George A. Birmingham

“ The American business man must, I imagine, have a gentle and childlike heart. No one who has lost his first innocence would require such a supply of flowers and chocolate at his office door.
There were lifts on each side of this arcade, dozens of them, in cages. Some were labelled “Express” and warned passengers that they would make no stop before the eleventh floor. I should have liked very much to make a journey in an express lift, and I hoped that Ascher’s office might turn out to be on the 25th or perhaps the 30th floor of the building. I was disappointed. Gorman hurried us on. ”

“ I don’t want to flatter you, gentlemen, but there isn’t a firm in the world that would care to start feeing lawyers in competition with Ascher, Stutz & Co.”
“That is so,” said Stutz.
“And your proposal?” said Ascher.
“If they can’t crush us,” said Gorman, “and they can’t if you’re behind us, they must buy us. I need scarcely say that your share in the profits will be satisfactory to you. Sir James Digby is one of our directors. There are only four others, and three of them scarcely count. There won’t be many of us to divide what we get.” ”

“ Gorman walked straight up to that door.
“Here we are,” he said.
“Surely,” I said, “this Greek temple can’t be Ascher’s office?”
“This is the exact spot.”
“Tell me,” I said, “do we take off our shoes at the threshold or say grace, or perform some kind of ceremonial lustration? We can’t go in just as we are.”
Gorman did not answer me. He went through the door, the terribly impressive door, without even bowing. There was nothing for me to do but follow him. Tim followed me, nursing his cash register as if it had been a baby, a very heavy and awkwardly shaped baby. ”

“ All the mahogany was very highly polished. The citizens of this town flitted from one glass-fronted house to another. They met in narrow streets and spoke to each other with grave dignity. They spoke in four languages, and English was the one used least. From the remoter parts of the place, the slums, if such a polished town has slums, came the sound of typewriters worked with extreme rapidity. The manual labourers, in this as in every civilised community, are kept out of sight. Only the sound of their toil is allowed to remind the other classes of their happier lot. ”

“ Lawyers wear archaic robes and use a strange language in their mysteries, conveying to us a belief that Justice is an ancient witch whose evil eye can be averted only by the incantation and grotesque posturing of her initiate priests. ”

“ Gorman went on. He explained, as he had explained to me, the plan he had made for forcing the owners of existing cash registers to buy his company out. At last he got to the central, the vitally important point.
“All we want, gentlemen, is your backing. You needn’t put down any money. Your names will be enough. I will make over to you such bonus shares as may be agreed upon. The only risk we run is lawsuits about our patent rights. You understand how that game is worked. I needn’t explain.”
It was evident that both Ascher and Stutz understood that game thoroughly. ”

“ Surgeons and dentists allow us fleeting glimpses of bright steel instruments, very strangely shaped. It is contrived that we see them in a cold, clear light, the light of scientific relentlessness. There is a suggestion of torture, not brutal but exquisitely refined, of perfected pain, achieved by the stimulation of recondite nerves of very delicate sensibility. ”

“ Mildmay’s report,” said Ascher, “before we come to any decision; but in the meanwhile we should like to hear any proposal you have to make.”
“Yes,” said Stutz, “your proposals. We are prepared to listen to them.”
Stutz seemed to me to speak English with difficulty. His native language was perhaps German, perhaps Hebrew or Yiddish or whatever the language is which modern Jews speak in private life.
“The matter is simple enough,” said Gorman. “Our machine will drive any other out of the market. There’s no possibility of competition. The thing is simply a dead cert. It can’t help going.” ”

“ There was a large number of little shops in it, luncheon places, barbers’ shops, newspaper stalls, tobacconists’ stalls, florists’ stalls, and sweet shops, which displayed an enormous variety of candies. We were in the very centre of the business part of the city, a part to which women hardly ever go, unless they are typists or manicure girls. ”