Читать книгу Andy Blake's Comet Coaster - Edward Edson Lee - Страница 5

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It is quite probable that George Warman and his high-spirited followers would have experienced a worried moment had they known that throughout their extended conversation in the outer room an open-eared old gentleman sat hunched in his desk chair behind the closed door of his private office.

Herman Warman had not come here to spy on his grandson. As a matter of fact, he was decidedly uncomfortable in the knowledge that he was eavesdropping. During these late years, as business had fallen off, it was a custom of his to frequently seclude himself in his silent office and live over again, in retrospection, the more dramatic chapters in his industrial career. On this particular afternoon he was annoyed when the entrance of Andy Blake and the bookkeeper interrupted his daydreams.

About to cough and thus make his presence known, he was arrested by mention of his name. Listening, a flush mounted to the thin cheeks. Then his features grew grim. Old-fashioned, was he? A desk-pounder, eh? He’d show these young whippersnappers a trick or two! Just let them come to him to O.K. their nonsensical advertising scheme. He’d quickly tell them who was running the business.

But the business, he quickly remembered, wasn’t running! It had stopped. There was no business.

He heard his grandson return with Tim Dine; then the four young men vacated the office and disappeared into the factory. When they were well out of sight he got stiffly to his feet. Shaking down the legs of his gray trousers, he gripped his black walking stick and passed from the factory yard into the street. The aged watchman at the gate touched his cap respectfully, but the preoccupied manufacturer failed to observe the courtesy. Thump! thump! went the walking stick on the concrete sidewalk.

It was two-thirty by the town-hall clock when the old manufacturer skirted the central park and turned in at the imposing entrance of the Manton State Bank. As he passed the cashier’s cage he caught the eyes of that young official.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Warman,” was the pleasant greeting of Thomas May, Jr.

“Good afternoon. Father in?”

“Yes, sir. You’ll find him in his office.”

Shuffling past various windowed cages, the old manufacturer opened a door on which was lettered, Thomas May, President.

The banker was a fat man, having a big red face, huge arms and hands, and a bulky, pursy body. A stranger would have imagined from the drooping expression of his mouth that here was a stern, hard man. As a matter of fact, any one of the bank’s employees would have been quick to declare, if required, that Mr. Thomas May, Sr., was one of the kindest old gentlemen in the world.

Just now, as the door closed sharply behind the manufacturer, the fat face glowed with a welcome that was almost boyish.

“Hello, Herm. Glad to see you. Have a seat. What’s the matter?—you look kind of ruffled.”

“The young smart alecks! For two cents, Tom, I’d fire the whole outfit.”

Mr. May scratched his bald spot and made a queer face.

“What’s George been up to now?” he inquired shrewdly.

The irritated old manufacturer recounted the conversation of the four young men in the factory office.

“George is a smart boy for his age, and a worker,” said the wise banker in a placating tone. “With his up-to-date ideas he makes me think of my own son, only, of course, Tom is much the oldest—almost twenty-eight, in fact. You know what our old bank was like two years ago? Well, all these changes—the marble doo-dads and the new copper cages—is Tom’s work. He talked me into it. I’ll never admit it to him, but I was tickled pink, as the saying is, when he took over the responsibility of running the bank and generally switched things around to suit himself. He has a long head. We’re getting new accounts each week. Folks like him. I’m proud of the way he’s running things.

“As I see it, Herm, you’re up against the same thing, which is the reason I’m confiding in you. And knowing how things worked out in my own case, even with me pulling back at first, I think you better take a tip from me and look on for a spell. You can storm around and fool your grandson, but you can’t fool me. We’ve been cronies and checker rivals too long for that. You’re aren’t half as much worked up over this scheme of George’s as you try to let on. I know you’ve got George spotted for the livest boy in this town, and next to my own son I know of no young man I’d rather put my money on than George. He has a level head, and you know it, and, further, I have the feeling that ever since he was knee-high to a grasshopper you have been planning deep down in your heart against the day when he would be old enough to relieve you. Only now when the time has come you are just stubborn enough to hate to let go. We were high-flyers in our day, Herm, but our day was yesterday.”

“As you say, Tom, I hate to give in.”

“Sure thing. I did, too. But it was all for the best. You aren’t going to live forever, Herm. So why not start now taking things easy and let George do the work? This advertising scheme of his may be the salvation of the business.”

“I haven’t told you the worst, Tom. They called me a desk-pounder. And George is scheming to desk-pound me into a corner and make me O.K. his advertising plan. I hardly know what to do. To carry out their plan will cost a lot of money.”

“Poof!” and the banker snapped a fat finger and thumb. “You talk like you were just outside of the poorhouse.”

“I don’t like to see my money squandered. And for all I know to the contrary this advertising scheme is liable to fall as flat as a pancake. I haven’t any faith in advertising. Looks like Tom-fool business to me.”

“Herm, I’ve never said this to you before, not wanting to bring up unhappy memories, but to my notion the biggest mistake you ever made was when you turned down that scheme of your son’s to go into automobiles. If you’d acted on your son’s advice, instead of being so headstrong and so convinced in your own mind that no one in the Warman family had any good ideas but yourself, we’d probably have an automobile factory here as big as the town itself. I’m not trying to rub it in; I only mention this to point out to you that you made one mistake by taking a narrow view of things, and if you turn down this advertising scheme of your grandson’s you may be making mistake number two. Then, there’s another way of looking at it. You’ve got money, Herm. And all you’ve got will be George’s some day. Therefore, looking to the future, isn’t it a pretty good investment for you to put up the money for this advertising and thus find out what kind of stuff the boy has in him? He says advertising will save the business. Make him prove it. And if he gets in a hole, let’s see if he has gumption enough to pull himself out.”

Later in the afternoon the cashier was summoned to the president’s office.

“Tom, our customer, Mr. Warman, has asked us to investigate the standing of the Rollins and Hatch advertising agency of Chicago.”

“I’ll take care of the matter, Dad.”

The banker got to his feet and stretched his fat arms. Putting on his hat he linked arms with his old friend and the two, leaving the bank, walked down the sunny street.

Suddenly Mr. Warman gripped his companion’s bulky arm and pointed to a speeding motor car.

“There they go, Tom. The young scoundrels!”