第48章

One of the most fascinating figures,to me,of that Order being woven,like a cloth of gold,out of our hitherto drab civilization,--an Order into which I was ready and eager to be initiated,--was that of Adolf Scherer,the giant German immigrant at the head of the Boyne Iron Works.

His life would easily lend itself to riotous romance.In the old country,in a valley below the castle perched on the rack above,he had begun life by tending his father's geese.What a contrast to "Steeltown"with its smells and sickening summer heat,to the shanty where Mrs.

Scherer took boarders and bent over the wash-tub!She,too,was an immigrant,but lived to hear her native Wagner from her own box at Covent Garden;and he to explain,on the deck of an imperial yacht,to the man who might have been his sovereign certain processes in the manufacture of steel hitherto untried on that side of the Atlantic.In comparison with Adolf Scherer,citizen of a once despised democracy,the minor prince in whose dominions he had once tended geese was of small account indeed!

The Adolf Scherer of that day--though it is not so long ago as time flies --was even more solid and impressive than the man he afterwards became,when he reached the dizzier heights from which he delivered to an eager press opinions on politics and war,eugenics and woman's suffrage and other subjects that are the despair of specialists.Had he stuck to steel,he would have remained invulnerable.But even then he was beginning to abandon the field of production for that of exploitation:

figuratively speaking,he had taken to soap,which with the aid of water may be blown into beautiful,iridescent bubbles to charm the eye.Much good soap,apparently,has gone that way,never to be recovered.

Everybody who was anybody began to blow bubbles about that time,and the bigger the bubble the greater its attraction for investors of hard-earned savings.Outside of this love for financial iridescence,let it be called,Mr.Scherer seemed to care little then for glitter of any sort.

Shortly after his elevation to the presidency of the Boyne Iron Works he had been elected a member of the Boyne Club,--an honour of which,some thought,he should have been more sensible;but generally,when in town,he preferred to lunch at a little German restaurant annexed to a saloon,where I used often to find him literally towering above the cloth,--for he was a giant with short legs,--his napkin tucked into his shirt front,engaged in lively conversation with the ministering Heinrich.The chef at the club,Mr.Scherer insisted,could produce nothing equal to Heinrich's sauer-kraut and sausage.My earliest relationship with Mr.

Scherer was that of an errand boy,of bringing to him for his approval papers which might not be intrusted to a common messenger.His gruffness and brevity disturbed me more than I cared to confess.I was pretty sure that he eyed me with the disposition of the self-made to believe that college educations and good tailors were the heaviest handicaps with which a young man could be burdened:and I suspected him of an inimical attitude toward the older families of the city.Certain men possessed his confidence;and he had built,as it were,a stockade about them,sternly keeping the rest of the world outside.In Theodore Watling he had a childlike faith.

Thus I studied him,with a deliberation which it is the purpose of these chapters to confess,though he little knew that he was being made the subject of analysis.Nor did I ever venture to talk with him,but held strictly to my role of errand boy,--even after the conviction came over me that he was no longer indifferent to my presence.The day arrived,after some years,when he suddenly thrust toward me a big,hairy hand that held the document he was examining.

"Who drew this,Mr.Paret!"he demanded.

Mr.Ripon,I told him.

The Boyne Works were buying up coal-mines,and this was a contract looking to the purchase of one in Putman County,provided,after a certain period of working,the yield and quality should come up to specifications.Mr.Scherer requested me to read one of the sections,which puzzled him.And in explaining it an idea flashed over me.

"Do you mind my making a suggestion,Mr.Scherer?"I ventured.

"What is it?"he asked brusquely.

I showed him how,by the alteration of a few words,the difficulty to which he had referred could not only be eliminated,but that certain possible penalties might be evaded,while the apparent meaning of the section remained unchanged.In other words,it gave the Boyne Iron Works an advantage that was not contemplated.He seized the paper,stared at what I had written in pencil on the margin,and then stared at me.

Abruptly,he began to laugh.

"Ask Mr.Wading what he thinks of it?"

"I intended to,provided it had your approval,sir,"I replied.

"You have my approval,Mr.Paret,"he declared,rather cryptically,and with the slight German hardening of the v's into which he relapsed at times."Bring it to the Works this afternoon."Mr.Wading agreed to the alteration.He looked at me amusedly.

"Yes,I think that's an improvement,Hugh,"he said.I had a feeling that I had gained ground,and from this time on I thought I detected a change in his attitude toward me;there could be no doubt about the new attitude of Mr.Scherer,who would often greet me now with a smile and a joke,and sometimes went so far as to ask my opinions....Then,about six months later,came the famous Ribblevale case that aroused the moral indignation of so many persons,among whom was Perry Blackwood.