The Memoirs of an American Citizen Part 18

"I don't believe we need to discuss this any further--" Mr. Dround began.

"Yes, we will! Get somebody else to do your dirty business for you. For, let me tell you right here, Henry I. Dround, that I don't go broke with you, not for all your college talk and prin-ci-ples."

Mr. Dround pointed to the door. He was trembling again. I took the big Irishman by the arm and led him from the office. Outside the door he shook me off, and hurled himself into his own office.

That was the first wind of the storm, and the rest wasn't long in coming. Somebody told me that Carmichael had been seen with one of Strauss's lieutenants going into a law office that did some of the big packer's work. It looked as though he were making a deal with the Strauss crowd. It seemed natural enough to me that Carmichael should do this, but I was sorry for what must come. Meantime, Mr. Dround was more a.s.siduous at business than I had ever known him to be. He came early, and instead of driving over to his club for luncheon took a bite in his office, and put in the afternoons going into all departments of the business.

In the end, the trouble came to a head in this way: in company with every large shipper at that period we made our bargain with the roads; no large firm and no railroad pretended to live up to the law in the matter of rates. The roads sold their transportation, as we sold ribs and lard--for the highest figure they could get. Before any considerable contract was entered into the thrifty shipper saw to his rate in advance. And some time later there came along from the railroad that got the business a check in the way of "adjustment." The senior member, in his new energy, discovered one of these rebates. He sent it back to the traffic manager of the road with a letter such as the roads were not in the habit of getting from their favored shippers. The second vice-president and general traffic manager of that line attended the same church the Drounds went to, and the president of the road, also, was one of Dround's friends. I wonder what they thought when their attention was called to this little matter!

Carmichael told me what had happened with a wicked grin on his face.

"Righteous man, Henry I. Dround, all right! D----n good business man, too," he commented. "What do you think is going to happen to this concern? He's chucked away the profits of that contract!"

"You aren't planning to stay, John?" I remarked casually.

He looked at me and laughed.

"Do you want to come with me when I get out?"

I smiled, but said nothing. There was no open row between Mr. Dround and the junior member of the firm this time. But a few weeks later Mr.

Dround told me what I already knew--that he and Carmichael were about to part. I advised him bluntly to make it up with the Irishman if he could,--not to part with him at any cost.

"For, Mr. Dround, you will find him fighting on the other side; Strauss will have him."

He knew as well as I what that meant to his business, but he said with new determination:--

"Mr. Carmichael and I can never do business together again."

Then he offered to take me into partnership on the same basis that Carmichael had. I suppose he expected me to jump at my chance, but the prospect was not altogether inviting.

"I ought to say, Mr. Dround," I replied hesitatingly, "that I think Carmichael was right in this rebate business, and in the other matter, too. If I had been in his place I should have done the same thing--any man would. It's against human nature to sit still and be eaten alive!"

Mr. Dround's eyes lowered, and he turned his face away from me. His spirit was somewhat daunted: perhaps he began to realize what it meant to stand out alone against the commercial system of the age.

Nevertheless, he said some things, perfectly true, about the honor and integrity of his firm. As it had been handed over to him by his father, so he would keep it, please G.o.d.

"That's all right," I said a little impatiently. "That might do in times gone by. But Carmichael and I have got to live in the present. That means a fight. I would like to stay on and fight it out with you. But I can't see the use on your basis. Look!"

I pointed out of his window to a new refrigerator building that Strauss was putting up under our noses.

"That is only one: you know the others. He is growing every day. You can't expect us to sit here twiddling our thumbs and thinking of our virtue while he gets the business! Better to sell out to Strauss right here and now, while there is something to sell."

"Never!" Mr. Dround cried with unaccustomed vehemence. "Never to him!"

"Well, then, we've got our work cut out for us, and let us waste no more time talking rebates and the rest of it."

"Yet that horrid scandal about the switch-track," he resumed in his old weak way. "Nothing has done so much to hurt my position in the city as that!"

"But what are you going to do about it?" I asked in Carmichael's very words. "Those thieves over there in the council hold you up. What good does it do the public for you to refuse their price? It's like paying for the right to put up a house on your own lot--it's tough, but you had better pay and not worry."

"Mr. Harrington, I refuse to believe that in our country an honorable business cannot be conducted successfully by honorable methods."

"That depends on what you choose to call honorable methods. At any rate," I concluded in disgust, "you are likely to have a good chance to try that proposition to the bitter end, unless you take my advice and sell to your chief compet.i.tor."

He waived this aside impatiently.

"Well, then, look for the fight of your life just to survive, not to make money. I tell you, Mr. Dround, Strauss is out there waiting to eat us all up. And you have thrown him your general for a beginning."

"But I trust that I have another as good or better," he said with his usual flourish of courtesy.

We had some more talk, he urging me to stay with him, although I let him see plainly where I stood on the matter of rebates, private agreements, and all the rest of the underground machinery of business.

"If I take your offer," I said at last, "I shall use the old weapons--you must know that. There are no morals in business that I recognize except those that are written on the statute book. It is dog eat dog, Mr. Dround, and I don't propose to be the dog that's eaten."

Even then he did not stop urging me, salving his conscience by saying: "It saddens me to hear as young a man as you take that cynical view. It is a strange time we are coming to. I pray it may not be a worse time for the country!"

To my mind there was something childish in the use of those words "better" and "worse." Every age is a new one, and to live in any age you have got to have the fingers and toes necessary for that age. The forces which lie in us and make those triumph who do triumph in the struggle have been in men from the beginning of time. There's little use in trying to stop their sweep, or to sit and cry like Dround by the roadside, because you don't like the game. For my part, I went with the forces that are, willingly, gladly, believing in them no matter how ugly they might look. So history reads: the men who lead accept the conditions of their day. And the others follow along just the same; while the world works and changes and makes itself over according to its destiny.

CHAPTER XIII

THE WILL OF A WOMAN

_A family scene--Sarah's ideas--We dine--Carmichael comes in--Visions of empire--Almost persuaded--Common people--The touch of mind and mind--Mr. Dround becomes ill, and we miss Big John--The garden by the lake--A bit of old marble and other things--Inspiration--Outlining a campaign--The big gamble_

After all, it was the will of a woman, perhaps of two women, that settled this business matter, for even in business--in the groping for position and money--the woman's share is large. Wherever a man's will is in play she brings her influence, soft and sure and hidden.

When I left Mr. Dround that afternoon I was not ready to put the little fortune I had made, and, what was more, my life energy, into his forlorn enterprise. Not to hurt his feelings, I asked for time to consider his offer, and went home to tell my wife about the change in our affairs, considerably puzzled what to do. We had just moved into a larger house near the lake; the place had some pretty ground around it, and a large stable. It was all that our means warranted, and a little more. But Sarah had a pa.s.sion for having people about, and there was a boy now to be considered. The air was supposed to be better for him farther away from the city smoke. Sarah had been delicate and nervous ever since the child was born, and I was glad to have her mind busy with the big new plaything.

A nurse in uniform was just coming into the gate when I arrived. It seems that little Ned had a cold, and though he looked lively enough when I went into his room, Sarah was hovering over him as if he had lung trouble.

"The doctor thought I should have a trained nurse," Sarah explained. "Of course he doesn't expect any serious results, but one should take every precaution. And Mary is so careless, and we have those people coming to dinner to-night, and are going to the theatre."

I had forgotten that we were to have guests this evening. While we were dressing, I told Sarah about the trouble between Dround and his old manager, and how they had finally parted.

"That's just what I should have expected from Mr. Dround!" my wife exclaimed approvingly. "It must have been annoying for Mr. Dround to have such a dishonest person connected with him."

"Well, that is one way of looking at it I hadn't thought of!" I laughed.

"That Carmichael man is just an Irish brute! I suppose you have to put up with such people in the packing business, but I couldn't have them in my house."

"The Carmichaels don't trouble us much," I replied, smiling to myself at Sarah's ideas of things. "And John's all right--as honest as most men.

This isn't just a case of stealing somebody's wash from the back yard, you know."

"But it's just as wrong! It's dishonest!" she cried with a proud tone in her voice. She came across the room and took hold of me by the shoulders. "Van, you don't believe in bribing people and such things?

Why, you're too big and strong and handsome"--she gave me a kiss--"to do such common things!"