Homer Dean and Will Matthews grew up in adjoining back yards, fought and
bled with and for each other as boys will, went through high school side
by side, took a business course given by a broken-down bookkeeper in a
bare room over the Thornton Drug Store, and went to work in the offices
of the Hopkins Tool Company within a month of each other, as vacancies
occurred there. Will got the first job, Homer the second. They helped
with labels in the shipping room, kept checking lists, and eventually
graduated to keeping books.
The tool company was a one-man concern. Old Jasper Hopkins had founded
it, and intended to turn it over to his boy Charlie when his own time
should be done. Old Jasper--he was then no more than in his late
forties, but he was Old Jasper just the same--was a man of many
eccentricities. He had begun as a mechanic, a machinist; and he had
mastered the machinery of the shop, but never mastered the machinery of
business. He picked machinists for his shop work, but for the
white-collar jobs he chose men with no grime under their finger nails.
Who sought a job with him began in the shipping room, and advanced--if
he had merit--through regular and accustomed channels. Keeping books
was the second rung of the ladder. Jasper could not multiply eight by
seven; he had a vast respect for any man who could.
Will Matthews could, and so could Homer Dean. Also they recommended
themselves to Jasper in other ways. The head of the Hopkins Tool Company
had breathed the dust from his own emery wheels in the past; he was of a
gritty and abrading disposition. His nerves were tight, his temper was
loose; and to arouse him meant an explosion that resembled nothing so
much as the commotion which results when the mainspring of an ancient
alarm clock, in process of dissection, is injudiciously set free.
His prejudices were tradition. While Will and Homer were still in the
shipping room they heard how he had scorched Charlie Dunn with many
words over the mere slamming of a door. And how he had reduced Luther
Worthing from salesman to bookkeeper again because Luther faced him one
morning with waistcoat half unbuttoned. And how he had summarily
discharged Jim Porter for carelessly rumpling the corner of the office
rug. Noise he hated, neatness and order he demanded and revered; and
more than one office boy had lost his job for scanting his daily task of
putting a fresh and spotless blotter on the broad pad upon Old Jasper’s
desk.
These likes and dislikes Homer and Will respected; to a legitimate
extent they catered to them; and thus they attained a certain eminence
in their employer’s eyes. He had been known to refer to them as
promising young men. They knew this as well as others did, and there was
a good-natured rivalry between them to see which should distance the
other on the upward way.