Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories Part 18

"Ten-thirty, sharp."

"Thank you. I'll have my bid in."

His muscles ached and his knees were trembling even before he had reached the street. When he tried to board a 'bus he was waved away, so he called a cab, piled his blueprints inside of it, and then clambered in on top of them. He realized that he was badly frightened.

To this day the sight of a blueprint gives Louis Mitch.e.l.l a peculiar nausea and a fluttering sensation about the heart. At three o'clock the next morning he felt his way blindly to his bed and toppled upon it, falling straightway into a slumber during which he pa.s.sed through monotonous, maddening wastes of blue and white, over which ran serpentine rows of figures.

He was up with the dawn and at his desk again, but by four that afternoon he was too dazed, too exhausted to continue. His eyes were playing him tricks, the room was whirling, his hand was shaking until his fingers staggered drunkenly across the sheets of paper. Ground plans, substructures, superstructures, were jumbled into a frightful tangle. He wanted to yell. Instead he flung the drawings about the room, stamped savagely upon them, then rushed down-stairs and devoured a table d'hote dinner. He washed the meal down with a bottle of red wine, smoked a long cigar, then undressed and went to bed amid the scattered blueprints. He slept like a dead man.

He arose at sun-up, clear-headed, calm. All day he worked like a machine, increasing his speed as the hours flew. He took good care to eat and drink, and, above all, to smoke at regular intervals, but he did not leave his room. By dark he had much of the task behind him; by midnight he began to have hope; toward dawn he saw the end; and when daylight came he collapsed.

He had deciphered the tank and superstructure plans on forty-five sets of blueprints, had formulated a proposition, exclusive of substructure work, basing a price per pound on the American market then ruling, f.o.b. tidewater, New York. He had the proposition in his pocket when he tapped on the ground-gla.s.s door of Mr. Peebleby's office at ten-twenty-nine Thursday morning.

The Director General of the great Robinson-Ray Syndicate was genuinely surprised to learn that the young American had completed a bid in so short a time, then requested him, somewhat absent-mindedly, to leave it on his desk where he could look it over at his leisure.

"Just a moment," said his caller. "I'm going to sit down and talk to you again. How long have you been using cyanide tanks, Mr. Peebleby?"

"Ever since they were adopted." Mr. Peebleby was visibly annoyed at this interruption to his morning's work.

"Well, I can give you a lot of information about them."

The Director General raised his brows haughtily. "Ah! Suggestions, amendments, improvements, no doubt."

"Exactly."

"In all my experience I never sent out a blueprint which some youthful salesman could not improve upon. Generally the younger the salesman the greater the improvement."

In Mitch.e.l.l's own parlance he "beat Mr. Peebleby to the punch." "If that's the case, you've got a rotten line of engineers," he frankly announced.

"Indeed! I went over those drawings myself. I flattered myself that they were comprehensive and up-to-date." Mr. Peebleby was annoyed, nevertheless he was visibly interested and curious.

"Well, they're not," the younger man declared, eying him boldly.

"For instance, you call for cast-iron columns in your sub-and super-structures, whereas they're obsolete. We've discarded them. What you save in first cost you eat up, twice over, in freight. Not only that, but their strength is a matter of theory, not of fact. Then, too, in your structural-steel sections your factor of safety is wrongly figured. To get the best results your lower tanks are twenty inches too short and your upper ones nine inches too short. For another thing, you're using a section of beam which is five per cent.

heavier than your other dimensions call for."

The Director General sat back in his chair, a look of extreme alertness replacing his former expression.

"My word! Is there anything else?" He undertook to speak mockingly, but without complete success.

"There is. The layout of your platework is all wrong--out of line with modern practice. You should have interchangeable parts in every tank.

The floor of your lower section should be convex, instead of flat, to get the run-off. You see, sir, this is my line of business."

"Who is your engineer?" inquired the elder man. "I should like to talk to him."

"You're talking to him now. I'm him--it--them. I'm the party! I told you I knew the game."

There was a brief silence, then Mr. Peebleby inquired, "By the way, who helped you figure those prints?"

"n.o.body."

"You did that _alone_, since Monday morning?" The speaker was incredulous.

"I did. I haven't slept much. I'm pretty tired."

There was a new note in Mr. Peebleby's voice when he said: "Jove! I've treated you badly, Mr. Mitch.e.l.l, but--I wonder if you're too tired to tell my engineers what you told me just now? I should like them to hear you."

"Trot them in." For the first time since leaving this office three days before, Mitch.e.l.l smiled. He was getting into his stride at last.

After all, there seemed to be a chance.

There followed a convention of the draftsmen and engineers of the Robinson-Ray Syndicate before which an unknown American youth delivered an address on "Cyanide Tanks. How to Build Them; Where to Buy Them."

It was the old story of a man who had learned his work thoroughly and who loved it. Mitch.e.l.l typified the theory of specialization; what he knew, he knew completely, and before he had more than begun his talk these men recognized that fact. When he had finished, Mr. Peebleby announced that the bids would not be opened that day.

The American had made his first point. He had gained time in which to handle himself, and the Robinson-Ray people had recognized a new factor in the field. When he was again in the Director General's room, the latter said:

"I think I will have you formulate a new bid along the lines you have laid down."

"Very well."

"You understand, our time is up. Can you have it ready by Sat.u.r.day, three days from now?"

Mitch.e.l.l laughed. "It's a ten days' job for two men."

"I know, but we can't wait."

"Then give me until Tuesday; I'm used to a twenty-four-hour shift now. Meanwhile I'd like to leave these figures here for your chief draftsman to examine. Of course they are not to be considered binding."

"Isn't that a bit--er--foolish?" inquired Peebleby? "Aren't you leaving a weapon behind you?"

"Yes, but not the sort of a weapon you suspect," thought Mitch.e.l.l.

"This is a boomerang." Aloud, he answered, lightly: "Oh, that's all right. I know I'm among friends."

When his request was granted he made a mental note, "Step number two!"

Again he filled a cab with drawings, again he went back to the Metropole and to maddening columns of new figures--back to the monotony of tasteless meals served at his elbow.

But there were other things besides his own bid to think of now.

Mitch.e.l.l knew he must find what other firms were bidding on the job, and what prices they had bid. The first promised to require some ingenuity, the second was a t.i.tan's task.

Salesmanship, in its highest development, is an exact science. Given the data he desired, Louis Mitch.e.l.l felt sure he could read the figures sealed up in those other bids to a nicety, but to get that data required much concentrated effort and much time. Time was what he needed above all things; time to refigure these myriad drawings, time to determine when the other bids had gone in, time to learn trade conditions at the compet.i.tive plants, time to sleep. There were not sufficient hours in the day for all these things, so he rigidly economized on the least important, sleep. He laid out a program for himself; by night he worked in his room, by day he cruised for information, at odd moments around the dawn he slept. He began to feel the strain before long. Never physically robust, he began to grow blue and drawn about the nostrils. Frequently his food would not stay down.

He was forced to drive his lagging spirits with a lash. To accomplish this he had to think often of his girl-wife. Her letters, written daily, were a great help; they were like some G.o.d-given cordial that infused fresh blood into his brain, new strength into his flagging limbs. Without them he could not have held up.

With certain definite objects in view he made daily trips to Threadneedle Street. Invariably he walked into the general offices unannounced; invariably he made a new friend before he came out.

Peebleby seemed to like him; in fact asked his opinion on certain forms of structure and voluntarily granted the young man two days of grace. Two days! They were like oxygen to a dying man.

Mitch.e.l.l asked permission to talk to the head draftsman and received it, and following their interview he requested the privilege of dictating some notes regarding the interview. In this way he met the stenographer. When he had finished with her he flipped the girl a gold sovereign, stolen from the sadly melted nine hundred and twenty.

As Mitch.e.l.l was leaving the office the Director General yielded to a kindly impulse and advised his new acquaintance to run over to Paris and view the Exposition.