The Big Idea/Chapter 6

R. LEFFINGWELL HOPE, passing down the corridor this same Friday morning, saw Mr. Cooper escorting the president’s daughter to the elevator. It so happened that Jimmy, with a sheaf of papers in his hand, came through a near-by door at the same moment.

The office manager, with a heartiness of manner that surprised Mr. Hope greatly, introduced Jimmy to the girl. The secretary was too far away to hear what was said, but the friendliness of the girl’s greeting was only too apparent. Mr. Hope turned abruptly and reentered the main office.

With this visual evidence of the firm standing in the company that Jimmy Rand had reached, Mr. Leffingwell Hope cursed himself for a fool. He should never have let that boy get a job with them in the first place. It had seemed all right then; he had never supposed that a kid like that from the country would last in business. And his having been around the office would have been a good alibi.

Mr. Hope had always been convinced that something would turn up to eliminate him—he would prove inefficient and be fired or something. But that was just what Jimmy had not done—or been. On the contrary, he had made good. He was still answering correspondence—but it was the more important things that were given him now. And he had a way of poking his head into every department of the organization. Even Mr. Hope had noticed that.

In late September Jimmy had been able to arrange a trip to one of the company’s near-by factories, which was something Mr. Hope did not learn until afterward. And he never knew that the real reason why Jimmy went was so he could investigate the conditions under which glass was made and apply them to some of the theories he and George Cooper had worked out.

The secretary was furious with himself for having allowed things to go along this way. For some six months now he had been waiting for Merkle to get the idea into shape. He had his own plans perfected—had purchased with his own money a very likely coal property near Scranton which he proposed to sell, at an enormous profit, to the Wentworth Company.

Mr. Hope had never told Merkle about that. As a matter of fact the secretary was just getting ready to show Merkle that he didn’t figure in the scheme as largely as he thought he did. But first Mr. Hope wanted to be sure the chemist had finished his investigations.

Now with the realization that Jimmy Rand, the originator of the idea, was, instead of being fired, apparently in a fair way of obtaining a most unlooked-for prestige with the company, Mr. Leffingwell Hope cursed himself for a fool. Whatever he was going to do must be done quickly. He would tell the idea as his own to the president at once; after that, just let them try to prove he hadn’t originated it!

That same evening Mr. Leffingwell Hope called on the chemist in his laboratory. Mr. Merkle, it appeared, was quite ready to go to the president at any time Mr. Hope desired. He was indignant at the secretary’s implication that he had been laying down on the job.

“Any time you could ask me now, I go to R. G. and show him absolutely how this plan works to save him big money. What more could I do, I ask you? I do my part—you ain’t done nothing yet that I can see.”

“I’ll do enough,” said Mr. Leffingwell Hope. “Mr. Wentworth’s away,” he added. “He’ll be back Tuesday noon. We’ll see him Tuesday afternoon sure. About two o’clock. You’ll be there?”

“Positively I’ll be there—two o’clock,” the chemist agreed.

Mr. Hope hesitated. The time had come to show Merkle just where he stood.

“Oh, Ike,” he began thoughtfully. “Now that we’re all ready, we might as well understand each other. As we agreed at the start, I’m to handle this thing absolutely, and I’m to give you ten per cent of all I make. Right?”

The little chemist, his lower jaw dropping in astonishment, stared blankly at Mr. Hope.

“Ten per cent of any stock they give me, or anything I make on the initial deal. That’s right, isn’t it?”

It wasn’t right, and as soon as he recovered his power of speech, Mr. Merkle said so, in the most emphatic words he could think of. Fifty-fifty was what they had agreed.

Mr. Hope, with an injured air, stated a remembrance of their first agreement that was totally at variance with what Mr. Merkle’s own memory told him were the facts. And he remained obdurate—ten per cent or nothing. Hadn’t he originated the plan? Wasn’t he prepared now to handle all the business details? If Mr. Merkle didn’t like the ten per cent he needn’t accept it; Mr. Hope would consult another technical man.

The chemist, seeing that anger got him nothing, turned to appeal. He wheedled; he cajoled; he pleaded friendship-all to no avail. Ten per cent or nothing!

Then Mr. Merkle, seeing he was beaten, suddenly capitulated. “You could make it ten per cent,” he said with a sigh. “But in writing; when you say it, with me it’s no good any more—that ain’t business.”

And Mr. Hope, smiling triumphantly, wrote it out in due form.

Estelle’s opera party that next evening was a great success. Jimmy found himself, to his great surprise, liking Estelle. She was different from any girl he had ever met. She made, him feel small and inadequate, somehow, and he knew he would never quite lose the awe she inspired in him. But he liked her.

Estelle, on her part, liked Jimmy, mostly because it enhanced her own self-importance to feel how she must appear to him. And so, on the surface at least, they got along famously.

During the opera Jimmy’s mind, in spite of his efforts, wandered from the stage. He found himself once looking back over his shoulder at the wonderful “horse-shoe” over his head—that long, curving line of boxes where the most brilliant ladies of the world’s greatest city were sitting now. In the dim light he could see the little spots of color that marked them. The great, crowded auditorium awed him a little; and he felt, too, a curious exaltation that he should be there—Jimmy Rand, of the Fallon Brothers Mine, a part of all this splendor.

He wished Anne could be with him, or could see him there, in his black evening clothes sitting between these two dainty girls. It seemed to symbolize success to Jimmy. He was a success; he was going up the ladder—making himself into some body. He was conscious of a vague pride in what he had achieved already, and he would have liked Anne to have seen this tangible evidence of it, so that she might be proud, too.

It never occurred to Jimmy that the sight of him at that moment would have caused Anne any pain. Her letters to him had always been so tenderly proud of his great accomplishments. She was always so interested and pleased at his accounts of the things he did.

When he had seen her the last time, hardly a month before, Jimmy had not noticed, nor would he have understood, the new, wistful look that was in her eyes when she had told him timidly that he was “growing up into a—a real gentleman.” Nor did he ever know that she cried over many of his letters before she sat down bravely to answer them.

Jimmy would have liked Anne to have seen him this night at the opera. He wrote her a glowing account of it the very next day. And little Anne replied that she was very glad, and proud of him; and in a postscript added simply: “I got the story of ‘La Bohême’ out of the library, and I read it, and I like it very much.” The pathos of which was entirely lost to Jimmy.

In the office the following Monday morning George Cooper came to Jimmy in great excitement.

“You were right to be afraid of this guy, Hope,” he announced without preface. “I just found out—quite by accident—he’s bought himself a coal property up near Scranton.”

“What—”

“Yes. I don’t know what it means, either. Maybe nothing. He’s got a right to buy himself anything he pleases, I suppose. But it looks suspicious. What does he want with it? From what I could learn, it’s just the sort of place for your plan, too. Not a going coal mine; just a farm with abandoned borings on it. It looks suspicious, doesn’t it?”

Jimmy agreed anxiously that it did. “We’d better see Mr. Wentworth right away, George.”

“He’s away,” said the office manager. “He won’t be back till Tuesday. We’ll see him Wednesday or Thursday; we’re all ready. Have you got that last analysis? Was it the same as the other?”

Jimmy nodded.

“Then we’ll see him sure next week.”

Luck was with Cooper and Jimmy that morning, although they didn’t realize it then. Isaac Merkle happened to stroll past them at that moment. A sudden thought came to the office manager.

“There’s Isaac Merkle, Jimmy. He’s a chemist. Let’s put him on this. He may be able to advise us on something we’ve overlooked. It can’t hurt anything now. Wait, I’ll call him over.”

In spite of Jimmy’s protest Cooper summoned Merkle. The little chemist sat down at the desk with them, and the office manager started to tell him Jimmy’s idea. Mr. Merkle swallowed hard, with his eyes nearly popping from his head. Then he abruptly interrupted Mr. Cooper and began a series of swift questions, which threw both Jimmy and the office manager into utter confusion.

“Wait,” said Mr. Merkle, when finally George demanded an explanation. “What was it the date when Mr. Rand came here?”

The office manager consulted a little card-file on his desk. “He started work on April 18-—the next day after he first came in.”

Mr. Merkle glanced at his little pocket note-book. Then without preamble or hesitation, and with direct words unusual to him, he told them all about his connection with Mr. Leffingwell Hope concerning this same idea.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” the office manager ejaculated, when he had recovered from his first astonishment.

Jimmy said nothing; but his lips were pressed very tight together; his face was very white, and both his fists were clenched. If Mr. Leffingwell Hope had chanced to pass by at that particular moment there would probably have been a considerable disturbance of the Monday morning office routine.

Mr. Merkle dwelt with minute detail upon his own innocence in the affair with Mr. Hope, as he had had no reason to suppose the idea had originated anywhere but with the secretary. He expanded also upon the dirty way in which he had been treated. He ended by pulling out his note-book again.

“I’m a methodical man, Mr. Cooper. Here is it the exact date Mr. Ht told me his scheme—April 17—the evening.”

“And you told Hope about it that same morning, didn’t you, Jimmy.?”

Jimmy nodded; he was still too angry to speak.

“And Jimmy told it to me that same afternoon,” the office manager went on; he felt the circumstances justified this slight inaccuracy. “So you can see it’s a cinch where the idea originated, Mr. Merkle.”

They compared notes still further. When the chemist mentioned that he and Hope were to interview Mr. Wentworth the next afternoon as soon as he returned from out of town, the office manager went up in the air.

“And we were going to let it go till Wednesday or Thursday!” Mr, Cooper whistled as he thought of their narrow escape. For if Hope had broached the subject first and claimed the idea as his own, it might have been difficult to disprove him. How lucky they had gotten hold of Merkle this particular morning! And how lucky, too, that the chemist was sore at Hope—and that he had jotted down the date of his first conversation with the secretary about the scheme.

Mr. Cooper brought his fist down on the desk with a thump. “We’ll give this guy a run for his money. We’ll see the boss Tuesday afternoon, right when he does, dammit, and have it out then and there. The point is, Merkle, where do you stand?”

Mr. Merkle had decided that some minutes before. He was not by nature entirely averse to a crooked business deal—if it were not too crooked. But he had learned from experience that the best place to be, if you could choose, was on the winning side. And in this particular case his judgment told him very clearly which side that was.

“With you,” said Mr. Merkle succinctly. “You could count on me.”