me. He stood there, looking as much amazed as did Menelaus when before his eyes and in his hands the wondrous "Old Man of the Sea" changed into a tawny mountain lion.

"How in the name of heaven did you learn all that?" he cried at last.

"You have yourself just told me, Herr Manager, that you rose from the ranks, and you then must know what can be done with industry and attention."

Herr Berg looked at me with an expression in which it was plainly visible that he did not know precisely what to make of me, but like a sensible man he repressed his surprise, and asked me to leave the drawing and the demonstration with him awhile, upon his pledge that no one should have sight of them but himself. If my views were correct I should have the full credit for them, and in the meantime the gentlemen of the Technical Bureau would hand in their statement.

One, two, three days pa.s.sed before they did this, however, and by this time the whole establishment was in a fever of expectation. From the head-foreman down to the last hand who wielded the heavy sledge, all knew that "the Malay" had found the defect in the new machine, and that the gentlemen of the Technical Bureau had been working over it for three days and had not found it yet, and that Klaus Pinnow had said he would bet his head that Malay would win, and that young Herr von Zehren, in Klaus Pinnow's shop, had said to Herr Windfang, who was a great friend of his, that it was a piece of extreme folly for Klaus to wager his head against the Technical Bureau, as the latter, though it consisted of six heads, had none to stake against it.

Sat.u.r.day came. The unlucky machine stood there untouched, an obstinate sphinx that had yielded her riddle to no one but myself. We had taken in hand another job, but the men did not work with their usual spirit.

It is an inborn peculiarity of man that he does not willingly undertake anything new until the old has been completed.

"You will have the goodness to come to the manager, Herr Hartwig," said the office-messenger, coming in.

The men looked up from their work, surprised to find that the "Malay"

had suddenly become a "Herr Hartwig." They exchanged looks; each one felt that now the decision had arrived, and head-foreman Roland, who happened to be crossing the yard, limped solemnly up to me, offered me his Cyclops-hand, and said: "Go ahead, my son; give it to them; give it to them well!"

Equipped with this benediction I entered the manager's room, who rose from his desk at my entrance, came forward and shook me by the hand. He seemed a little nervous, and his honest face expressed considerable confusion.

"I congratulate you, Herr Hartwig," he said. "You were right. For these three days I have had no doubt of it; but, to be sure, when one has made the egg stand upright, another knows how it is done. And then I was not quite certain that I would have found it out myself, so it was but fair that I should let the gentlemen of the Technical Bureau first try their hands. They have been long getting at it, and your calculation is just three times as simple as theirs. I have already combed their heads for them a little, and there they sit with them hanging down."

The modest man let his own head hang a little also as he finished.

"Well, Herr Manager," I said, "the error has been discovered, and that was the main question; _who_ discovered it is a matter of little consequence."

"Excuse me, Herr Hartwig," he answered, "but I disagree with you here.

To the manager of such an establishment as this it cannot be a matter of indifference whether the work of the Technical Bureau is done by its staff, or in the machine-shop, for the main thing is that every man shall stand in the place where he belongs, and after this example"--here he laid his hand upon my drawing, which was on the table--"no other proof is needed that you are altogether in a false position."

"But, Herr Manager," I replied, "that is entirely my own fault, and as a man makes his bed so must he lie."

"Yes," said the manager, "that is my comfort; but I had much rather that you had been candid with me from the first. I might then be able to send back with a protest the snub which the commerzienrath has sent me to-day. There--read for yourself."

I took the paper which the manager offered me, and glanced over a letter four pages long, in which all possible reproaches were heaped upon poor Herr Berg because he had had so long in the works a man like myself, whose mathematical and technical genius had long been known to him, the commerzienrath, and had not reported the fact at once--"and even granting that you considered yourself bound to conceal matters of the highest importance, it was, at the very least, your duty and obligation to give my young friend a position corresponding to his talents and abilities; or did you fear that perhaps this position would, in that event, be no other than your own place, Herr Manager?

"But that is shameful!" I cried, throwing down the letter.

The worthy man shook his head. "His meaning is not so bad as his words," he said, "and if it were, we are used to it. Read further."

"I do not wish to read any more."

"But you must: the most important is to come: see here----"

"Under these circ.u.mstances there is but one reparation to my young friend possible. This consists, first, in placing him at once in the Technical Bureau; secondly, in asking him, in my name, to oversee on the spot the erection of the machine at the chalk-quarry at Zehrendorf.

I have also written him to this effect myself."

"Now," said the manager, with a good-humored smile, "as for the first point, you have already, by your work, won yourself a place in the Technical Bureau; and as for the second, you will do me a special favor, which perhaps you owe me on account of that snub--you understand me--to undertake the business at Zehrendorf. I had intended to send Herr Windfang. The alterations in the machine will occupy a week at least, and, as I know the commerzienrath, I shall risk my position by this delay, unless there is a friend who will speak a good word for me.

And now go home; you will have much to attend to, and you must be off by the last train; but I will come round to see you first."

The manager shook hands with me heartily, and I went home in a rather singular frame of mind.

CHAPTER IX.

And my perplexity was still further heightened when on reaching home I found a letter from the commerzienrath lying on my table:

"My Dear Young Friend: