Malcolm Lightener's plant, huge as it was, could not meet the demands
of the public for the car he manufactured. Orders outran production.
New buildings had been under construction, but before they were
completed and equipped their added production was eaten up and the
factory was no nearer to keeping supply abreast with demand than it had
been in the beginning.
Lightener was forced to make contracts with other firms for parts of
his cars. From one plant he contracted for bodies, from another for
wheels. He urged Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, to increase their
production of axles by ten thousand a year--and still dealers in all
parts of the country wrote and telephoned and telegraphed for more
cars--more cars.
Hitherto Lightener had made his own engines complete. From outside
manufactories he could obtain the other essential parts, but his own
production of engines held him back. The only solution for the present
was to find some one to make engines to his specifications, and he
turned to Bonbright Foote, Incorporated. Whatever might be said of the
Foote methods, their antiquity, their lack of modern efficiency, they
turned out work whose quality none might challenge--and Malcolm
Lightener looked first to quality.
He reached his determination at noon, while he was eating his luncheon,
and to Mrs. Lightener's amazement sprang up from the table and lunged
out of the room without so much as a glance at her or a word of
good-by. In some men of affairs this might not be remarkable, but in
Malcolm Lightener it was remarkable. Granite he might be; crude in his
manner, perhaps, more dynamic than comfortable, but in all the years of
his married life he had never left the house without kissing his wife
good-by.
He drove his runabout recklessly to his office, rushed into the
engineering department, and snatched certain blue prints and
specifications from the files. He knew costs down to the last bolt or
washer on the machine he made, and it was the work of minutes only to
determine what price he could afford to pay for the engines he wanted.
His runabout carried him to the entrance to Bonbright Foote,
Incorporated, and he hurried up the stairs to the office.
"Mr. Foote in?" he snapped.
"Just returned, Mr. Lightener."
"Want to see him--right off--quick."
"Yes, sir."
The girl at the switchboard called Mr. Foote and informed him.
"He says to step right in, sir," she said, and before she was done
speaking Lightener was on his way down the corridor.
Mr. Foote sat coldly behind his desk. He held no kindness for Malcolm
Lightener, for Lightener had befriended Bonbright in his recalcitrancy.
Lightener had made it possible for the boy to defy his father.
Lightener's wife and daughter had openly waged society war against his
wife in behalf of his son's wife.... But Mr. Foote was not the man to
throw away an enormous and profitable business because of a personal
grudge.
Lightener paused for no preliminaries.
"Foote," he said, "I want ten thousand engines complete. You can make
'em. You've got room to expand, and I can give you approximate figures
on the costs. You make good axles and you can make good engines. What
d'you think about it?"
Mr. Foote shrugged his shoulders. "It doesn't attract me."
"Huh!... You can have that plant up in six months. I'll give you a
contract for five years. Two years' profits will pay for the plant.
Don't know what your profits are now, but this ought to double them.
... Doesn't half a million a year extra profit make you think of
anything?"
"Mr. Lightener, this business was originally a machine shop. It has
grown and developed since the first Bonbright Foote founded it. I am
the first to deviate in any measure from the original plan, and I have
done so with doubt and reluctancy. I have seen with some regret the
manufacturing of axles overshadow the original business--though it has
been profitable, I admit. But I shall go no farther. I am not sure my
father and my grandfather would approve of what I have done. I know
they would not approve of other changes.... More money does not attract
me. This plant is making enough for me. What I want is more leisure. I
wish more time to devote to a certain literary labor upon which I have
been engaged..."
"Literary flub-dub," said Lightener. "I'm offering you half a million a
year on a silver platter."
"I don't want it, sir.... I am not a young man. I have not been in the
best of health--owing, perhaps, to worries which I should not have been
compelled to bear.... I am childless. With me Bonbright Foote,
Incorporated, comes to an end. Upon my death these mills close, the
business is to be liquidated and discontinued. Do I make myself
clear?... I am not interested in your engines."
"What's that you said?" Lightener asked. "Childless? Wind up this
business? You're crazy, man."
"I had a son, but I have one no longer.... In some measure I hold you
responsible for that. You have taken sides with a disobedient son
against his father..."
"And you've treated a mighty fine son like a dog," said Lightener,
harshly.
"I have done my duty.... I do not care to discuss it with you. The fact
I want to impress is that my family becomes extinct upon my death. My
wife will be more than amply provided for. I may live ten years or
twenty years--but I shall live them in such comfort as I can obtain....
Is there anything else you wish to talk to me about?"
It was a dismissal, and Malcolm Lightener was not used to being
dismissed like a troublesome book agent.
"Yes," he said, getting to his feet. "There is something, and I'll be
short and sweet about it. You have a son, and if I'm any judge, he's
about four times the man his father is. You don't want him!... Well, I
do. I want him in my business, and he won't lose such a lot by the
change. It's your ledger that shows the loss, and don't you forget it.
You did what you could to warp him out of shape--and because he
wouldn't be warped you kicked him out. Maybe the family ends with you,
but a new Foote family begins with him, and it won't be any
cut-and-dried, ancestor-ridden outfit, either. One generation of his
kind will be worth more to this country than the whole six of yours....
I hope you live to see it."
Lightener stuffed his blue prints and specifications into his pocket
and left the office truculently. Once more in his own office he
summoned a boy.
"Fetch Mr. Foote from the purchasing department," he said.
Malcolm Lightener was acting on impulse again. He had no clear idea why
he had sent for Bonbright, nor just what he should say when the boy
came--but he wanted to talk to him. Lightener was angry--angry because
Bonbright's father had rejected his proposition to manufacture engines;
more angry at the way Mr. Foote had spoken concerning his son. In the
back of Lightener's mind was the thought that he would show a Foote....
Just what he would show him was not determined.
Bonbright came in. He was not the Bonbright of six months before. The
boy in him was gone, never to return. He had lost none of his old look
of breeding, of refinement, of blood--but he had lost that air which
rich young men bear about with them. It is an air, not of carelessness,
precisely, but of absence of care; a sort of nonchalance, bred of lack
of responsibilities and of definite ambitions. It is an air that makes
one think of them that they would fit better into the scenery of a
country club or a game of golf than into an office where men strain
their intelligence and their bodies to attain important aims. This was
gone with his boyishness. In its place was an alertness, an awakeness,
born of an interest in affairs. His eyes were the eyes of a man who
concentrated much, and was keenly interested in the object of his
concentration. His movements were quicker. He seemed to see and
catalogue more of what was going on about him. If one had seen him then
for the first time, the impression received would have been that here
was a very busy young man who was worth watching. There was something
aggressive about him. He looked competent.
One could not question that his new life had improved him, but it had
not made him happy. It would be absurd to say that he looked sad. A boy
of his age cannot look sad continually, unless sadness is a pose with
him, which he is enjoying very much indeed. But Bonbright was no
poser.... And he did not look happy. There were even times when there
was a worn, haggard look about his eyes when he came down in the
morning. This was when he had allowed himself to think too much.
"Just came from your father's office," said Lightener. "I offered him a
chance to clean up half a million a year--and he turned it down...
because his great-grandfather might not like it."
Bonbright understood perfectly. He knew how his father would do such a
thing. Lightener's statement seemed to call for no reply, so he made
none.
"I wanted to look at you," said Lightener, "to make sure you aren't
anything like him.... But you ARE like him. You stand like him and you
look like him--only you don't. If I thought you'd grow to think the way
he does I'd send you to the cashier for your pay, in a second. But I
don't believe it." He scowled at Bonbright. "No, by Jove! you don't
LOOK it."
"I don't think father and I are much alike," said Bonbright, slowly.
Lightener switched the subject. "You ought to know considerable about
this business. Been here six months. From what I hear you've picked up
quite a lot outside of office hours."
"I've been studying hard. It gave me something to do."
"Darn it all, why couldn't you and Hilda have taken to each other!..."
Lightener stopped, and stared at his desk. Perhaps it was not too late
yet. Bonbright's marriage had been no success; Bonbright was young; and
it was not thinkable that he would not recover from that wound in time
to marry again. Of course he would.... Then why should he not marry
Hilda? Not the least reason in the world. In the affair Bonbright was
guiltless--merely unfortunate. The thing was worth bearing in mind.
Perhaps something might be done; at any rate, he would talk it over
with his wife.
"I want you to put in another six months learning this business," he
said. "If you pan out I'll have a job for you.... I haven't heard of
your falling down any place yet.... Know what I told your father? He
said the Foote family ended with him--became extinct. Well, I said the
family just started with you, and that one generation of your kind was
worth the whole six of his. And I hoped he lived to see it."
"Somehow I can't feel very hard toward father, Mr. Lightener. Sometimes
I'm--sorry for him. To him it's as bad as if I'd been born with a
hunchback. Worse, maybe, because, hunchback and all, I might have been
the sort he wanted.... He doesn't understand, that's it. I can
understand him--so I don't have any hard feelings-except on HER
account.... He said the family was extinct?"
"Yes."
"I guess it is," said Bonbright. "The family, as he thought of it,
meant something that went on and on as he and his ancestors went....
Yes, it's extinct. I don't know why I was different from them, but I
was. Always. I'm glad."
"He must be worth five millions, anyhow, maybe more."
"I don't know," said Bonbright.
"You won't get a cent of it, from what he says."
"I suppose not.... No, I won't get a cent."
"You don't make much fuss about it."
"I had that out with myself six months ago. It was hard to give it
up.... Nobody wants to be poor when he can be rich. If it hadn't been
for Ruth I suppose I should have been there yet--pretty well made over
to fit by this time."
As Bonbright and Malcolm Lightener talked, Mr. Foote sat in his office,
his head upon his desk, one arm stretched out across the blotter, the
other shielding his face. He did not move....
After Malcolm Lightener left the room he had sat for a time staring at
the door. He did not feel well. He was troubled. None but himself knew
how deep was his disappointment, his bitterness, because of his son's
failure to stand true to his type. It was not the grief of a father at
the loss of a son; it was the suffering of a man whose supreme motive
is the carrying on of family and of family traditions. He had just told
Lightener the family became extinct with his passing. Now he reaffirmed
it, and, reaffirming it, he felt the agony of ultimate affliction.
Six generations the family and the family's business had endured
honorably according to its beliefs and tenets; with the sixth
generation it ended because of the way-wardness of a boy--his boy!
Mr. Foote felt a trifle dizzy, a bit oppressed. He leaned back in his
chair and shut his eyes. He would go home for the day as soon as the
dizziness passed, he said to himself.... It passed. He opened his eyes
and leaned toward his desk, but he stopped suddenly, his right hand
flying to his breast. There was a sudden pain there; such a pain as he
had never experienced before. It was near his heart. With each
heartbeat there came a twisting stab of agony. Presently the spasm
passed, and he sank back, pale, shaking, his forehead damp with clammy
moisture.... He tried to pull himself together. Perhaps it would be
best to summon some one, but he did not want to do that. To have an
employee find him so would be an invasion of his dignity. Nobody must
see him. Nobody must know about this....
The spasm returned-departed again, leaving him gasping for breath. ...
It would come again. Something told him it would come again-once more.
He KNEW.... A third time it would come, but never again.
He forced himself to rise. He would meet it standing. For the honor of
the Foote family he would meet it on his feet, looking into its eyes.
He would not shrink and cringe from it, but would face it with dignity
as a Foote should face it, uttering no cry of pain or fear. It was a
dignified moment, the most dignified and awful of his life. ... Five
generations were looking on to see how he met it, and he was conscious
of their eyes. He stared before him with level eyes, forcing a smile,
and waited the seconds there remained to wait.
It was coming. He could feel its first approach, and drew himself up to
the fullness of his slender height. Never had he looked so much a Foote
as in that instant, never had he so nearly approached the ideal he had
set for himself--for he knew.
The spasm came, but it tore no cry from him. He stood erect, with eyes
that stared straight before him fearlessly until they became sightless.
He held his head erect proudly.... Then he sighed, relaxed into his
chair, and lay across his desk, one arm outstretched, the other
protecting his face....
The telephone on Malcolm Lightener's desk rang.
"Hello!" said Lightener. "What is it? Who?... Yes, he's right here." He
looked up to Bonbright. "Somebody wants to speak to you."
Bonbright stepped to the instrument. "Yes," he said, "this is Bonbright
Foote.... Who is it? Rangar?..." Suddenly he turned about and faced
Malcolm Lightener blankly. He fumbled with the receiver for its hook.
"My father is dead," he said, in a hushed voice. "They just found
him--at his desk...."