Read Ebook: The Big Idea by Cummings Ray

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Ebook has 233 lines and 10499 words, and 5 pages

"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."

JIMMY PLAYS TRUMPS.

The unpleasant scene that fate seemed preparing for Mr. Wentworth in his office that Tuesday afternoon was avoided by the president's unexpected return on Tuesday morning. Mr. Leffingwell Hope, with his plans all carefully laid, had taken advantage of his employer's supposed absence, and stayed away on business of his own.

These two occurrences caused an eleventh-hour change in the plans of Jimmy and the office manager. Jimmy was for avoiding trouble if it were possible.

"Why not go right ahead now, just as if Hope wasn't in this at all?" he urged. They talked it over, and decided that would be the better way.

"He'll have a fine chance coming along all alone after us." Jimmy chuckled at the prospect. "Let's do it right now, George, if we can see Mr. Wentworth."

Mr. Wentworth would see them in half an hour. Then they hastily phoned Merkle; the chemist promised to hurry right down.

That half-hour of waiting was the hardest of Jimmy's life. He went over, seemingly for the hundredth time, all he planned to say to Mr. Wentworth; and he chewed down all his finger-nails. It was decided Jimmy was to do most of the talking; he wanted it that way; wanted to put the idea over himself.

The half-hour seemed interminable; but it was over at last, and again Jimmy found himself in the president's office ready to tell his big idea.

This second interview with Mr. Wentworth was as different from the first as it well could be. For one thing, the president was in a more receptive mood than he would have been before. Six months had put him just that much nearer completion of his plans regarding the new factory for the making of optical glass. The site had not yet been selected; indeed, it looked as though finding a satisfactory one would prove a difficult task.

This time, too, Jimmy knew what he was going to talk about. He had the facts--and he had the ability now to present them forcibly and intelligently. Also he had George Cooper with him; and the technical knowledge of Isaac Merkle to call upon.

So Jimmy tackled the president with an assurance that lent force to his arguments. The office manager sat with his chair tilted back against the wall. Mr. Wentworth occupied his usual seat at his desk, and Jimmy faced him across it.

Jimmy had expected to ignore Mr. Leffingwell Hope and the part he had played, but the secretary was injected into the conversation almost immediately. Jimmy began by announcing that he realized Mr. Wentworth had not been impressed with his idea when he had heard it before. Then he went ahead and outlined it briefly.

Whereupon the president, with a directness characteristic of business men of his type, immediately rang his buzzer to summon Mr. Hope.

"Is this what you told my secretary that first morning you were here, Mr. Rand?"

"Why--why yes, sir--nearly the same," said Jimmy, surprised.

Mr. Hope's secretary announced that he had not come in that morning. The president frowned, tapping his desk with a lead pencil thoughtfully. Mr. Cooper, scenting something wrong, spoke up quickly.

"Pardon me, chief. There's something peculiar about this that you don't exactly understand. We'd rather not speak of it now; Mr. Rand just wanted you to consider his plan in relation to our new factory. This other matter--about Mr. Hope--we know a good deal about that, too, but we'd rather let it go till some other time."

"Strange, very strange," said the president musingly.

"He told me about your mother's potential gas-well in--Alberta, I think it was."

Jimmy gasped. "Why--what--why, I never--"

Again Mr. Cooper interposed.

"Chief, listen," he began vigorously. "Here are the facts: Mr. Rand came into the company that morning to tell you what he has just told you. At your direction he told it to Mr. Hope."

"How do you know what he told Mr. Hope?" the president snapped.

"He repeated it all to me ten minutes afterward," declared the office manager unblushingly. "I was enthusiastic; I thought there was something in it. Then, later, when Mr. Hope reported that you were not interested, Rand and I thought we'd work it out together. That's what we've done, and now he's ready to ask your opinion of it again. That's all we know about it."

Mr. Cooper waved his hand to silence Jimmy, and went on swiftly:

"What Mr. Hope told you about it we don't know. Evidently he didn't describe it very accurately, but perhaps that was because he thought it unimportant, anyway. But Mr. Hope isn't here now to explain his actions if you think they need explanation. And, chief, I happen to know that he's coming in to consult you this afternoon on this very matter. That's a fact, chief, he is. You wait and hear what he has to say, then you'll understand it all. And Rand and I will both be here; just send for us if you want us."

The president stared searchingly at his two employees an instant. Then abruptly he resumed his former manner of attentive listening.

"Go on with your scheme, Mr. Rand; you interest me."

Jimmy suppressed with an effort the anger that this new proof of Mr. Hope's duplicity had aroused in him, and resumed: "You understand, Mr. Wentworth," he interrupted himself when he had been talking perhaps five minutes, "I'm not going to try and talk to you in technical language. I've only studied these engineering problems a little with George. I think I can make the thing clear in a general way, but I can't talk technically."

"I couldn't understand you very well if you did," the president observed. "That's always been up to my technical men."

"As I said, sir," Jimmy went on, "the--"

"The first problem is how you propose to burn the coal," Mr. Wentworth interrupted. "Tell me about that first."

Jimmy explained how they would bore down to the coal measures, just as borings are made in prospecting. "This would be a small vertical shaft," he added.

"How big in diameter?"

"About twelve or fourteen inches. Then this shaft would be lined with iron casing--"

"Like an oil-well," Mr. Cooper interjected.

The president nodded.

"At the top of this shaft we put a fan--just like the fan-house of a coal mine, only very much smaller--to blow the air down. This is the air-shaft; parallel with that we bore another just like it."

"How far away?" asked Mr. Wentworth.

"The distance wouldn't make much difference--say fifty feet," Mr. Cooper put in.

Again the president nodded.

Jimmy continued. "Then we blast a connection between the bottoms of the two shafts through the coal."

This the president discussed at some length. "Why not put the shafts closer together?" he finally asked.

"No reason that we can see," said Jimmy. "If they were closer it would make the connection down below easier. This second shaft is the one that brings up the gaseous products of combustion.

"We're going to use your regular regenerative furnace, or one something like it. We can get you producer gas that is just as good as any you're getting--from the coal we burn in the ground, if we control the air and steam right."

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