Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26)

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  He knew that for a while his greatest asset would be bluff, but there was something about Mason Compton that had inspired in the young man a vast respect and another sentiment that he realized upon better acquaintance might ripen into affection. Compton reminded him in many ways of his father, and with the realization of that resemblance Jimmy felt more and more ashamed of the part he was playing, but now that he had gone into it he made up his mind that he would stick to it, and there was besides the slight encouragement that he had derived from the enthusiasm of the girl who had suggested the idea to him and of her oft-repeated assertion relative to her “hunch”, that he would make good.

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  THE EFFICIENCY EXPERT.

  Unlike most other plants the International Machine Company paid on Monday, and it was on the Monday following his assumption of his new duties that Jimmy had his first clash with Bince. He had been talking with Everett, the cashier, whom, in accordance with his “method,” he was studying. From Everett he had learned that it was pay-day and he had asked the cashier to let him see the pay-roll.

  “I don’t handle the pay-roll,” replied Everett a trifle peevishly. “Shortly after Mr. Bince was made assistant general manager a new rule was promulgated, to the effect that all salaries and wages were to be considered as confidential and that no one but the assistant general manager would handle the pay-rolls. All I know is the amount of the weekly check. He hires and fires everybody and pays everybody.”

  “Rather unusual, isn’t it?” commented Jimmy.

  “Very,” said Everett. “Here’s some of us have been with Mr. Compton since Bince was in long clothes, and then he comes in here and says that we are not to be trusted with the pay-roll.”

  “Well,” said Jimmy, “I shall have to go to him to see it then.”

  “He won’t show it to you,” said Everett.

  “Oh, I guess he will,” said Jimmy, and a moment later he knocked at Bince’s office door. When Bince saw who it was he turned back to his work with a grunt.

  “I am sorry, Torrance,” he said, “but I can’t talk with you just now. I’m very busy.”

  “Working on the pay-roll?” said Jimmy. “Yes,” snarled Bince.

  “That’s what I came in to see,” said the efficiency expert.

  “Impossible,” said Bince. “The International Machine Company’s pay-roll is confidential, absolutely confidential. Nobody sees it but me or Mr. Compton if he wishes to.”

  “I understood from Mr. Compton,” said Jimmy, “that I was to have full access to all records.”

  “That merely applied to operation records,” said Bince. “It had nothing to do with the pay-roll.”

  “I should consider the pay-roll very closely allied to operations,” responded Jimmy.

  “I shouldn’t,” said Bince.

  “You won’t let me see it then?” demanded Jimmy.

  “Look here,” said Bince, “we agreed that we wouldn’t interfere with each other. I haven’t interfered with you. Now don’t you interfere with me. This is my work, and my office is not being investigated by any efficiency expert or any one else.”

  “I don’t recall that I made any such agreement,” said Jimmy. “I must insist on seeing that pay-roll.”

  Bince turned white with suppressed anger, and then suddenly slamming his pen on the desk, he wheeled around toward the other.

  “I might as well tell you something,” he said, “that will make your path easier here, if you know it. I understand that you want a permanent job with us. If you do you might as well understand now as any other time that you have got to be satisfactory to me. Of course, it is none of your business, but it may help you to understand conditions when I tell you that I am to marry Mr. Compton’s daughter, and when I do that he expects to retire from business, leaving me in full charge here. Now, do you get me?”

  Jimmy had involuntarily acquired antipathy toward Bince at their first meeting, an antipathy which had been growing the more that he saw of the assistant general manager. This fact, coupled with Bince’s present rather nasty manner, was rapidly arousing the anger of the efficiency expert. “I didn’t come in here,” he said, “to discuss your matrimonial prospects, Mr. Bince. I came in here to see the pay-roll, and you will oblige me by letting me see it.”

  “I tell you again,” said Bince, “once and for all, that you don’t see the pay-roll nor anything else connected with my office, and you will oblige me by not bothering me any longer. As I told you when you first came in, I am very busy.”

  Jimmy turned and left the room. He was on the point of going to Compton’s office and asking for authority to see the pay-roll, and then it occurred to him that Compton would probably not take sides against his assistant general manager and future son-in-law.

  “I’ve got to get at it some other way,” said Jimmy, “but you bet your life I’m going to get at it. It looks to me as though there’s something funny about that pay-roll.”

  On his way out he stopped at Everett’s cage. “What was the amount of the check for the pay-roll for this week, Everett?” he asked.

  “A little over ninety-six hundred dollars.”

  “Thanks,” said Jimmy, and returned to the shops to continue his study of his men, and as he studied them he asked many questions, made many notes in his little note-book, and always there were two questions that were the same: “What is your name? What wages do you get?”

  “I guess,” said Jimmy, “that in a short time I will know as much about the payroll as the assistant general manager.”

  Nor was it the pay-roll only that claimed Jimmy’s attention. He found that several handlings of materials could be eliminated by the adoption of simple changes, and that a rearrangement of some of the machines removed the necessity for long hauls from one part of the shop to another. After an evening with the little volume he had purchased for twenty-five cents in the second-hand bookshop he ordered changes that enabled him to cut five men from the pay-roll and at the same time do the work more expeditiously and efficiently.

  “Little book,” he said one evening, “I take my hat off to you. You are the best two-bits’ worth I ever purchased.”

  The day following the completion of the changes he had made in the shop he was in Compton’s office.

  “Patton was explaining some of the changes you have made,” remarked Compton. Patton was the shop foreman. “He said they were so simple that he wondered none of us had thought of them before. I quite agree with him.”

  “So do I,” returned Jimmy, “but, then, my whole method is based upon simplicity.” And his mind traveled to the unpretentious little book on the table in his room on Indiana Avenue.

  “The feature that appeals to me most strongly is that you have been able to get the cooperation of the men,” continued Compton “that’s what I feared — that they wouldn’t accept your suggestions. How did you do it?”

  “I showed them how they could turn out more work and make more money by my plan. This appealed to the piece-workers. I demonstrated to the others that the right way is the easiest way — I showed them how they could earn their wages with less effort.”

  “Good,” said Compton. “You are running into no difficulties then? Is there any way in which I can help you?”

  “I am getting the best kind of cooperation from the men in the shop, practically without exception,” replied Jimmy, “although there is one fellow, a straw boss named Krovac, who does not seem to take as kindly to the changes I have made as the others, but he really doesn’t amount to anything as an obstacle.” Jimmy also thought of Bince and the pay-roll, but he was still afraid to broach the subject. Suddenly an inspiration came to him.

  “Yes,” he said, “I believe your accounting system could be improved — it will take me months to get around to it, as my work is primarily in the shop, at first, at least. You can save both time and money by having your books audited by a firm of public accountants who can also suggest a new and more up-to-date system.”

&n
bsp; “Not a bad idea,” said Compton. “I think we will do it.”

  For another half-hour they discussed Jimmy’s work, and then as the latter was leaving Compton stopped him.

  “By the way, you don’t happen to know of a good stenographer, do you? Miss Withe is leaving me Saturday.”

  Jimmy thought a moment. Instantly he thought of Little Eva and what she had said of her experience as a stenographer, and her desire to abandon her present life for something in the line of her former work. Here was a chance to repay her in some measure for her kindness to him.

  “Yes,” he said, “I do know of a young lady who, I believe, could do the work. Shall I have her call on you?”

  “If you will, please,” replied Compton

  As Jimmy left the office Compton rang for Bince, and when the latter came, told him of his plan to employ a firm of accountants to renovate their entire system of bookkeeping.

  “Is that one of Torrance’s suggestions?” asked Bince.

  “Yes, the idea is his,” replied Compton, “and I think it is a good one.”

  “It seems to me,” said Bince, “that Torrance is balling things up sufficiently as it is without getting in other theorizers who have no practical knowledge of our business. The result of all this will be to greatly increase our overhead by saddling us with a lot of red-tape in the accounting department similar to that which Torrance is loading the producing end with.”

  “I am afraid that you are prejudiced, Harold,” said Compton. “I cannot discover that Torrance is doing anything to in any way complicate the shop work. As a matter of fact a single change which he has just made has resulted in our performing certain operations in less time and to better advantage with five less men than formerly. Just in this one thing he has not only more than earned his salary, but is really paying dividends on our investment.”

  Bince was silent for a moment. He had walked to the window and was looking out on the street below, then he turned suddenly toward Compton.

  “Mr. Compton,” he said, “you have made me assistant general manager here and now, just when I am reaching a point where I feel I can accomplish something, you are practically taking the authority out of my hands and putting it in that of a stranger. I feel not only that you are making a grave mistake, but that it is casting a reflection on my work. It is making a difference in the attitude of the men toward me that I am afraid can never be overcome, and consequently while lessening my authority it is also lessening my value to the plant. I am going to ask you to drop this whole idea. As assistant general manager, I feel that it is working injury to the organization, and I hope that before it is too late — that, in fact, immediately, you will discharge Torrance and drop this idea of getting outsiders to come in and install a new accounting system.”

  “You’re altogether too sensitive, Harold,” replied Compton. “It is no reflection on you whatsoever. The system under which we have been working is, with very few exceptions, the very system that I evolved myself through years of experience in this business. If there is any reflection upon any one it is upon me and not you. You must learn to realize, if you do not already, what I realize — that no one is infallible. Just because the system is mine or yours we must not think that no better system can be devised. I am perfectly satisfied with what Mr. Torrance is doing, and I agree with his suggestion that we employ a firm of accountants, but I think no less of you or your ability on that account.”

  Bince saw that it was futile to argue the matter further.

  “Very well, sir,” he said. “I hope that I am mistaken and that no serious harm will result. When do you expect to start these accountants in?”

  “Immediately,” replied Compton. “I shall get in touch with somebody today.”

  Bince shook his head dubiously as he returned to his own office.

  CHAPTER XIX.

  PLOTTING.

  The following Monday Miss Edith Hudson went to work for the International Machine Company as Mr. Compton’s stenographer. Nor could the most fastidious have discovered aught to criticize in the appearance or deportment of Little Eva.

  The same day the certified public accountants came. Mr. Harold Bince appeared nervous and irritable, and he would have been more nervous and more irritable had he known that Jimmy had just learned the amount of the pay-check from Everett and that he had discovered that, although five men had been laid off and no new ones employed since the previous week, the payroll check was practically the same as before — approximately one thousand dollars more than his note-book indicated it should be.

  “Phew!” whistled Jimmy. “These C.P.A.s are going to find this a more interesting job than they anticipated. Poor old Compton! I feel mighty sorry for him, but he had better find it out now than after that grafter has wrecked his business entirely.”

  That afternoon Mr. Compton left the office earlier than usual, complaining of a headache, and the next morning his daughter telephoned that he was ill and would not come to the office that day. During the morning as Bince was walking through the shop he stopped to talk with Krovac.

  Pete Krovac was a rat-faced little foreigner, looked upon among the men as a trouble-maker. He nursed a perpetual grievance against his employer and his job, and whenever the opportunity presented, and sometimes when it did not present itself, he endeavored to inoculate others with his dissatisfaction. Bince had hired the man, and during the several months that Krovac had been with the company, the assistant general manager had learned enough from other workers to realize that the man was an agitator and a troublemaker. Several times he had been upon the point of discharging him, but now he was glad that he had not, for he thought he saw in him a type that in the light of present conditions might be of use to him.

  In fact, for the past couple of weeks he had been using the man in an endeavor to get some information concerning Torrance and his methods that would permit him to go to Compton with a valid argument for Jimmy’s discharge.

  “Well, Krovac,” he said as he came upon the man, “is Torrance interfering with you any now?”

  “He hasn’t got my job yet,” growled the other, “but he’s letting out hard-working men with families without any reason. The first thing you know you’ll have a strike on your hands.”

  “I haven’t heard any one else complaining,” said Bince. “You will, though,” replied Krovac. “They don’t any of us know when we are going to be canned to give Compton more profit, and men are not going to stand for that long.”

  “Then,” said Bince, “I take it that he really hasn’t interfered with you much?”

  “Oh, he’s always around asking a lot of fool questions,” said Krovac. “Last week he asked every man in the place what his name was and what wages he was getting. Wrote it all down in a little book. I suppose he is planning on cutting pay.”

  Bince’s eyes narrowed. “He got that information from every man in the shop?” he asked.

  “Yes,” replied Krovac.

  Bince was very pale. He stood in silence for some minutes, apparently studying the man before him. At last he spoke.

  “Krovac,” he said, “you don’t like this man Torrance, do you?”

  “No,” said the other, “I don’t.”

  “Neither do I,” said Bince. “I know his plans even better than you. This shop has short hours and good pay, but if we don’t get rid of him it will have the longest hours and lowest pay of any shop in the city.”

  “Well?” questioned Krovac.

  “I think,” said Bince, “that there ought to be some way to prevent this man doing any further harm here.”

  He looked straight into Krovac’s eyes.

  “There is,” muttered the latter.

  “It would be worth something of course,” suggested Bince. “How much?” asked Krovac.

  “Oh, I should think it ought to be worth a hundred dollars,” replied Bince.

  Krovac thought for a moment.

  “I think I can arrange it,” he said, “but I would have to have fift
y now.”

  “I cannot give it to you here,” said Bince, “but if I should happen to pass through the shop this afternoon you might find an envelope on the floor beside your machine after I have gone.”

  The following evening as Jimmy alighted from the Indiana Avenue car at Eighteenth Street, two men left the car behind him. He did not notice them, although, as he made his way toward his boarding-house, he heard footsteps directly in his rear, and suddenly noting that they were approaching him rapidly, he involuntarily cast a glance behind him just as one of the men raised an arm to strike at him with what appeared to be a short piece of pipe.

  Jimmy dodged the blow and then both men sprang for him. The first one Jimmy caught on the point of the chin with a blow that put its recipient out of the fight before he got into it, and then his companion, who was the larger, succeeded in closing with the efficiency expert. Inadvertently, however, he caught Jimmy about the neck, leaving both his intended victim’s arms free with the result that the latter was able to seize his antagonist low down about the body, and then pressing him close to him and hurling himself suddenly forward, he threw the fellow backward upon the cement sidewalk with his own body on top. With a resounding whack the attacker’s head came in contact with the concrete, his arms relaxed their hold upon Jimmy’s neck, and as the latter arose he saw both his assailants, temporarily at least, out of the fighting.

  Jimmy glanced hastily in both directions. There was no one in sight. His boardinghouse was but a few steps away, and two minutes later he was safe in his room.

  “A year ago,” he thought to himself, smiling, “my first thought would have been to have called in the police, but the Lizard has evidently given me a new view-point in regard to them,” for the latter had impressed upon Jimmy the fact that whatever knowledge a policeman might have regarding one was always acquired with the idea that eventually it might be used against the person to whom it pertained.