Man's Country/Chapter 14
PRESENTLY the young man was standing again, but looking down through tears, and realizing how very much his every plan for the future and every responsibility he had assumed rested on this figure that now was still and this brain that now was numb. He perceived that under every share of stock, under every bond, under every plan and hope for the future of his work, rested the inventive and constructive brain of Milton Morris. It was that which had underwritten all—all; and now that was substracted from him.
Yet, as George Judson stood thus with weeping eyes, he felt oddly a sort of new strength being built into him like the steel reënforcement in setting concrete—felt his shoulders lifting and squaring under the added responsibilities—heard a voice saying to him: "You can go on. You can carry the double load. You can build somebody into the place of Milton Morris. You can and you will!"
George Judson heard this voice and believed it. He looked down upon these marble features on the pillow as at something past and gone.
"Poor old chap! He wore out too soon!" he found himself murmuring through his tears, and it never for a moment occurred to George that he might have been to blame for this wearing out too soon; that Milton Morris, linked up with him, was like a piece of machinery coupled to an engine that was geared too high for it and that by superior speed would literally run it to pieces.
George arranged everything. As Mr. Morris had trusted him in life, so George was faithful to the last detail in death. After the last sad office was concluded, the young man had himself driven, not home, but to the works. They were empty—only watchmen were about. The great factory, unit on unit, arch on arch, space beyond space, seemed huge and void, itself some vast and lonely tomb. The office seemed most empty of all. Not a typewriter clicked, not an adding machine; not a telephone bell rang.
George made his way into Milton Morris's office. His desk was clear, save for a single, graceful spray of some white flowers; and those few, simple draughting instruments so often in the man's hands as his fingers transferred the designs of his devising brain to paper. Mute but eloquent, they testified of him who had been their master. The swivel chair was pushed up close as emphasizing its emptiness.
George Judson sat down beside this chair, as often he had sat when Milton Morris was in it. His eyes were on the floor. He was thinking, thinking of the character of Milton Morris and the thing that he had built—thinking that today, in every country in the world, men and women were riding about in comfort, enjoying life and the world as they never could have enjoyed it but for this man's work. And this carried the young man's thought into the future—into tomorrow.
As George pondered, there came to him one of those flashes which seem akin to genius. Give him one year of personal attention to engineering problems, and he would develop or discover the designer in his organization who could be trusted to take Milton Morris's place. But in the meantime—well, in the meantime, what was the matter with the Nemo model? Nothing! With a gasp George realized that Milton Morris had lived at least long enough. The Nemo was his masterpiece for another year. It was more than a year ahead of other cars; in some respects car design was attaining standardization, and the Nemo represented standards of which the rest of the motor world was yet to come abreast.
The more George pondered this idea, the more brilliant the conception appeared to him. He saw an opportunity for a master-stroke. He was building ten thousand Nemos this year; he had meant to build twenty thousand of a newer model next year. He saw this suddenly as one vast manufacturing order—thirty thousand Nemos instead of ten; but with production spread over twenty-four months instead of twelve, with expense of manufacture markedly reduced and with profits correspondingly enlarged. It took a daring courage to seize upon the opportunity in the face of certain doubts that assailed any practical mind, but George had never lacked for courage; nor did he now, although objections cropped up immediately from his own staff.
Wyckoff, of the engineering department, and John Williams, sales manager, had reservations. Norton, production manager, of course, was for it. An unchanged design was easy for him. George overswayed the objectors. When rumors of these divided councils got into the Board of Directors, he overswayed them.
One feature of the plan involved an immediate resumption of factory building. George, in a way, had begun to weary of these continual enterprises of enlargement. They entailed an enormous amount of adjusting and readjusting, balancing and rebalancing of the departments of manufacture; to say nothing of the financial burden they imposed. He resolved now upon one final enlargement. He determined to double his floor areas and establish a twenty-four-hour system of production that would make one set of equipment do the work of two or three.
To do all this, he stretched the borrowing capacity of the Judson-Morris plant as he had never stretched it before. His credit was better than it had ever been, and he piled a peak load upon it. This was the biggest, the most thrilling operation George Judson had yet entered upon, and never did a general plan a battle more carefully, nor, after his plans were complete, mass every reserve more skillfully for the employment of the last ounce of his strength in the final arbitrament of combat.
In the early days of this huge task, came his wedding day.