The Pastel Production Line

They say it is twenty steps, more or less, that they make you walk when they have the intention of giving you a haircut with a guillotine. My notice of execution was delivered to me in the form of a wire, as I was timing operations in the forge room at Donner Industries in Sheboygan. It said:

That needs a little explanation. When the term “efficiency expert” began to smell too loud, they renamed guys like me “Industrial Engineer.” I slave for the firm of Bellows and Murch, Industrial Engineers. My name is Sam Ladder. They pay me fifty-five hundred a year plus fifteen hundred expenses, and call me an “intermediate consultant.” They sell the services of people like me to client firms at a rate of fifteen hundred bucks per month per man. My job is usually switching production lines around to give cheaper operation, better quality and more speed. Thus I am unpopular with labor, management, the firm and myself. My qualifications are a degree in mechanical engineering, eight years of experience, a knowledge of metallurgy, a face to frighten children, and grease under my fingernails.

I know that the terms of employment are a good deal for Bellows and Murch, and I keep telling myself that I like the work. That rosy glow on the horizon over there is a standing offer. Bellows and Murch will pay any employee ten per cent of the take from any contract he is instrumental in placing. The only trouble is that they keep you so busy earning that fifteen hundred a month for the firm, that you’ve got no time to cut yourself in on the rosy glow.

The word among us slaves is that the only reason J. Arthur Murch ever wants to see you is to give you the heave-ho. That accounts for the slow dirge music in the back of my head as I tried to sleep on the sleeper. But there was counterpoint music in a lighter vein. Seeing J. Arthur would also include seeing J. Arthur’s secretary, one Ginny Davo, with whom I have had numerous conversations in which she has done most of the talking, saying things like: “You’re no better than a nomad, Sam, and I want a house in one spot, with some permanent friends, and I look forward with no pleasure to any life which consists of eight months in West Overshoe, Idaho, followed by six months in Sandy Blast, Texas. I hate packing and unpacking: and though you are a sweet guy, Sam, I’m a gal with roots like an elm tree.”

So maybe it was a combination of dirges: An opportunity to be fired by J. Arthur, and another large “No” from the chestnut-topped morsel.

At quarter to ten, with a pronounced sag, I rode up in the elevator to the thirty-fourth floor of the Willet Building, clutching in a sweaty palm my brief case full of notes, and feeling slightly dizzy. I kept telling myself that it was a fine plan to get fired, but I had sales resistance.

Mabel on the front desk looked at me and said, “Oh,” which is her normal greeting, though somewhat disconcerting at any time. I plodded down the soundproof corridor and turned into J. Arthur’s outer office, where Ginny sits enthroned behind a three-hundred-dollar desk and a typewriter with everything but a reverse gear.

I dropped hat and brief case on one of the torture chairs, grabbed her firmly by the chin and kissed her with authority.

She backed away from it and said: “Sam, you’ve got the finesse of an air-hammer. Save your strength for J. Arthur.”

“What happens to me, Ginny? Is it bad?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then what are you doing in here? Don’t you work for the guy?”

“I’m an employee, and not a confidante,” she said primly.

I sat down. “Honey, if he fires me, I can get a nice quiet job in one spot and then you can marry me, hey?”

“Come back and ask me again after you’ve spent a year in this nice quiet job you might find. I want proof that you’re going to stay put.”

Before I could think of a new way to ask her, a languid citizen walked in and handed her a card. He was about thirty, tall, slim, tweedy and superior. I resented her handing out her best smile. “I’ll tell him you’re here, Dr. Hawes.”

She clicked on the box and said: “Dr. Hawes has arrived.”

J. Arthur’s voice blared metallic-ally: “Is Ladder there?”

“He just arrived also, sir.”

“Send them both in.”

When I opened the door, Dr. Hawes strolled by me. J. Arthur Murch has all the lean grace of a socket wrench. He wears gray suits, gray ties, a gray face and gray hair. He is without passion. He looks as though the sharp angles of his cheeks and jaw would scratch a carborundum block. The only thing he keeps on the top of his desk is a pair of dice he made himself out of tool steel. I’ve heard that they’re loaded.

I was surprised to see him bounce up, come out from behind his period desk and shake hands with the blond and languid Dr. Hawes. “It’s indeed a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Hawes... Hello, Ladder.”

Before we sat down, he said: “Dr. Walter S. Hawes; this is Sam Ladder.” We shook hands. The Doc let go quickly. I had expected his hand to feel like fresh putty, but it was surprisingly warm and firm.

We sat on the other side of the desk from J. Arthur, squinting into the light from the big windows behind him. J. Arthur put his elbows on the desk and made a little cathedral with his fingers. He peered through it at us and said: “Dr. Hawes, Ladder here is one of our practical young men. He’s been with us for eight years, except for the war period, of course. I think he’ll meet your requirements.”

“For what?” I asked.

“Don’t interrupt, and you’ll find out sooner, Ladder,” Murch said. “Dr. Hawes is an economist. You’ve probably heard of him. He’s been very active in Washington for several years as a consultant to various Government bureaus. Dr. Hawes came to me several weeks ago with a suggestion. He felt that the broad view of economics could be applied to some of our problems, and suggested that he be given an opportunity to work with us when our next problem of plant utilization came up. We now have that problem.”

Dr. Hawes stared at me calmly. “Yes, Ladder. It has been arranged that we work together. You will, of course, work out the practical aspects of my plans.”

“Dr. Hawes will not technically be an employee, Ladder,” Murch said smoothly. “We are hiring him at a sizable daily retainer, and he will be in charge of the job.”

“Things slowing up in Washington?” I asked.

Hawes said distantly: “Not at all, old boy. In fact, I might say that several important persons are quite interested in this experiment. It has a bearing on the entire problem of how much Government can contribute to industry.”

“I thought it was vice versa,” I said.

“Your attitude is disappointing,” J. Arthur said.

I said quickly: “It should be very interesting.” A gesture of appeasement. I was baffled. I have known of J. Arthur Murch speaking softly about the Government, using words that would send mule-skinners screaming for the hills, and not repeating himself for minutes on end. His attitude could only be described as incredible.

J. Arthur reached over and grabbed a thick pile of blueprints and lists of equipment off a table by the windows. He passed them to Hawes, saying: “The plant in question is the Poughkeepsie plant of the Wilkinson Company. It has been idle for well over two years. In fact, it has never been used. It was built to manufacture some sort of flame-throwing apparatus, and the war ended just when they were ready to go into production. The Wilkinson Company is owned by Contract Electric, who have been one of our biggest clients for years. Mr. Judd of Contract Electric has asked us to survey the plant and make recommendations regarding utilization. Here is all the data on the plant. There’s a watchman there at all hours. Gentlemen, you may begin. I’ll expect a preliminary report inside of two weeks’ time.”

We walked out, Dr. Hawes stuffing the data into his brief case. I closed the door behind us. He turned to me. “Uh — Ladder, suppose you be at the Hotel Pennsylvania at two with your suitcase. We’ll go up in my car. I’ll arrange for reservations at the Lord Nelson in Poughkeepsie. Do you need any tools or anything?”

“I keep all my tack-hammers in the pockets of my overalls.”

“Ladder, we’ll get along beautifully if you’ll just coordinate.”

“That a Washington word?”

“You might call it that.”

“Doc, I’ll coordinate like crazy. I’m a bureaucrat at heart.”

“You may call me Hawes.”

“Thank you, Doc.”

He sniffed and walked out. I pulled a chair over and sat beside Ginny. “Honey, he didn’t fire me. He just told me to work for a little while with that man of vision.”

“I think he’s sweet,” she said.

“As a matter of fact, so do I; but that isn’t what I was getting around to. I was thinking that—”

“I know. Mr. Murch didn’t fire you, so you think we ought to celebrate by getting married. The answer is still the same. Stick around, and I’ll have it mimeographed.”

“But I’ve had an idea. You want a house you can stay in. The other day I saw the most beautiful all-aluminum trailer with everything that—”

“No!”

“And maybe you could even grow vines on the outside of it. Kids playing around it. You washing the dishes, and me reading the—”

“No!”

“And we go everywhere in the car with our little home rolling along behind—”

“No! No! No!”

“How about lunch today?”

“No!”

“What! Don’t you even want to have lunch with me?”

“Oh, Sam — I’m sorry! I didn’t realize you’d changed the subject. Sure, I’ll lunch with you.”

I dropped her back at the office, checked out of my hotel and raced over to the Pennsylvania with a ringing in my ears. The ringing kept saying, “No!”

I expected a conservative little business coupe and both hands tight on the wheel; but the garage people brought around a convertible low enough to step over, and he tooled it through the Manhattan welter with the ease of a hack driver. We climbed up onto the Parkway, and he leveled it out at cruising speed. I began to feel a little like the day when I was ten years old and I was invited over to the right side of the tracks to a birthday party. I remembered that the party had ended in a free-for-all, with some of the happy guests running screaming home. I hoped that my joint venture with the Doc wouldn’t end the same way — but even as I thought it, I recognized in myself a growing urge to punch him in the head. Not a politic move, considering the way J. Arthur had kowtowed to him.

The top was down, and he said, over the rush of the wind: “How’d you get into this line of business, Ladder?”

“Oh, I’ve just always liked tools and machinery, and I—”

“Never had any urge in that direction myself. More interested in the overall picture. Tools and machinery are just one of the minor aspects of the broad picture of production. They are the elements whereby labor can give a greater value-added to the raw materials with which they deal. Much like a man using stilts to step over a high fence. Not over a week ago I was talking to a Senate committee about how we, in the Government, must stop looking at the production picture through a peashooter. Yes, that’s what I said, a peashooter. We must begin, I said, to deëemphasize the strictly management-labor aspects of industrial progress and look to a broader coordination of all the aspects of production: Tools and machinery and labor and management and capital and consumer demand. Yes, consumer demand. That is the key to the picture, Ladder. I do have your name right? Because a plant which is manufacturing at peak efficiency an item which, in the marketplace is a drug-yes, a drug on the marketplace, ha-ha — that plant will be unprofitable. Hmmm. Just what do you do, Ladder?”

“Well, I mess around with production lines to see how they can be rearranged for more speed, and change speeds and feeds on tools to eliminate bottlenecks, and—”

“You know, Ladder, I envy you. You are a happy man. You work with your hands. Back in the days of the guilds, before the Industrial Revolution, this was a happy world, and man’s hope is to get back to that individual pride in workmanship. We, in the top layer of Government, are discontented. We work with the broad aspects of the problem, and yet we never get a chance really to see the result of our handiwork. I sometimes think that I should take a job in a plant, running a dirty machine.”

“You can eat off most modern equipment.”

“What? As I was saying, we are a hard-pressed, neurotic group, we who labor in the labyrinths of Washington to provide you and your kind with more satisfactory conditions under which to work—”

On and on and on and on — all the way to Poughkeepsie. I found out after twenty miles that if I nodded my head once in a while, he’d keep on yammering. That gave me time and leisure to remember the exact way the soft curls grow on the nape of my Ginny’s neck...

It was close to five when we pulled into Poughkeepsie. He had acquired for us two adjoining rooms with a bath between. He stood in my room and smiled at me as though he was doing me a great favor. “Now, Ladder,” he said, “we’ll drive on out to the plant tomorrow, so you’re on your own for the rest of the evening.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

He frowned a little at that. “I have friends near here. State Department. Be ready at nine sharp in the morning.”

“Yes sir.” I saluted him. He smiled calmly and went on into his own room. I had a therapeutic nip at the bar, a fair dinner, and afterward, I snitched the blueprints out of his briefcase. By the time I turned in at eleven, I could have found my way around the plant blindfolded. It was pretty obvious that the only way I’d get Junior off my hands was to get the job done as quickly as possible. The thing that really r’iled me was the thought that part of my income taxes were going to maintain that broad view kid in the style to which he had grown accustomed.

The September sun was shining on the long white building when we drove into the deserted parking-lot eight miles north of Poughkeepsie. The plant had been set up by Al Johannes, who really knows his business.

We presented our letter to the watchman, and he let us in. As I had learned from the blueprints, the plant production space was in one huge high ceilinged room. It was designed for straight-line flow of production. At one end were the stockrooms, with outside unloading platforms and spur tracks. At the other end was a huge room for inspection and packaging, with a loading platform and more tracks. The offices were in a double layer along one side of the main room. The upstairs offices were separated from the production area by sheets of glass. All the walls and machines were in pastel shades of green and blue. Moving parts on the tools were in bright red. The place was spotless. There was even a setup to pipe music in.

Hawes stood on the floor and looked around, wonder in his eyes. He gasped, “It’s — so pretty! The colors! So clean! Was this an experimental plant?”

“No. All the new ones are like this, for the last eight or ten years.”

“I had no idea. Where are the belts and things to drive the machinery?”

“Belts! Modern tools all have a self-contained drive.”

We wandered around. He pointed at a tool. “What’s that?”

“Cutter grinder.”

“What does it do?”

“Grinds cutters.”

“Oh.”

I pointed out milling machines and turret lathes and automatic screw machines and planers and whatall.

The power was on. At his request I cut on one of the turret lathes and showed him how the turret turned automatically, bringing new tools to bear on the piece held in the jaws. He was intrigued.

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Huh?”

“Amazing, I said.”

“It’s a turret lathe. It’s called that because it has a turret. It keeps the guy on the lathe from changing setups all the time. What’s amazing about that?”

“Ladder, you have a restricted viewpoint. You are so close to these wonders of American mechanical genius that you can’t appreciate them. I am astounded.”

He saved the real kicker until we had walked up to the offices. Then he stood, chest inflated, thumbs in his vest pockets, and looked down at the silent and empty shop. It always grieves me to see machines idle.

He said, loudly: “Down there, Ladder, you see virgin fields awaiting our touch. We will transform that into a beehive. And down there will labor men — each intent on some minor operation, unconscious of the overall picture, working through the dull hours, unthinking, like beasts of the field. Somehow, it saddens me.”

“Don’t low-rate those guys, Doc. Some of them can read too, you know.”

“You don’t understand what I’m talking about, Ladder. But that’s okay. Don’t fret about it. Let’s get to work.”

“And just how do you propose to do that?”

He considered the problem without turning. Then he said: “Go over that gibberish that Mr. Murch gave you, and make me out a list of all the things that could be made in this plant.”

“What!”

“Surely that’s the way to approach the problem, old boy. With such a list, we can begin to plan. We have to use this plant for the greatest good for the greatest number.”

“Sure, but there’s just one or two little things maybe you ought to think about.”

“Glad to listen to suggestions, Ladder.”

“This isn’t a suggestion, Doc. It would take me about a year to make such a list. Down there you’ve got metal-working equipment. With that, skilled guys could make any gimmick that’s made out of metal. Our problem is to consider those things they can make down there that will use the maximum amount of the standing equipment. When you use the maximum amount, you get the lowest unit cost. I have a few ideas about the sort of thing we’ll have to investigate. Then, after we pick a couple of items, I make a report of what it’ll cost to start turning each of them out, and Murch picks one of his boys to make a market survey on each one. We combine the two reports and have our answer, provided patent rights don’t screw us up.”

But Doctor Walter S. Hawes, Economist, had stopped listening at the point where I said that the shop could make anything. He stood there in a dream, looking down at the pastel production line. I don’t know what he saw. I saw that the equipment was probably moored on solid concrete and steel, and would be one stinking job to shift around — which would probably have to be done.

I spread the blueprints out on a drafting-table in the next office, and then called: “Hey, Doc! Come on in here while I show you something.”

He walked to the doorway, looked through me and murmured: “You do whatever you’re used to doing, Ladder. I think I’ll wander around for a bit. I’m beginning to get an idea. Something you said—” He floated off.

After I had stood by the windows for a time, orienting the actuality with the blueprints, I did some wandering too. A few times I saw Hawes in the distance, looking as well suited to his environment as a harpsichord in a caboose. Drifting and dreaming.

On the way back to town for lunch, I told him what I was working on. “Some kind of portable spray deal, Doc. Like paint-sprayers, or bug-dusting gimmicks — or maybe even portable metal-spraying outfits. That’s pretty close to what the place was designed for, and it’s always good to stick pretty close to original intent.”

“Sure. Sure,” he mumbled.

After lunch I phoned Sol in New York, and told him to dig me up some blueprints of several kinds of spray apparatus, and send them up as quick as he could make it. That would give me something I could go on. I could list the operations as shown by the prints, and see how they fitted the layout. It had begun to look as though I would have very little trouble with Hawes. How wrong a man can be!

I got my prints the next day, which was a Wednesday, and by Saturday I had a sweet plan. It involved a slight redesigning of a portable spray gun to fit it to the production layout, but it would mean the minimum shifting of the production line, and a utilization of the existing tools that was almost perfect. It would leave me with three surplus milling machines and one surplus drill press, over and above the normal standby equipment. Those four could be sold to acquire the two additional gang drills that would be needed. Sometimes a job works that way; you happen to select the right trial balloon the first time, and your troubles are diminished a hundred times. Hawes stayed out of my hair. He found a typewriter and kept up a continuous rattling in one corner of one of the offices. Also he drew pictures.

We knocked off at five on Saturday afternoon, and I steered him down into the bar o£ the hotel. After the second Martini, I said: “Doc, our troubles are over. I’ve got a gimmick that’ll fit the production line like a glove, and a little bird told me this noon over the phone that the market picture is good and that we can probably get a lease of patent rights.”

He frowned at me. “Gimmick? Don’t tell me that you think you have a report to make?”

“What do you think I’ve been doing out there, Doc? Sharpening my Boy Scout knife? While you’ve been mooning around and writing a thesis, I’ve done the work.”

“Ha!” he said flatly. “What you say merely proves to me that you are stuck tight in your narrow little rut, too limited in mental caliber to see over your shoestrings.”

“And maybe you’ll keep those pretty teeth longer, Doc, if you make your remarks a little less personal.”

“I’m being completely impersonal. My report is ready to turn in. It has a breadth of vision that will undoubtedly alarm you. Here’s one of my carbons of it. Take a look.” He passed it across the table.

After I read the first few paragraphs, I gulped the rest of my drink and ordered a double. When it arrived, I groped for it and lifted it to my lips with shaking hand.

After I had climbed through all sixteen pages, I still didn’t believe it. It was too utterly fantastic — and somehow it was extraordinarily typical.

In brief, he proposed that the Poughkeepsie plant be made the sole production source for an experimental community, and that land be acquired adjoining the plant grounds for the erection of a village to be composed solely of the workers in the plant. Temporary barracks would be supplied, and lots of lumber and pipe and stuff. Then, the workers would build their own houses, using the plant to manufacture the necessary hinges and window catches and heating units and so on — all the hardware that goes into a house. During this period, they would be paid by Contract Electric, who would be the cost-plus-fixed-fee contractor on a Government contract which would be written to provide for the establishment of this experimental community. Phase One would be the building and the equipping of the houses, and he anticipated in his report that it would be easy to recruit skilled workers who were dissatisfied with their living arrangements in nearby cities.

Phase Two would be the stepping out of the picture of Government advisors and the taking over of the management function by the workers. A community council would determine what the plant should make, and requisitions would be placed on Contract Electric by the community for the necessary raw materials. These items manufactured over and above the community needs would be sold in the open market, and the proceeds put into two separate funds. One would be to pay back Contract Electric for the wages during the nonproductive period and the raw materials. The other would be a purchase fund, eventually to increase to the size where the plant could be purchased in the name of the community.

Phase Three would occur after the plant was paid for. That was the dilly. Then, men from this community would be put on the Government payroll to go around the country and help establish similar communities all over the U.S.

It was beautifully written — and almost convincing. It talked, in the end, about “unification of the tools of production” and “community pride in workmanship” and “a return to the days of the guilds, when men worked harmoniously for a common end.”

I ordered another drink and looked at him. He was beaming proudly at me. “What do you think?”

“I think it is the world’s prize example of backward reasoning, Doc. Other than that, it’s beautiful.”

He turned grim. “Permit me to hear your objections.”

“Sure. Take hinges for the front doors. A firm makes them for a few cents each. So, instead of buying them, they make them in a shop that isn’t suited for it. They hand-make them — cost maybe three or four or ten bucks a pair. Wasted effort.”

“Ah, but you forget the psychological aspects of having the plant supply all the needs of the community. What you said about the plant being able to make anything that is made out of metal is what started me off on this line of thinking.”

“Okay! So what about the second phase when they decide what they’re going to make? Maybe they pick something they can’t make efficiently. Then they can’t compete in the market without cutting their prices down below cost. They lose money.”

“Money? So they lose money. The Government will willingly support this venture through the trial stages.”

“But it’s backward. Why not set the plant up to make a good product at a good price, and then later let the employees buy in? If it’s profitable enough, the company can build their houses for them. Eventually they can own it.”

“Nonsense, Ladder! That’s paternalism. The employees would always feel as if a bone had been thrown to them. This way, it’s their plant from the beginning.”

“And a bottomless well to toss money into. It would mean a deal where a man couldn’t get himself fired unless he committed actual murder. Every time I’ve seen a setup like that, I’ve seen sloppy production.”

“You want to use a big whip?”

“Nuts! I want guys on their toes. I work twice as hard because I’m always wondering when Murch is going to think of a good excuse to bounce me out.”

“You’re a traditionalist, Ladder.”

“And you’re a metaphysical nincompoop, Doc.”

“Obviously we can’t agree, Ladder. My report will be the one turned in.”

“Along with mine.”

“Remember now, you’re working for me.”

“For a little while. And you remember, my professorial friend, that the job of Bellows and Murch is to show Contract Electric how they can make dough. If it’s a profitable operation, the employees will get fat wages — and I have yet to see a guy that’ll trade in a fat pay envelope for a social experiment.”

“The Government will pay them well.”

“Did I hear you talk about paternalism with a sneer, Doc?”

He stood up, snatched his paper and walked off. I sipped what was left of my drink, and what, with the slight buzz, I called Ginny up. She said no again, told me that I had been drinking, and hung up.

Dr. Walter S. Hawes and I did very little talking on the way down. It was raining, and the tires made a slick noise on the concrete of the Parkway. He dropped me off at my hotel and said: “Nine o’clock sharp in Mr. Murch’s office, Ladder — and you wall co-sign my report before you go in.”

“Just like next year I’ll pitch for the Dodgers.”

“You may be looking for that sort of job,” he said, and drove away.

When I walked in, Ginny Davo looked like a May morning, and her eyes had a sparkle like silver dollars. Doc hadn’t arrived.

I said: “Why couldn’t I get hold of you last night, honey?”

“Why Doctor Hawes took me out, Sam. Didn’t you know?”

“No, I didn’t. To a lecture, I presume.”

“To a very fine little club in the Village, Sam.”

“Had a good time, I presume.”

“Why, of course, Sam. There’s no need for you to get so nasty. And I was sorry to hear Walter say that you had been no help to him at all up in Poughkeepsie.”

I got as far as, “Why, that—” when he walked in, practically arm in arm with J. Arthur Murch.

Doc said, “Good morning, Virginia.” And Murch — the old traitor — beamed at both of them.

We went on into the office, and my own report was burning a hole in my pocket. It was only two pages, and most of it was a list of operations, with a code symbol to indicate whether or not the operation could be done on existing equipment.

We sat as before, and Murch constructed his little cathedral to peer through. He said: “Well?”

Hawes cleared his throat. “Before I begin, Mr. Murch, I want to point out that not only did Mr. Ladder give me no help whatsoever, but he has a closed mind and refuses to consider my conclusions.”

J. Arthur glared at me. “What’s the reason for your attitude, Ladder?”

“The guy’s a crackpot, Mr. Murch.”

“Shut up! Proceed, Dr. Hawes.”

Hawes whipped out his report and began to read it in a clear voice, vibrant with feeling and social consequence. I studied Murch’s face while all this was going on, trying to guess what must be going on inside his cold gray head. The report certainly violated all the traditions that he had drummed into the thick heads of his slaves. The minutes kept by, and the clear voice emoted on. Murch stared at his fingers, his mouth thin and straight.

At last the resounding final paragraph was over. J. Arthur coughed. He twiddled his fingers. He smiled at Hawes. “That... uh... that certainly is interesting, Dr. Hawes. Very interesting. But as to the practical aspects of the case—” My heart gave a great bound, and I reached for my report. Murch continued: “Can you be certain that the appropriation would go through?” I nearly fell on the floor.

Hawes beamed. “With my knowledge of Washington procedure, Mr. Murch, I can practically guarantee it.”

“Hmm. We’d better see Mr. Judd at the earliest possible opportunity. I’ll phone him right away, and we can take the report over.”

There was a squeak in my voice as I said: “But, Mr. Murch! That layout is a natural for a portable metal-spraying gimmick, and I’ve got my report—”

Hawes said, coolly: “Old boy, can’t you see that Mr. Murch isn’t the least bit interested in your trivial little report?”

That did it! That tore it right in half. I bounded out of the chair and went after him. Something was making a growling noise, and I realized dimly that it was me. He got up quick, and I tried to ram my right fist right down his throat. I wanted to hear those teeth come off.

His mouth wasn’t where it should have been. It was like missing a golf ball. An empty feeling. Something exploded sharply on my chin. I came up off my knees to see Hawes dancing in front of me in a gray mist. Somehow he looked as though he knew what he was doing. On my third swing I connected. I found him by Braille, straddled him and was trying to bust his face down through the floor — when the lights went out...

I was dead and in heaven, and an angel was ministering to me. When I woke up a little more, I saw that the angel was Ginny. She was pale, and she had been crying. I struggled up and held my head and said: “Whoo! What happened?”

“J. Arthur tagged you with the desk lamp.”

“Where is he?”

“He and Walter went to see Mr. Judd. They were going to stop at a drugstore first to get Walter patched up.”

Everything was dandy. I said: “And what now?”

“Mr. Murch told me to call up every Management Engineering firm in town and tell them that you have been fired for emotional instability. The firm will mail you a check bringing you up to date. He said he’ll write to the out-of-town firms. He dictated a letter of reference for you.”

“Read it to me.”

“It says: ‘To the best of my knowledge and belief, Samuel Ladder classifies himself as an Industrial Engineer. He endeavored to convert this firm to his belief for an eight-year period ending suddenly on the morning of September eighteenth. Signed, J. Arthur Murch.’ ”

“Now that I’m down and out, will you marry me, Ginny?”

“Of course, darling. Any time you say.”

I guess my Ginny is just that sort of girl. She has to be needed, and she certainly knew that she was wanted.

She phoned me at the hotel that she could get a week off, starting in four days. She told me that Murch had begun to use my name as a new cuss-word. She said that Dr. Hawes was a fatuous prig, and that she hated everybody that didn’t like me.

Ginny and I stayed in a little guest-house in the woods near a hotel in Southern Pines, and everything was just right. All my problems faded away — until I started to wonder how I was going to earn a living. It would have to be a case of making a tour around to the client firms that I hadn’t been too rough with, and see if they needed a guy with two hands and a big mouth.

She hadn’t told me that she had let the office know where they could get in touch with her. They thought she was off by herself. The wire came on the fifth day of the honeymoon:

WHERE IS LADDER? IMPERATIVE HE VISIT THIS OFFICE THIRTIETH NOVEMBER MORNING. J. ARTHUR MURCH.

She counted the words and said: “Eleven, darling. He must really be in a sweat. Let’s go.”

“The hell with it! This is a honeymoon, and I like it here, and he just wants me for target practice or something. I’m not going.”

She smiled at me sweetly. She looked wonderful in the blazing white terry-cloth robe with that chestnut hair piled high on her head. “Pack!” she said...

I left her in the coffee-shop in the lobby of the building, and went on up to the offices of Bellows and Murch. My insides had turned to slush, and I tried to whistle with dry lips. On a hunch, I had brought along the Poughkeepsie report.

A new girl was at Ginny’s desk — a fill-in. She looked at me coolly, and said: “You look dopey enough to be Sam Ladder.” I nodded. “Go on in, Sam. They await you.”

They did: J. Arthur, who looked at me like a dog looking at a tree surgeon, and a stranger. The stranger was in his late fifties, and large in every dimension. A lock of white hair fell down over his tanned forehead.

Murch said: “I sent out wires to everyone I thought might know about you. Which one did you answer?”

“The one you sent to my wife.”

“Wife?”

“The ex-Miss Davo. You can keep that harpy out there in your outer office. Ginny is through.”

Murch sighed, and flapped a hand in a helpless gesture. “This is—”

The stranger interrupted. “Charley Hawes is my name, Sam. Glad to know you.”

“Any relation to—” I said weakly.

“His father, Sam. Walter flew out to the coast the other day all puffed up about this big deal he’s swinging here, and told me about you. I got a few little businesses on the West Coast... ah... Hawes Mining Equipment, Hawes Construction, Hawes Motors, Hawes Shipbuilding. Few more — prefabs, gliders. Forget the rest now and then. Son, did you really nail him?”

I could see the suit coming. “Yes sir,” I said faintly.

He chuckled. “Good boy. Walter is a damned college professor. Ethereal. Calls me a reactionary and a robber baron. Murch, how come you paid any attention to that — report that Walter wrote up? How come you tried to sell it to Judd? I’ve known Ben Judd for years. He wouldn’t fall for that sort of gunk.”

Murch bleated a little. He said: “Well, I didn’t. I told Ben on the side to play along with me, and let Dr. Hawes think that he had a ripe idea. You see—”

“Sure, I see it. You wanted to play along with Walter in hopes that I’d be grateful enough to become a client of yours. Goodness knows, you’ve had those two men out there in L. A. pestering me long enough. And then because Ladder, here, almost crossed up the deal by swinging on Walter, you fired him. Now, that’s a hell of a way to do business, Murch. Man your age ought to have more sense.”

“But!—”

“Don’t give me any but’s, Murch. Sam, did you make a report on the Poughkeepsie plant that Walter is yammering about?”

I handed it to him, and my hand was shaking so badly that he had to make two grabs for it. He scanned it quickly. “Hmmm. I like ’em short. Right smack on the nose. Murch, I’ve got a proposition for you. Walter told me some of the things that Sam, here, said to him. Walter thought they were silly, but they made sense to me. Didn’t know you had roughnecks like Sam working for you. I’ll make a contract with you that’ll call for about five of your men working with me out there for a two-year period. But I want Sam Ladder in charge. And I know how you people operate. Ladder, here, is responsible for this contract, not those two cream-puffs you’ve had working on me. Understand?”

Murch flashed me a look of pure hatred and said: “Yes sir.”

He said: “Furthermore, you’ll hire Ladder back with a small bonus. The bonus is for punching that phony son of mine in the teeth.” He turned to me. I was busy with arithmetic. Ten per cent of five times fifteen hundred a month is nine thousand a year. A nice addition to the Ladder purse.

He said: “I’ll expect you in L.A. with your crew one week from today, Sam. And you’ll have one more responsibility: I’m assigning Walter to you.”

I stammered: “But he — Washington — the broad picture—”

“Son, the broad picture gives me a pain. Walter, for all his big talk, has a nice knowledge of double-entry bookkeeping. I told him flat that either he was going to stick around home and get his hands dirty, or I was disinheriting him.”

On my way down to tell Ginny, I didn’t use the elevator. I just floated down the shaft.