Success
done, it had troubled her a good deal; one does lose sight of people,
of course, it is bound to happen by a natural process of dropping out
or by their going to the further ends of the earth; but she had never
before lost sight of anyone abruptly and completely like this, while
interest was still keen and feeling warm. The interest may have been a
little overlaid by fresh ones arising in the months which had elapsed
since he went without a word of good-bye or explanation, but it revived
again now. She had never believed the charges she had heard made or
hinted against him; she had contradicted them, when she had nothing
whatever to go on but her own conviction. She looked forward now to
seeing him again and hearing him explain the whole to her, as in the
past he used to explain his work and difficulties and ambitions. She
would then be able to contradict emphatically; perhaps to help him a
little towards vindication. She wrote warmly, saying how glad she was
to have heard of him again, and seconding the invitation to come to
Redstoke.
“If he does not come on the way, bring him with you when you come
back,” she said to her husband, and he said he would.
Michael did not come on the way there, he could not get away in time;
Carson met him somewhere on the journey, and they went straight to
Winder’s together.
The fishing was very good that year, Carson had some excellent luck.
He felt it a pity not to be able to give more time to it; still, as he
had come on business, he did it. He did quite a lot, standing in the
whir of machinery, and sitting in offices listening to accounts and
statements, when outside there were soft skies and brown streams with
the spotted fish lying in hollows under tree-roots. Michael did not
fish; Winder thought it rather odd, so did Carson, though he remembered
that Michael did not do anything.
“You haven’t reformed, then?” he said, “Pity; better for you if you
did.”
Winder suggested that he must find it a little slow, and time a little
heavy on his hands.
Carson laughed. “’Ware that subject!” he said. “Annarly always wanted
to get a syndicate, Father Time as partner, to buy up the hours that
fellows like you and I waste—then, with that addition to his own life,
he’d be able to ‘get a little decent work done.’ That’s the expression,
isn’t it?”
“I dare say it used to be,” Michael admitted. “I don’t remember, it’s a
long time ago.” (It was nine months, but time is not hours only.)
“But you know,” he said, “there really is no time to spare now if I’m
to go into the matter of your spinning-mill, and report on it in the
few days I can be here.”
“All right,” Carson said, “all right; you shall go into it up to the
neck, and stop there all day, if you like. Winder and I’ll take a
plunge with you now and then, and retire to get our breath and watch
your exploits from a distance between whiles.”
On some such principle the inspection was made, Michael devoting
himself to it with the intense application and energy that were well
remembered at Galhardy’s: mastering every detail, inquiring into
every corner, and observing all things accurately and minutely. The
other two accompanied him at times, and when they did not, managers
and other gentlemanly and not very well-informed persons attended on
him alone—completely perplexed by his methods and a little bewildered
by the pace, reduced though it was by the dead weight of their own
leisurely amiability.
Mrs. Winder liked the visitor. He took more trouble to be agreeable to
her than did most of the men of her acquaintance, interesting himself
in her subjects, instead of expecting her to take interest in his;
paying her the compliment of assuming her knowledge on any technical
or intellectual matter touched on to equal, if not excel his own. It
did not occur to her that there may have been in this something of
that which makes a foreigner, who is a good linguist, sometimes speak
a language more accurately and perfectly than a native—it is foreign,
and he has learnt it, not been born to it, and is taking pains with
it. That certainly did not occur to any of them any more than it
occurred to them that this might be the first time Michael had worn
dress-clothes since he left Galhardy’s; the first time since then he
had spent leisurely evenings with cards, and music, and idle talk that
tended nowhere.
“Clever chap,” Carson summed him up; “always was a bit odd, and a
regular devil for work. He’ll make some of them skip if he takes over
the job of working up this show.”
“I hope he may do it,” Winder said, though it is probable he did not at
all realise what it was he expressed a hope for.
On the sixth day Michael was ready with his report. Winder was out at
the time he produced it, but he seemed to prefer giving it to Carson
alone.
“Why?” Carson asked. “Winder’ll be back this evening, it can wait till
then, can’t it?”
“It can wait,” Michael said, “but there’s no object in its doing so;
there’s nothing to discuss, there’s nothing to be done.”
“Nothing?”
Carson was rather taken aback; but next minute he had recovered his
hopefulness. “Oh,” he said, “that’s just your way of putting it; they
always said at Galhardy’s you thought the world was coming to an end
when you first found one of your screws working loose—and saw a way of
turning it into a propeller or something worth a hundred thousand to
the firm before anyone else had discovered what it was you were knocked
over about.”
Michael laughed. “I dare say I was ass enough,” he said. “But I am
afraid this is not such a case: it is the plain truth; there is nothing
here that I can do. Your machinery is up to date—of course, there is a
thing or two which might be altered or improved; a little adjustment
here and there which, with a small outlay, might save a certain amount.
I’ll give you a detailed account of that by and by—but it is nothing.”
“Not your work? I thought that was the sort of thing you did—saw after
those affairs for people?”
“I could, of course,” Michael said, “but it would be sheer waste to
pay me to do it; your own people can do it for you, if they’re told.
Besides, as I say, it amounts to really nothing; there’s no real
leakage there.”
“Where then?”
Michael hesitated. “I came to look at the machinery,” he said. “I
really don’t understand anything else; I’m merely an engineer.”
“Get out!” Carson said derisively. “If you were that you’d be at
Galhardy’s now—if you’d ever got there on such slight qualifications.
You came here to find out what was the matter, and, if we could come to
terms, take over the job of setting it right. What is the matter? You
know fast enough.”
“Yes, I do,” Michael admitted.
“Good! What’ll you take to set it right?”
“I can’t do it.”
“Bosh again. Why not?”
“None of the directors would allow it.”
Carson laughed. “Why, man,” he said, “we’re prepared to pay rather
handsomely for it! Is it beneath your dignity?”
Michael thought of General Wallaby’s motor, and the machine-drawings
done in the room over Robert Barmister’s office, and the small wage
paid to him at Nan’s request for inefficiently done clerk’s work.
“No,” he said quietly.
“All right then. What is the objection? Do you reckon it impossible?”
Michael considered a moment. “No,” he said slowly. “I should say it
could be done. I believe in two years Jeffersons’ might be made to pay,
at all events, nearly as well as it used, if a man were given a free
hand—and did not come to a sudden end first.”
Carson looked up quickly. “What do you mean?” he asked.
Michael did not answer. “Have you ever been over a Government concern,”
he inquired, “a big old one—factory, or works, or something of that
sort? Of course, they mayn’t all be alike; but the ones I have
come across are. Has it ever struck you how they are overstaffed,
especially in the managerial department? They swarm with well-bred,
pleasant, gentlemanly persons who, knowing nothing really of the
job, depend on the foremen for everything, make the neatest and most
voluminous reports to head-quarters—and the most astounding mistakes.
Does it occur to you what such an overstaffing means in waste? Not
in salaries only—that’s the smallest item—but in men’s time, in
reporting and waiting about, getting orders, giving orders, regiving
them, misunderstanding them, restating mistaken ones—in all-round
inefficiency, in fact.”
“H’m,” Carson said. “That’s how Jeffersons’ strikes you, is it?”
“Well——” Michael halted rather awkwardly, “I don’t mean it is as bad
as all that. Of course, it isn’t like some government concerns—no
private one could be and live, unless it were enormously wealthy. But
old firms, where the control has been pretty much among families of
position, the same families for a long time, and where the profits
have been considerable, have rather a tendency to that sort of thing.”
“I see,” Carson said, and sat thoughtful. “What is it you advise?” he
asked at length.
“Nothing,” Michael answered. “I told you it was not within my scope.”
“You said that, given that a man had a free hand, you believed
Jeffersons’ could be made to pay. What’s the man with a free hand to
do?”
“Insure that everyone earns his wages,” Michael said; “see they all
did, from highest to lowest—or went. As, at least, half of those there
with salaries above two hundred and fifty a year neither would nor
could really earn it, the wage-bill would be somewhat reduced; also
the amount of time at present spent in telling them what they don’t
understand, and hearing from them what must be restated before it can
be carried out, at what time they shall chance to look in at the mill.”
“H’m,” Carson said again, and sucked at his pipe in silence.
“Of course, one might pension some of them off,” Michael suggested,
warming to the work of construction as he always did, whether laying
out plans for the heating apparatus of a linen cupboard or the
complicated mechanism for some dream invention. “It would be cheaper
for the firm to pay some of them a hundred a year not to come than two
hundred and fifty to come. But the real way to do it would be to make
the position impossible—it soon would be when the thing was running as
it ought. A certain number of foremen and operatives would go too. Men
who’ve worked under a slack system don’t all of them take kindly to
working under an efficient; but most would stop, and the others could
be replaced. There wouldn’t be much trouble with the men.”
“H’m,” said Carson for the third time, and he looked long and rather
curiously at Michael. “Let’s have more details.”
He had them: they spent some time going into the matter fairly
thoroughly; at the end of the time he had a much clearer idea of the
ways and workings of a spinning-mill than he had had before, and a very
fair idea of the conditions that obtained at Jeffersons’. He sat awhile
in thought, turning things in his mind; at length he said:
“Supposing the directors were convinced that what you say is correct,
and were to consent to give you the free hand, would you undertake this
reorganisation? I don’t say they would do it, but if they would, would
you undertake it?”
“No.”
“Why not? Afraid of the vengeance of offended parties?”
Michael was not; he had made enemies before.
“Then why? I take it you do not doubt your own ability, it’s pretty
obvious that you both could do it and know you could. Do you doubt the
free hand? For the sake of argument let’s call that granted. What’s the
objection? I think you owe it to me to say.”
“I suppose so,” Michael said. “Yes, I know I do; you’ve been very good
to me. Well, then, it’s my position. After that affair at Galhardy’s,
which is not cleared up and never will be cleared up, I believe, I’m
a speckled bird, marked if not absolutely branded. A man to do such