I Walked in Arden Part 5

"This is the general manager's office, in there," he said, pointing through the door in a wooden part.i.tion into a cubby hole containing one roll-top desk, two chairs, and a large filing cabinet. "I suppose you'll use this, Mr. Knowlton. Question is, where'll we put Mr. Jevons' desk?"

"Oh," I replied, "mine will be in the testing laboratory."

"Laboratory?" he repeated. "I saw something about that in the correspondence over the sale of the plant, and I couldn't figure out what you were going to build a laboratory for."

"To test and improve our product--also to systematize its factory costs," I said.

"Well, maybe so," he remarked doubtfully, "but a laboratory seems to me like an awful addition to overhead expenses. However, I don't presume to know how to run your business, Mr. Jevons. I suppose you won't make any radical changes in the selling department, will you?" There was a note of genuine anxiety in his voice.

"Not for the present," Knowlton interjected crisply. "We shall continue the policy and staff of the old company until we get our bearings. Then there will be plenty of opportunity for good men to move up. Meanwhile, we'll size up the efficiency of everybody and see what we've got."

Kane scratched the back of one ear with a pencil and turned this statement over in his mind. I noticed that his eyes were pale and weak, and that his manner was plainly that of a man who had little faith in fortune's star. An efficiency test was clearly one he was not confident of facing, but neither was I, and my sympathy went out to him. I had never seen a man at close range before who actually feared for his bread and b.u.t.ter, and that was what Kane's face showed, as he tried to conciliate the two of us as representatives of the new owners. It was not a pleasant sight. I could tell by Knowlton's sharp glance at him that our engineer was remorselessly applying that uncanny faculty of his of reading men's thoughts, and I guessed Kane had sealed his own doom.

But Knowlton said never a word. Instead he pulled some papers from his pocket, checked his memoranda for the day, and read a few doc.u.ments which Kane turned over to him. I took out my pipe and started to light it.

"No smoking in the factory!" exclaimed Knowlton sharply.

"Do you mean to say," I protested, "that I've got to be here from seven to six each day without even smoking?"

"Just that," replied Knowlton with a grin. "We lose our insurance if we allow smoking."

At that moment a steam whistle began an infernal din, apparently over my head--a din which was echoed from every point of the compa.s.s. Instantly an even worse clatter and roar of machinery began under our feet, and the flimsy wooden floor and part.i.tions vibrated visibly.

"Seven o'clock!" said Knowlton, rising. "The day's work has begun. Come, Ted, we'll take a walk through the machine-shop and look things over.

Never mind, Kane--we'll find our own way around. Don't lose time from your job on our account."

With this hint Kane went suddenly back to his desk, while Knowlton and I descended the stairs and entered the machine shop. As we pa.s.sed through the narrow aisles between closely packed lathes and planers, Knowlton made a series of rapid notes on the back of an envelope. Nothing escaped his eye, from a machine working too slowly to a foreman with too many men to look after. At the time I had no way of judging whether his inspection revealed a satisfactory condition or the reverse. The factory had been bought, of course, after a preliminary inventory of contents and orders on hand, but Knowlton's task was to judge of its efficiency as an operating plant. For over an hour we went from one department to another, until Knowlton's notes had covered all the sc.r.a.ps of paper either of us had in our pockets.

"I guess we'll go upstairs now and talk to Norwood," said Knowlton. "By the way, what did you think of the plant, Ted?" I felt as my old friend Dr. Watson must have felt when Sherlock Holmes asked him one of those sudden posers whose explanation was really so simple.

"It seems very busy," I said with conscious feebleness.

"Yes," he remarked drily, "that busyness is also costing them a lot of money. I think we'll shake this old place up, Ted, before we're through."

As I followed him I covertly looked at my watch. A little after eight!

Good heavens, how many hours to six o'clock! It seemed as if I had been up since day before yesterday.

The upper office was now full of clerks and clicking typewriters, presided over by some remarkably pretty girls. At least three of them looked me straight in the eye as I went past, and I made a mental note that they were a great improvement upon the waitresses at Schaefer's.

But my thoughts were interrupted by Norwood's coming forward to greet us.

Norwood was one of the young millionaires of Deep Harbor--the son of a father who had helped to create the town and whose capital was the backbone of every enterprise of importance in the city. Young Norwood had recently inherited the overlordship of Deep Harbor, and one of his first acts had been to sell the Deep Harbor Manufacturing Company to the interests represented by my father.

Norwood himself was rather a disappointment. He was a tall, weak-faced, pale young man, whose clothes, neat and costly, were wrong in every particular. His seal ring was too large, his watch chain too heavy, his collar too high, and his cravat too loud. Even his shoes were ornamented with fancy leatherwork in scroll patterns. His manner was cordial to the point of oiliness, yet cold and insincere. In short, I took an instant dislike to him.

Obsequiously he placed chairs for us, closed the door, and produced fat black cigars, thus ignoring the office rule about smoking; and while he was ostensibly listening to Knowlton I had the uncomfortable feeling that he was studying me. As Knowlton ran over the items of his memoranda I kept catching Norwood looking me over out of the corners of his watery blue eyes. It was increasingly clearer that Knowlton's questions and enthusiastic exposition of plans were boring Norwood, for, after fidgeting more and more, he suddenly got up.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, "the business is yours now. I'm sorry I've an engagement down-town. If there's anything I can do, or any advice I can give you, just 'phone me and I'll look in, anytime. Glad to have met you," and with a vigorous, cold handshake he left. Knowlton and I faced each other. We were now in command of the ship. Knowlton carefully extinguished his cigar.

"Ted," he said, "I don't trust this Norwood. He's sold this thing, and it looks all right, but I'm afraid there is a Senegambian concealed somewhere in the woodpile. You noticed how he dodged talking over the business?"

I nodded. Even I had noted that.

"Besides," I added, "he did not offer to put us up at his clubs or in any way behave like a gentleman."

Knowlton grinned his favourite grin.

"Ted, I hadn't thought of that as an index of Norwood's business ability, but d.a.m.ned if I don't think your reason as good as mine."

With that he pressed a b.u.t.ton on his desk and a spotlessly clean young woman responded.

"Bring me the file of our customers," he said, and she withdrew.

"What shall I do?" I asked.

"You--oh, yes--you go out to the drafting room and design the testing laboratory. Come to me if you get stuck on any details. As for me," he added, "I'm going to start looking for that Senegambian this very minute."

My arrival in the drafting room caused a mild sensation among its occupants, but a drawing table, desk, instruments, and materials were speedily placed at my disposal, and as there was a rule against talking in this room, I was left in silence, but under close observation, to work out my problem. Furtively I produced from my pocket a useful manual containing practical tables and formulae for nearly everything under the sun, and with the help of this and my actual knowledge of what a chemical laboratory ought to contain, I had made considerable progress with my rough pencilled plan when the twelve-o'clock whistle blew. I had become so absorbed in my work that I had forgotten all about the noon hour.

I found Knowlton in the office where I had left him. He was surrounded by piles of papers and correspondence which he was reading, checking, and making notes about on separate slips of paper.

"Not found him yet, but I think I'm on his trail, Ted. Let's go to lunch."

There was no lunchroom in the neighborhood, so there was nothing for it but to go back to Schaefer's in the broiling heat of the packed trolley car, and again face the flies and perils of that dining room. As Knowlton insisted upon our being back at the factory before the one-o'clock whistle, there was no time to change one's clothes or to see about a place to sleep that night. Never had I felt so dirty as I did after a morning in the heat and soft coal smoke of Deep Harbor. Luncheon at Schaefer's proved to be "dinner," a noisy, crowded, hurried affair in which the waitress made no pretence of serving one's order, but brought what she considered a standard type of meal. There was no time to protest or change things. Knowlton, as usual, ate prodigiously, with the most annoying conceivable relish, of everything put before him, and gulped down in addition two large tumblers of watery milk.

We were back at ten minutes to one, and promptly, as the whistle blew, I stood once more before my drawing table and resumed the task. About three o'clock it seemed as if I could not stand another moment. My knees shook with fatigue and the unaccustomed strain of standing hour after hour, but there were no seats in the drafting room, and every one had to do his work standing up. At four I thought I should have to go to Knowlton's office and beg for mercy, but I didn't, because I knew he would think me unable to stick even a simple job through. At five the office staff left, including the drafting room, but there was still an hour for me. And this was to go on five and a half days a week, month after month, I thought! How did factory workers endure it without going mad?

When the six o'clock whistle blew, I could almost have cried with relief. I nearly staggered as I came into Knowlton's office, and sank into a chair mopping my face.

Knowlton grinned.

"Young gentleman from London, England, finds ten hours in an American factory on a nice warm July day something of a physical effort--shall I have that put in tomorrow's Social Notes?" he asked.

"You can't insult me, Knowlton," I said. "I am d.a.m.ned tired, and I have sense enough to admit it. So are you, I suspect, only you've been sitting down."

"Well," he conceded, "this elusive Senegambian I am after does make me tired--especially as friend Norwood is too sly a customer to be caught with the goods on him. If the Senegambian is there--and I've already found his footprints--we can trust Norwood to have made himself safe first. Let's go eat."

"Not at Schaefer's--G.o.d, not there!" I wailed. "I've had all I can stand of that hole."

"All right. We'll try the Rathskeller, but don't forget we haven't, as yet, any place to sleep."

I was too tired to eat when we reached the little musty hot German restaurant down under the sidewalk off State Street, but the waiter did produce a large foaming mug of German beer in which I blunted some of the acuteness of my physical aches and pains.

Chapter Four

I HAVE MY FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH PROSPERO