Max Durend at Home
It was only two days after the close of the races when the head master
called Durend into his room. He held a slip of paper in his hand, and in
rather a grave voice informed the lad that his father was seriously ill.
His mother had cabled for his return, and he was to get ready to catch
the 2.15 train for Harwich at once.
Max obeyed. His preparations did not take long, and there was still a
little time to spare before he needed to start; therefore he sought out
Dale to say good-bye.
"But you will come back, of course, Durend?" the erstwhile cox
protested, rather struck by the earnestness of his friend's adieu.
"I have a feeling that I shall not, Dale. I cannot help it, but I keep
on acting almost unconsciously as though this were the last I shall see
of Hawkesley."
"Don't say that, Max. Why should you think your father is so ill as all
that? The cablegram doesn't say so. No, I can't take that. You simply
_must_ come back. There are lots of things we have promised to do
together."
"Can't help it, Dale. But there's one thing you must promise me before I
go, and that is, that if I should not come back you will come over and
see me. Spend a fortnight at our place at Liege in the summer--eh?"
"You're coming back, old man," replied Dale with determination. "But all
the same, I will give you the promise if you like. My uncle and
aunt--all the relatives I have--would not mind, I know."
"Thanks, old man--you shall have a good time."
Presently Durend left, and in forty-eight hours he was back in his own
home in Belgium on the outskirts of Liege. Prompt as he had been, he
found he was too late, for his father had died at the time he was on the
boat on the way to Antwerp.
Though not altogether unexpected, the blow was a severe one to Max
Durend. He had been very fond of his father, who had latterly treated
him more as a chum than anything else, and had talked much to him of his
plans for the time when he could assist him in his business. His mother
was, of course, even more upset, and though Max and his sister, a girl
of twelve, did their best to comfort her, she was quite prostrated for
some days.
It was now more than ever necessary that Max should enter his father's
business, and, when old and experienced enough, endeavour to carry it
on. From the nature of the business it was evident that this was no
light task, and would require a great deal of training and an immense
amount of hard work if it were to be done successfully. But the prospect
of hard work did not appeal Max, and within a fortnight of his father's
death he was busy learning the details of the vast business carried on
under his name.
Monsieur Durend had been the proprietor of very large iron and steel
foundries and workshops in Liege. The business was an immense one, and,
beside the manufacture of all kinds of machinery and railway material,
worked for its own benefit several coal and iron mines, all of which
were in the district or on the outskirts of the town. The business had
been a very flourishing one, and had been largely under the personal
direction of the proprietor, assisted by his manager, M. Otto Schenk, to
whose ability and energy, M. Durend was always ready to acknowledge, it
owed much of its success. The latter was now, of course, the mainstay of
the business, and it was with every confidence in his ability that
Madame Durend appointed him general manager with almost unlimited
powers.
M. Schenk was indeed a man to impress people at the outset with a sense
of strength and of power to command. He was over six feet in height,
broad, but with rather sloping shoulders, and very stoutly built. His
head, large itself, almost seemed to merge in a greater neck, and both
were held stiffly erect as he glowered at the world through cold and
rather protruding eyes, much as a drill-instructor glares at his pupils.
He was florid-complexioned, with short, closely-cropped grey hair and a
short, stubby, dirty-white moustache. Of his grasp of the affairs of the
firm and his business ability generally, people were not so immediately
impressed as they were with his power to command, but they invariably
learned to appreciate this side of his character in time.
The matter of the direction of the affairs of the firm settled to
everyone's satisfaction, the question as to what was to be done with Max
came up for discussion.
"I think it will be best, Max, if you go into M. Schenk's office and
assist him there," said Madame Durend at last. "You will there pick up
the threads of the business, and when you are two or three years older
we can consider what we are going to do."
"But, Mother," replied Max, "that was not the way Father learned his
business. You have often proudly told me how he used to work as a simple
mechanic, going from shop to shop and learning all he could of the
practical side of the different processes. How he then bought a small
business, extended it and extended it, until it grew to its present
size. And the whole secret of his success was that he knew the work so
thoroughly from top to bottom that he could depend upon his own
knowledge, and needed not to be in the hands of men with more knowledge
of detail but vastly less capacity than himself."
"Yes, Max, that is true; but the business is now built up, and is so big
that it does not seem necessary for you to go through all that. We have
an able manager, and from him you can learn all that you will ever need
to know of the work of directing the affairs of the firm."
"I should then never know the work thoroughly. I should always be
dependent upon those who had learned the practical side of the work,
Mother. Let me spend a year or two in learning it from the bottom. I
shall enjoy the work, and shall then feel far more confidence in
myself."
Max spoke earnestly, and his mother could see that he was longing to
throw himself heart and soul into the work. It was, indeed, the spirit
in which he had flung himself into the task of lifting Benson's to the
Head of the River over again. Though she had a mother's dislike to the
idea of her son's donning blouse and apron and working cheek by jowl
with the workmen, she had also a clear perception that it would be a
mistake to discourage such energy and thoroughness. She therefore
resolved to consult M. Schenk on the morrow, and, if he saw no special
objection, to allow Max to have his way.
M. Schenk did see several objections, foremost among which was his view
that for the master's son to work like a common workman would tend to
lessen the present extremely strict discipline in the workshops. Max,
however, scouted such an idea as an unfair reflection on the men, and
continued to press his point of view most strenuously. In the end he
managed to get his way, and within a week had started work at the firm's
smelting furnaces.
This story does not, however, deal with the experiences of Max Durend in
learning the various activities of the great manufactory founded by his
father. It will, therefore, suffice if we relate one incident that had,
in the sequel, an important influence upon his career, an incident, too,
that gives an insight into his character and that of the different
classes of workmen that would, in the course of time, come under his
control.
Max was at the time working at a huge turret lathe in one of the
turning-shops. Around him were other workmen similarly engaged. Across
the room ran numerous great leather driving-bands, running at high speed
and driving the great machines with which the place was filled.
Apparently the material of one of the driving-bands was faulty, for it
suddenly parted, slipped off the driving-wheels, and became entangled in
one of the other bands. As this spun round the loose band caught in the
machine close by, wrenched it from its foundation and turned it over on
its side, pinning down to the floor the workman attending to it.
The man gave a screech as he was borne down, a screech that was broken
off short as the heavy machine fell partly upon his neck and chest,
choking him with its fell weight. A straggling cry of alarm was raised
by the other workmen who witnessed the tragic occurrence, and many
pressed forward to his aid. But the great band which had done the
mischief was being carried round and round by the driving-band in which
it had become entangled, and was viciously flogging the air and floor
all about the stricken man.
Some of the men shouted for the engines to be stopped, others ran for
something that could be interposed to take the rain of blows from the
flying band. Max, however, saw that something more prompt than this was
necessary. From the look on the man's face it was clear that if the
pressure on his throat and chest were not immediately relaxed he would
be choked to death.
Crawling forward beneath the flogging band, and bowing his head to its
pitiless flagellations, Max grasped the overturned machine and strove to
lift it off the unfortunate man. The weight was altogether too great for
him to lift unaided, but he found he could raise it a fraction of an
inch and enable the man to gain a little breath.
Holding it thus, Max grimly stood his ground with his head down, his
teeth firmly set, and his back arched against the rhythmic rain of blows
from the great band. Soon the clothes were flogged from off his back,
and the band touched the bare skin. Almost fainting, he held on, for the
eyes of the man below him were staring up at him with a look of dumb and
frightened entreaty that roused in him all the strength of mind and
fixity of purpose he possessed.
The shouts for the engines to be stopped at last prevailed. The bands
revolved more slowly, and then ceased altogether. Many willing hands
were laid upon the overturned machine, and it was lifted off the
prostrate man just as Max's strength gave out, and he sank limply to the
floor in a deep swoon.
Neither Max nor the workman was seriously injured. Both had had a severe
shock, and Max, in addition, had wounds that, while not dangerous, were
extremely painful. After six weeks at Ostend, however, he was himself
again, and ready to continue his work in yet another branch of the
firm's activities. This time he was to learn the miner's craft, and to
see for himself all that appertained to the trade of hewing out coal and
iron from the interior of the earth and lifting it to the surface.
On the evening of his return to Liege from Ostend he was sitting in his
study alone, reading up the subject that was to be unfolded in actual
practice before his gaze on the morrow, when there came a knock at the
door.
"Come in," he yelled.
The door opened, and the maid ushered in a middle-aged workman in his
Sunday clothes, accompanied by a woman whom Max guessed to be his wife.
The man he recognized at once as the workman he had succoured in the
accident to the driving-band.
"Monsieur Dubec--he would come in," explained the servant deprecatingly,
as she withdrew and closed the door.
The man looked furtively at Max, twisted his cap nervously in his hands,
and stood gazing down at the floor in sheepish silence. His wife was
less ill at ease, and, after nudging her spouse ineffectually once or
twice, blurted out rapidly:
"He has come, Monsieur, to thank you for saving his life, and to tell
you that he will work for you and serve you so long as he lives. He is
my man, and I say the same, Monsieur, though I do not work in the shops,
and cannot help. But if ever ye should want aught done, Monsieur, send
for Madame Dubec, and she will serve you with all her heart in any way
you wish."
The woman spoke in a trembling voice, and with a deep and earnest
sincerity that showed how much she was moved. Her emotion, indeed,
communicated itself to Max, and he felt as tongue-tied as the man Dubec
himself. It had somehow not occurred to him that he would be thanked,
and the whole thing took him by surprise. Still, he had to say
something, and he struggled to find something that would put them at
their ease.
"I am sure you will, Madame Dubec, and I will remember your offer
indeed. But make not too much of what I have done. I was near at hand,
and came forward first, but many of your husband's comrades were as
ready, though not quite so quick. It was the aid of one comrade given to
another, and one day it may be my turn to receive and your husband's to
give."
The man shook his head vigorously in dissent, and in so doing seemed to
find his tongue.
"Nay, sir, 'tis much more than that. Some there are who would have
helped; but the more part of my fellow-workmen would not lift a hand to
help another in distress. As ye must have noticed, sir, there are two
classes of men in your father's works. There are the Belgians born and
bred, who loved your father and hated, and still hate, the tyrant Schenk
and the German-speaking workmen who have joined in such numbers of late
that we others fear a time will soon come for us to go. The Belgians are
good comrades, and would have come to my aid had they the quickness to
have known what to do. The others would have seen me die unmoved--I know
it."
"But they, too, are Belgians, are they not?"
"Aye, sir, they are Belgians so far as the law can tell; but they speak
not our tongue, and are not really of us."
"They are good workmen, and M. Schenk thinks much of them."
"True. But they do not hold with the rest of us, and we do not like
them. Nor do we trust them, sir."
The man spoke in an earnest, almost a warning, tone, and Max looked at
him in some surprise. It seemed more than the mere jealousy of a Walloon
at the presence of so many men, alien in tongue and race, in a business
which had once been exclusively their own. Max had himself noticed the
two classes of workmen, but had, if he thought about it at all, put it
down as inevitable in a town so near the frontiers of three States.
"Well, never mind them, Monsieur Dubec," he replied reassuringly. "They
have not been with us long, and it may be they will be better comrades
in a few years' time. And now good-bye! Think not too much of your
accident, and it will be the better for you and me."
"Good-bye, and may the bon Dieu bless you, sir!" replied both Monsieur
and Madame Dubec in a fashion that told Max that he had gained two
friends at least, and friends whose staunchness could be depended upon
to the utmost.
M. Schenk's view of the whole affair was blunt and to the point. "You
are foolish," he said to Max, "to trouble yourself about these workmen.
They are cattle, and it is always best to treat them as such. That has
always been my way, and it has answered well. Consider them and humour
them, and the next minute they want to strike for more. Bah! Keep them
in their place; it is best so."
"But," urged Max, quite distressed as he thought of Dubec, and recalled
the accents of trembling sincerity of his spouse--"but surely many of
them are better led than driven--the best of them, at any rate? I know
little of business as yet, but something tells me that it is well for us
to get the goodwill of our men."
"It is not worth a straw," replied M. Schenk with conviction. "The
goodwill, as you call it, of your managers, and perhaps even of your
foremen, is of value, but the goodwill of your men--your rank and
file--is of no account. So long as they obey, and obey promptly, you
have all that is necessary to carry on even a great undertaking like
this successfully."
"Well," replied Max rather hotly, "all I can say is that when _I_ direct
the affairs of the firm, I shall give the other thing a trial. I don't
like the idea of treating men as cattle, and I cannot help thinking too
many men have been discharged of late because they have shown a little
spirit."
M. Schenk looked at Max in a way that made the latter momentarily think
he would like to strike him. Then the manager half turned away, as he
replied in an almost contemptuous tone: "You will be older and wiser
soon, and we shall then see whether any change will be made. Until then
it is _I_ who direct the affairs of the firm, and it is _my_ policy
which must prevail."
Max felt uncommonly angry. He had been conscious for some time past that
M. Schenk was acting as though he expected to rule the affairs of the
firm for all time, and the thought galled him greatly. Was not he, Max,
sweating and struggling through every workshop solely in order that he
might fit himself to direct affairs? How was it, then, that this man, in
his own mind, practically ignored him? Was it because he was so
incompetent that the manager thought he never would be fit to take his
place? Max certainly felt more angry than he had ever done before, and,
unable to trust himself to speak, abruptly left the manager's presence
and walked rapidly away.
One good result the conversation had, and that was to redouble Max's
ardour to learn, and learn thoroughly, every branch of the work in every
part of the vast concern.