For the Norton name

Front matter

OF INDUSTRY

CAPTAINS

YOUNG

Chapter XII

A sudden difficulty is solved by a swift motor flight, a contract is signed, and the road to a bright to-morrow opens clear . . . . 219

ILLUSTRATIONS

George stood looking down into the pot . . Frontispiece

Page

“ If this man does not go out of his own accord,

throw him out,” said George 20

“This is an unexpected pleasure! ” cried Mr. Eyden 27 “Stop that wheel ! ” shouted the sheriff .... 61

A wagon passed containing two men, neither of

whom he had seen before 76

“Well, show me the laboratory anyway,” said the

chemist cheerily 215

On the very stroke of nine, the car drew up at the Waldorf

Chapter One

The third George Norton was dead, and the fourth George Norton had taken up his heritage in a troublous time. For eighty years the seething furnaces of the Norton Glass Company had sent glass far and wide across the land. Now a combination, the International Glass Company, had absorbed most of the works which produced the special grade for which the old firm was famous. Against this union of factories the elder George Norton had fought singlehanded. Blow after blow had fallen on the Norton Company in the fight, but the greatest blow of all had come when the fighter himself fell. He left a heavy burden to his son.

Immediately after his father’s death, George Norton had returned to college to wind up his affairs. He was sitting at breakfast one morning when a telegram was brought to him. It was an urgent recall to the factory.

In the brisk October morning the little village looked its best when the slender, black-clad lad turned in from the highway, down the short road to the glass-house.

As he approached, the sound of voices arose within, the door swung open suddenly, and two men emerged. One was shrewd-faced and wore the workman’s dress; the other was gray-haired and spectacled, with the noticeable stoop of the man who spends his life over desk or laboratory bench. The older man was gesticulating forcibly, and his words were plain.

“ Get out ! Get out ! ” he cried. “ Get out with your prying face ! If I ever see you on our premises again, I ’ll have you jailed ! This is the third time you’ve been here on the pretense of wanting work, you sneak, you spy! You won’t have any such chance again.”

The workman simply shrugged his shoulders. “All right, all right; that ends it,” he said, and started down the road with a slight smile on his lips.

Then for the first time the gray-haired man saw the lad, who had remained a silent and amazed spectator.

“ O George, — Mr. Norton, I should say now, — I am so glad you are back! The International Glass Company people are worrying me to death. That is one of their men I have just turned out. He has been trying to examine the factory. I stopped him before he got into the storeroom, though; that's one good thing. I don't intend that they shall know how much unsold stock we have. It would tell them altogether too much about the small amount of business we have done in the last year. I could n't go on any farther without knowing what you were going to do, so Mr. Barnard and I telegraphed you.”

“ I did n't think the I. G. C. would stoop as

4 FOR THE NORTON NAME low as that!” cried George. “That's a lot worse than anything I ever heard of. I know, of course, they tried to get the mill a while ago, and made all sorts of trouble, but personal spying is the lowest yet. Is Mr. Barnard here?”

“He is, and waiting for you in the office.”

There George found the old family lawyer fast asleep, his gray head thrown back against the cushions. As the lad entered, the old man suddenly awoke.

“Good morning, George! Tm afraid you've caught me napping,” he said.

“Our time of meeting is a little early,” George replied, and then went on excitedly, “Did you know that Mr. Howes has just found, as he believes, an I. G. C. spy around the place?”

“No, but I am not surprised,” said Mr. Barnard. “The International Glass Company matter is indirectly the cause of my wishing to see you as soon as possible. They've proved themselves the worst men in the glass business yet. In my experience I’ve never known anything like it. The main reason for your recall, however, is two letters, both written to your father before his death, which had been overlooked. It seems queer that these two letters should not have been seen, but your father ran the business as such a one-man affair that when he died it seemed as if everything stopped. They were of such importance that I thought you had better see them at once, and I felt, too, that it was time you knew where you were.”

The lawyer reached into the worn green bag by his side, fumbled in it for a moment, and brought forth two letters.

“ There, George, read those.”

As he read, the old lawyer looked carefully at the boy. Always before the lad had been to him simply the son of his old friend and client. Now he was the head of the Norton Glass Company, its sole directing force and the one barrier which stood between the little town and its commercial destruction.

The face that the old man saw was an attractive one. Open, frank and merry, with broad forehead and sparkling eyes, it was now somewhat drawn and lined by the recent ordeal of pain and loss. As the lawyer looked, he smiled, and thought, “He certainly has the Norton chin. He’s the image of his Uncle Tom, who died at Antietam.”

Here is the first letter which the lad read :

I. M. HAMMOND & CO.

BUILDING SUPPLIES • WINDOW GLASS A SPECIALTY.

IV* us* th*

Product of the Norton Glass Company.

New York, October ai, 1908.

Mr. George B. Norton :

Dear Mr. Norton , — Since our last conference I have tried every means in my power to secure a market for your goods, but in vain. Old customers, who have always used your goods and would be willing to pay a fair price for them, dare not buy because the I. G. C. has warned them that you are going down, and that if they buy from you they will never have a chance to buy from them. I have tried to get hold of them legally for this, but they have done their work too cleverly and I cannot. As for my newer customers, the I. G. C. will go right in and sell them for far less than cost. So I have found myself shut off in every direction. In consequence, greatly to my regret, I am forced to countermand my orders and to say that I shall be unable to continue our very satisfactory connection.

Yours very truly,

I. B. Hammond.

As George ended, he looked up inquiringly.

“There goes what is practically your last customer, George,” said Mr Barnard. “Go on with the next letter.”

SECOND NATIONAL BANK.

Norton Glass Company :

Gentlemen , — On examination of the general conditions surrounding your business we regret to say that we do not feel we can make a new loan to replace that paid by you on the second of this month.

Yours very truly,

Second National Bank.

By A. F. Jones, Cashier .

George’s face showed amazement, anger and alarm. He looked up, eager for encouragement from the lawyer. But Mr. Barnard shook his head, and said:

‘‘That’s the I. G. C. once more. That is the end of your credit. They have been after the bank for two years, trying to undermine your father.”

“But how can they do it? How can a national bank do such things ? ”

“It’s the result of several causes — a timid president, two directors who hold stock in the I. G. C., and sufficient truth about the poor condition of the business to give a fair foundation for refusal of credit. Unfortunately, I don’t believe you can get credit from any other bank now. The firm has carried its account at the Second National so long that a change would be viewed with suspicion.”

George sat back with a very sober face. “ That is much worse than I imagined,” he said, at last. “ I had reason to believe that things were better. I want to know three things. Am I in full control ? Do you personally believe the mill is badly off, and do you imagine that the I. G. C. can run us out of business ?”

“You are in full control, George. As you know, you are your father’s only heir and the sole executor. As to the other questions, I rather think they can run you out of business. They have been working hard to do that very thing ever since your father refused their offer of a quarter of a million two years ago. Each month has brought some new misfortune, some old customer lost, or new one suddenly refusing to take his goods. If they should only make another offer, however small, I would advise you strongly to take it, but I doubt if they will. There ’s very little money left, and you see where the customers are.”

“How about our supplies, our made-up stock and our coal ? ”

“Howes would know that better than L Ask him.”

George jumped up from his chair. “Let’s go to see him.” They turned from the main office, and met the superintendent in the corridor.

io FOR THE NORTON NAME

“Mr. Howes,” began George, “how long can we run without buying anything more in the way of supplies ? ”

“A little over one month. We ’re especially short of the thing we need most — sodium carbonate. We ought to have more than enough of it on hand. I tried my best when soda was cheap two months ago to get your father to buy some. I spoke to him about it day after day, but he kept putting it off. In fact, that ’s one of the most serious things about our present condition. Soda has gone up very rapidly, and here we are forced to buy at the top of the market if we are to keep running.”

“I can’t see why father did that,” said George. “I remember last summer, and summer before, when I was working here in the mill with him, that he spoke over and over again of the necessity for keeping up the sodium carbonate and sand supply. He always took great care, too, in the quality of both, especially the sodium carbonate. He usually kept a good stock of it on hand, didn’t he?”

“ Always up to the present time,” said Mr. Howes, “but it is low enough now. Luckily^ we have enough sand, lime and coal. What you really ought to see, though, is the stock-room. Suppose we go down there.”

The three passed out into the grassy space before the new factory, and walked slowly down toward the old factory, set up eighty years before by the Norton who founded the company. For the past three years it had been used solely as a storehouse.

This they entered first. Racks upon racks of window-glass filled every one of the big rooms from floor to ceiling, while only narrow lanes appeared between the high-piled stock. From the old factory they went to the storehouse proper. Here there was not room enough for proper handling.

“How much stock is there here?” asked George.

“Probably a hundred thousand dollars

12 FOR THE NORTON NAME have gone into this. Your father kept the mill running to give work, but we ’ve not sold one-tenth of our output the last two years; the rest of it has been stored here. No one outside the company knows that, however.”

At the sound of voices an old workman came hurrying out of one of the cross aisles, an old stock ledger in his hand.

“Oh, here is old John, the stockman,” said George. “Good morning, John!”

“Good morning, Mr. George! It’s sorry and glad, too, I am to see you here this morning.”

George nodded.

“ I suppose this will all go out in a few days, won’t it?” John asked.

“No, I don’t believe so.”

“And didn’t the gentleman who was here buy the goods, after all, Mr. Howes?” inquired the stockman of the superintendent.

“ I don’t know anything about it,” said the superintendent, in bewilderment. “What gentleman — what did he do ? ”

“Why, the man that came that day just before Mr. Norton was taken sick,” said the stockman, “when you were both away, looked all over the stock, measured it, took my figures, and went. He said he came from you and had bought it.”

“I don’t know anything about him. You had no business to let him in!” snapped the superintendent.

“Well, Mr. Howes,” said George, in courageous tones, “there is one more card played by the I. G. C. They certainly, for some reason, seem bound to get every bit of information they possibly can as to the actual conditions existing in the mill. It seems as if they were sparing no trouble and no pains to get at the true state of affairs. I don’t see just what they are doing it for, but anyway, they have won that move, and we ’ll try not to worry about that.”

“I only wish I could get hold of the man who got in here!” exclaimed Mr. Howes. “ I ’d settle him, anyway.”

The three turned back to the office, and as they went the lawyer spoke:

“Mr. Howes, I tell Mr. Norton that the best thing for him to do is to sell. If he sells to-day, he will have something left. If he waits three months, he will not.”

“I am afraid you are right,” replied the superintendent, sadly. “I have been in the Norton Company, man and boy, for forty-five years, but I think the end has come. I don’t see anything to do but sell the mill.”

“ I will not do it ! ” cried George, firmly. “ I have more than one sufficient reason for keeping the factory in my own hands. I am not going to give up the life-work of three Nortons in a minute. I am not going to throw every man, woman and child in this village on the mercy of the I. G. C. I have another and a better reason still. The month before my father died he was down at college to see me —

A knock at the door interrupted him. Following the knock, the door opened, and a bullet-headed individual, with curly red hair, entered, a spirit of aggressiveness seeming to characterize his every movement.

“Good morning!” he said. “I am Mr. Patrick Gilmartin of the International Glass Company. I came up here expecting to see the elder Mr. Norton, and as I found him dead, I felt, as I could not lose time, I had better see the younger Mr. Norton at once. So I came here.”

George flushed hotly at the man’s tone, and Mr. Barnard started from his chair. Before he could speak, George interposed:

“We will hear what you have to say, Mr. Gilmartin.”

“I came up here, as I said, to see your father, and make him a last proposition from our company. Two years ago we made him an offer which he very foolishly refused. The value of your business has gone off tremendously since then, and it is worth scarcely anything to-day. We are, however, willing to consider taking it at a price.”

1 6 FOR THE NORTON NAME “Are you the accredited representative whom the company has sent out for this purpose ?”

“I certainly am. As long as you’ve asked that, I ’d like to know whether you own what’s left of this business or whether some one else does. How is it, Mr. Barnard ? Who is the guardian of this young man ? ”

“He is his own guardian. He is in complete control,” said Mr. Barnard, angrily. “But I want to say — ”

Patrick Gilmartin broke in rudely: “Oh, cut out anything else ; that ’s all I wanted to know. Now, Mr. Norton, let’s come to the point. You may or may not know the facts about your business. I do. You have no customers worth mentioning. Most of your product for the last two years is in your storehouse. You have very little cash and very little credit. We have beaten you at every point. In fact, you are down and out.”

By a great effort George had gained com-

FOR THE NORTON NAME 17 plete control of himself. “ Charming frankness you possess, Mr. Gilmartin.”

“ I am not used to taking back talk from boys!” Gilmartin snarled. “I’m here to talk business. Your father must have been crazy to give the control of things to you.”

“Look here — ” burst out Mr. Howes; but George stopped him.

“Mr. Gilmartin, you came here with an offer from the International Glass Company. Will you kindly state what it is without any more words ? ”

The representative of the International Glass Company was evidently getting warm. “I don’t propose to be dictated to by any whipper-snappers as to how much or what I shall say or shall not say!” he exclaimed. “You are in a tight hole, and if I had my way about it I’d leave you there.”

“ But you have n’t your own way, you know,” said George, in his politest tone. “Your company sent you here with a proposition to make to us. Are you going to make us that offer or not?”

Gilmartin felt he might have gone a little too far. His company certainly wanted him to make the offer, so he went on rather sullenly :

“The International Glass Company will give you fifty thousand dollars for all your property — mill, lands and cottages, stock and water rights, excluding your residence. Now you can take it or leave it.”

“That is,” said George, “you offer me fifty thousand dollars for property worth over two hundred and fifty thousand.”

“Two hundred and fifty thousand fiddlesticks ! ” said the urbane representative of the International Glass Company. “ It has never been worth that in its palmiest days. Your father may have told you that, but he knew better if he did. There’s nothing left for you to do but to take the offer.”

George felt a fierce desire to plunge his fist into Gilmartin’s face, but he restrained himself once more.

Gilmartin drummed on the arms of his chair. “I am not here for the purpose of discussing values,” he said. “I am here to make you an offer. An excellent offer I call it, everything considered.”

“Well, I refuse!” said George, sharply.

Gilmartin sat forward suddenly. “You refuse ! See here, Barnard, knock some sense into his head! He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s a bigger fool than his father was.”

George had held in until the breakingpoint had come. “There’s the door, you cad ! Get out of here or I ’ll put you out!”

“ I won’t ! ” said Gilmartin.

George stepped to the desk, lifted the telephone, and pressed the stock-room button. “John, come up here, quick, with the two other men you have there.”

Gilmartin began a confused mumble of threats and ejaculations, while the lad, the lawyer and the superintendent sat still, but

20 FOR THE NORTON NAME with clutched fists and reddened faces. In a minute the three workmen appeared at the door.

“If this man does not go out of his own accord, throw him out,” said George. “I won’t soil my fingers on you, you brute, but if you ever show your face here again, I ’ll have you run out of town ! ”

The representative of the International Glass Company rose and stood silent for a moment. Evidently he was debating his course of action. He slowly made his way to the door, where he turned, shaking his fist.

“I’ll see you begging yet!” he growled savagely. “We have you just where we want you, and I’ll see your finish inside of two months. I ’ll fix you for this ! ”

“Shut that door, John,” said George.

John closed the door so quickly that it came into pretty violent contact with Mr. Gilmartin’s person, and his final departure was far from dignified. As his more than

If this man does not go out of his own accord, throw him out.

f ft

•*

*

FOR THE NORTON NAME 21 muttered remarks died away in the distance, George turned to the workmen.

“ That’s all,” he said. “ Thank you.”

As they passed out, he turned to the superintendent. “ Start the mill as usual to-morrow, Mr. Howes. I go to New York to-night, and shall not be home for a day or two.”

As Mr. Howes withdrew, the old lawyer shook his head.

“Young blood, young blood!” he said, shaking his gray head. “It was pretty bad, but you ought to have accepted that offer, George. What can you do ? ”

“I can find out what my father meant to do,” said George, emphatically. “That is what I was going to tell you just as that man came in. Father was very much more cheerful the last time I saw him. He had been very dubious with regard to the business for some time, but that time he joked about the trust, made plans of various sorts for the mill, and just as I left the station, he said, ‘Next time you come home I ’ll show you something that’s going to mean a lot to you and me, my boy/ I never saw him alive again, but I believe that father knew something that would save the factory, and I’m going to find out what it is.”

Chapter Two

TTWO mornings later George Norton entered the New York office of Eyden & Amer, who furnished glass-makers’ supplies.

He was admitted to Mr. Eyden’s private room.

‘Good morning, Mr. Norton, I’m glad to see you! Your father was one of my best friends,” said the head of the supply-house. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve come,” George replied, “to ask for your help. I want to save my business. I want time to do it. To get that time I want supplies for which I may not be able to pay at once. I want them from you.”

George outlined the situation. The merchant watched him keenly as he spoke, and noted the clear knowledge that lay behind his words. As George paused for breath, he interposed :

24^

“Mr. Norton, I wonder if you realize in what a serious state of affairs you ’ve represented yourself to be ? How can you, without experience or training, expect to succeed where, from your own showing, your father failed ? Why are you so anxious to go on ? ”

“I am anxious to go on because the glass-house is part of my life, because it is the place which my people have been building up through eighty years, and because it is the work that my father loved. I am anxious to save the village, which is wholly dependent upon our factory for existence. And I believe my father had some process which was going to make him able to lower his cost of production tremendously. I feel certain of this from what he said to me before he died. If I can have a little time I feel I can find out what that secret is,” and he told Mr. Eyden the story of that last interview.

“I cannot quite see things your way,” replied the merchant. “It seems to me that there is one fatal difficulty. Suppose you do

FOR THE NORTON NAME *25 get a process which will materially diminish your cost of production. Assume that your father had some secret which would make it possible for you to underbid your competitors. Even then I do not believe that you can get customers. Your father, with his wide acquaintance and long experience, might have done so. You cannot. I believe that you might make a success of the work, provided you had a sufficient body of trade, but to combine the work required to decrease cost with a search for reluctant customers is more than you can hope to accomplish.”

It was hard logic, but George’s face showed no signs of weakening. “Mr. Eyden,” he said, “I know it’s a hard thing, but I can do it. There is no one who can help me except you. Won’t you give me the chance to try?”

The merchant hesitated. “My dear boy,” he said, “putting everything aside, I do not believe I have any right to encourage you to keep on to your own destruction. If I could see any way to get you customers I would do it in a minute, but I am in no position to do that, and the combination in your line is certainly too strong for you to get them alone. Let us look at the other side of it for a moment. Suppose you sell the mill at the I. G. C.’s price, you have a good sum of money back of you.” He stopped, and ended with a kindly smile. “I think Eyden & Amer could offer you a position more worth your while than anything which you might obtain from a desperate struggle with a sinking concern.”

The tears filled George’s eyes at the kindly tone and generous offer.

“ I wish I could tell you how much I appreciate that,” he said. “ But I cannot stop until I have done everything possible to save the factory. I know it is what father would have wanted me to do. I am sure the secret of success lies hidden there, and I shall work night and day to find it. If I lose, why, then I shall know I have done my best. I see your point perfectly, and I shall not ask you for any li f i

“ This is an unexpected pleasure!” cried Mr. Eyden.

FOR THE NORTON NAME 27 more supplies. I have enough for thirty days, and I’ll see what I can do on that.”

He rose to leave, and the merchant shook his head as he saw the boy’s downcast visage. “It’s a big mistake. I wish I could give you the supplies, but I cannot see any use in putting off the inevitable end any further.” At this moment the office boy entered with a card. The merchant read it with an exclamation of pleasure. He turned to George.

“ Don’t go,” he said. “This is one of my oldest and best friends, Crevecceur, a Belgian, who is the agent of a Mexican glass-house.”

A moment later the Belgian entered, a man six feet or more in height, who wore a great brown beard and spreading mustache. “This is an unexpected pleasure !” cried Mr. Eyden. “When did you land ?”

“Not half an hour ago,” replied the agent. “I came to you at once. I wanted to see you about something. It will take only a short time.” He looked at George, whom Mr. Eyden hastened to introduce.

George said, “I’ll go away now, Mr. Eyden.”

“Hold on ! Wait in the next office, and we will go out to lunch together later,” said Mr. Eyden.

“Very well,” said George, and he passed out.

Plunged in the depths by the failure of his interview, George had sat for half an hour when the inner door opened, and he heard his name.

He reentered Mr. Eyden’s office.

“Mr. Norton,” said the merchant, “you seem to have arrived at the very nick of time. Mr. Crevecoeur is here to arrange for a five years’ contract for glass of exactly your grade, which would about take your whole output. He has been in correspondence with the International Glass Company, but he is entirely ready to consider a bid from you. I have told him all about your firm, and I told him also that I was furnishing you supplies.”

While the merchant spoke, George’s mind had passed from the blackness of dejection to the light of hope. Supplies and a customer, and both coming at a moment when everything seemed against him ! He could not control his jubilant tone as he said, “I shall be very glad to submit a bid.”

Mr. Eyden turned to the Belgian. “Mr. Crevecceur, suppose you explain the situation farther.”

“ I am very glad to do so,” the foreign agent replied. “I have received an offer, Mr. Norton, from the International Glass Company, which I was about to accept simply because I thought we had canvassed the situation thoroughly.

“In brief, these are the conditions. We are ready to sign a five years’ contract for two hundred thousand square feet of glass per year. All the glass is to be of a certain fixed quality, practically the same grade of goods you now turn out. The price is to be made on the goods delivered f. o. b. Vera Cruz. It is to be sent in equal monthly instalments,

3 °

and we shall pay in sixty days from receipt of goods. As to the standing of our house, you can easily find out about that.”