Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (466 page)

“And loyalty?” he asked, “and patriotism? Where do they come in?”

“Loyalty! Patriotism! I am sure I don’t know,” Da Pinta exclaimed dismally. “It is all just a
blague.
It would be better to be a peasant of the Gallegos district, lying in the sun with his bit of goat’s cheese and his wine-skin, and his plough ox breathing down the back of his neck. They have no troubles...”

“Oh, come,” Macdonald said, “that’s a very commonplace unphilosophic way of looking at it. Remember that you are the saviour of your country, and that your name will be inscribed in letters of gold upon the Galizian roll of glory.”

Da Pinta only spat as if he had in his mouth little fragments of tobacco from the end of a cigar.

“You talk like a child of ten.”

“That’s because my heart is pure,” Macdonald laughed. Then he signed his name.

PART III

CHAPTER
I

IT was in other ways a very busy time for Sergius Mihailovitch, for, having taken stock of his position, as it were between two breaths, it had occurred to him that, for his daily bread, he might just as well rely on the fact that he was chief manager of the Resiliens Motor Car Company. He was quite aware that all that was expected of him was his name on the prospectus of the company, and he was quite aware that his name was not worth the 800 guineas that he was at liberty to draw from the company.

He hadn’t at first had the least idea of drawing it, but on Monday, after signing Galizian bonds, there had been a meeting of the board of the company. He hadn’t indeed intended even to attend this board meeting, but there was a Mr. Lawson, who was not only sub-manager, but also the secretary of the company. Mr. Lawson had previously occupied a post with a British firm. He had quarrelled with the manager of the firm, and having been for eighteen months, as he called it, “out of a shop,” he had been forced to accept a position with this American affair. This had been a sad blow to his patriotism, for Mr. Lawson, whilst he had been in his former position, had spent much time in telling customers that all these American machines were made of meat tins, joined together with hairpins. He had spent so much time at it, and had worked himself up into such enthusiasms of patriotism, that he felt himself singularly subdued now that it was his duty to his employers exactly to give his former self the lie. He had been used to say:

“Don’t buy one of these cheap and nasty American affairs. You’ll find yourself sitting in the road one day, with bits of scrap-iron all round you, if you do.”

Now he had to say:

“What’s the good of bolstering up these lazy British firms? You pay twice as much for one of their cars as for one of ours, and the same quality. And why? Because they are over-capitalised and wastefully managed. You aren’t paying for a better, but only putting a premium on bad management. Why! only look at the finish of our bodies!”

So that as yet the words did not come very glibly from Mr. Lawson’s tongue. He had only been at the job a fortnight, and the mere organising of the offices and getting the show-rooms in order had taken nearly all the time.

Sergius Mihailovitch had seen him quite often; he had spoken to him twice. For Mr. Lawson was always to be seen running about with a sheaf of papers in one hand and a foot-rule in the other — a rather small man, with a stiffish brown moustache and worried brown eyes.

Once he had come to Macdonald and asked him if he would mind having the receiver of the private telephone from the works at Willesden set up in the passage beside Macdonald’s bedroom. And once again he had come to Macdonald in the office to ask whether he might bring his papers into Macdonald’s room, and explained that his own office on the other side of the show-room was too dark to write in, and one of the fuses of the electric light had blown out. He had to draw an advertisement for all the weekly papers, and the boy was waiting for the copy.

Macdonald said: “Oh, come in;” and the small depressed man set down on Macdonald’s desk his quill pen, his camel’s-hair brushes, and his little pot of sepia ink. With extreme industry he had begun ruling black lines upon a square of paper. He had gummed on a little half-tone reproduction of a motor car. Beneath it he had begun to write with shiny sepia:

“THE RESILIENS! EASY, ECONOMICAL RESILIENT. YOU WANT ONE!”

He looked at Macdonald, who stood over him. His face had a little depressed and weary air.

“That’s not much good as an ad.; but what can we do?”

“It looks very pretty to me,” said Macdonald. “What more do you want?”

“Oh, you want startling facts for an advertisement,” Mr. Lawson answered. “But what are we to do? For there isn’t even a single member of the aristocracy who has bought one of the things. There is no one on this side of the water to look after this sort of job. I am not the man for this, even if I had the time. It’s heart-breaking, how these Yankees manage things! I don’t know why they wanted to set up in England at all. There is no one for me to apply to for instruction. The board is nothing but old women. As for Mr. Dexter, he can’t tell the difference between a wired tyre and the hot-box of a railway engine.” His whole manner expressed so much dejection that Macdonald felt forced to say kindly:

“Oh, come, cheer up! Ought not I to provide you with startling facts?’’

Mr. Lawson said” You” in a tone that was an odd mixture of contempt for Sergius Mihailovitch the idler, and of admiration for him as an aristocrat.

“Well,” Macdonald said, “I am supposed to be the general manager. What have I got these expensively furnished rooms for?”

“Oh, you’re too much of a swell,” Mr. Lawson said.

“Your title is only on the prospectus to rope in small investors. You aren’t supposed to do any of the practical work.”

“That seems rather hard on the small investors,” Macdonald said. “I suppose they expect me to do something for my money.”

“It’s rather hard on them,” he got his answer.’ But that’s the way it’s done.”

“It’s the way it oughtn’t to be done,” Macdonald said. “Well, you can’t alter it,” Mr. Lawson said gloomily; and he rang the bell and told the commissionaire to send in the boy who had come for the copy from the advertisement agents.

“Wait a minute,” Macdonald said. “Tell the boy to wait. Let’s have a little talk about this.”

He stood reflecting for a moment, and then he sat down at the large desk opposite Mr. Lawson.

“None of this seems to me to be right at all,” he said. “Here am I, who am not expected to do anything at all, and I have this large, fine room.”

The walls of Macdonald’s office were panelled in the American fashion with dark green tulip wood. Upon the right side of the room stood a Chippendale bureau. Upon the panelling itself there hung facsimile reproductions of Rembrandt’s “Knight in Armour,” Romney’s “Lady Hamilton,” Gainsborough’s “Blue Boy,” and Van Dyck’s” Charles I” with the large white charger. All these pictures were in heavy gold frames. There were in the room three deep leather armchairs, and against the walls a dozen Chippendale dining-chairs with seats of red leather. The table in the centre was long enough to seat sixteen people, and it was of black bog oak.

Mr. Lawson also looked round upon this gentleman’s dining-room.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s the Yankee way of doing business. I’ve seen their offices in Chicago — just like this. And no business doing except getting the money out of small investors. It’s all swank, and a decent man like me oughtn’t to be set to work at a job like this. They don’t
mean
to do any business here.”

“Oh, well,” Macdonald said, “you might just as well say that a decent man like me oughtn’t to be in a job like this.”

“I’ll say it if you like,” Mr. Lawson echoed him.

Again Macdonald reflected. “The car is a good car, isn’t it?” he asked. “In fact, I know it is.”

“Oh, it’s a ripping good car,” Mr. Lawson corroborated, “and dirt cheap at the money, whichever quality you buy. The mere standardisation of the parts would make it an absolute boon to anybody who can only afford one car. Why, if you live in a place like Ashford and your differential goes wrong, all you have to do is to wire up to us, and you’ll get a temporary spare part by the next passenger train. Any other firm in the country would take a fortnight putting your car straight, and all the time you’d have to be without its services.”

“Well, then,” Macdonald said cheerfully, “if the car is all right, all we’ve got to do in the interests of the small shareholders is to put the other things right.”

“You can’t do it,” Mr. Lawson repeated. But his tone was slightly less despondent, and he added: “Of course
you
could do something. But it would not be worth your while to try.”

“Ah, well, let’s see,” Macdonald said. “Let’s review the whole situation. It may not be worth my while, but it’s extraordinarily interesting. Besides, there are the small investors to consider. Are there many of them?”

“A great many,” Mr. Lawson said. “The people who have got this thing in hand have an extraordinary faculty of getting money from poor people. You’d have thought it couldn’t be done with motors nowadays, but they have done it. Nearly all the money in the show comes from quite poor people, who can’t afford to lose a penny. If you like to put it that way, the amount of energy they have put into extracting money from the poorer public is exactly the counterpart of what they want on the side of selling what they ought to sell. We shan’t sell anything at all. How can we? There is only me and two chaps to haul the cars about in the show-room, and a couple of chauffeurs to take customers for rides. And there’s nobody else at all, except the typewriter.”

“Well, we’ll see about that.” Macdonald said. “Of course, I am extraordinarily innocent. I ought to have seen that an oily Pharisee like Mr. Edward U. Dexter wasn’t the sort of person to do anything but swindle quite poor investors. He couldn’t be trying to sell an honest article. He talks too much about being an instrument for the benefit of humanity.... But now, supposing we look at the advertisement. I am not an expert, but I’ll just consider myself a member of the public to whom we appeal. Supposing you put, in little italics, under your large black letters...? But here, let me..

And Macdonald took the sheet of paper from Mr. Lawson. He wrote beneath the words:”
You want one,”
in small copper-plate letters the additional words:

“We have only been selling in this country one fortnight, but already H.M. the King of Galizia has run one of our cars three thousand miles without a hint of engine or tyre trouble, while H.M. has been summoned three times for exceeding the speed limit. These facts talk!”

Mr. Lawson surveyed this announcement with a critical eye.

“It’s better, of course,’’ he said;” but — it’s open to objections. It looks as if we favoured unlawfulness.”

“Well, we do — don’t we?” Macdonald asked.

“Of course we do,” Mr. Lawson conceded; “but we mustn’t say so.”

“Oh, you’re too extraordinarily English,” Macdonald laughed. “We can issue another advertisement next week to say how shocked we are that the King should ever have done such a thing. That will put us right. Because, of course, we are shocked.”

Mr. Lawson looked at Macdonald with misgiving.

“But how will H.M. like it?” he said.

“Oh, I’ll take the responsibility of that,” Macdonald answered. “And while we’re about it, just do this.” He took once more the advertisement, and made two little round blots of ink, one beyond each end of the reproductions of the motor car. Under one he wrote:

“By special appointment to H.M. the King of Galizia.”

“Oughtn’t we to say the ex-King?” Mr. Lawson asked. “Oh, I’ll take the responsibility of that, too,” Macdonald said. And he wrote beneath the other blot:

“By special appointment to H.I.M. the Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandravitch of Russia...”

“I have the right to confer that appointment myself,” he added. “Of course, it will cost a couple of hundred pounds. But I suppose somebody will pay it.”

“But we can’t put that in until the expenditure is sanctioned by the board,” Mr. Lawson objected.

“Oh, nonsense!” Macdonald said. “I’ll pay it myself if anybody makes any objection.”

“Oh, but that’s impossible,” Mr. Lawson said. “I can’t really sanction that. You could never run a company on those lines. It has never been done.”

“My dear chap,” Macdonald said, “what’s the objection? If my conscience calls on me to spend £200 on the company for the good of the widows and orphans that the company is trying to swindle... what’s the objection?”

“But it’s not business-like,” Mr. Lawson objected.

“Such a thing has never been heard of. As the secretary to the company, it’s my duty to protest.”

“It’s going to be done now,” Macdonald said with an amiable firmness. “Just you get that advertisement, as I have drafted it, off to the agents at once. I suppose they can get engraved blocks of the arms of Galizia and of the Grand Duke?”