PART TWO

NIRVANA, LIMITED

§ 1

“Pretty” Bramson—black well-oiled hair, curled moustaches, blue eyes and general dapperness had earned the nickname when, as East County salesman for his cousin Marcus Bramson, owner of Bramson’s “Pulman” Virginias, he had first gone “on the road”—sat pensive in the sales-manager’s office of Nirvana Ltd., Manufacturers of High Grade Cigarettes. The room was large, well carpeted, glinting with mahogany. On the walls hung sales-charts, specimen advertisements for the Press, show cards—gaudy but efficient—for tobacconists’ windows. Through the thin partition, he heard the whirr of fly-wheels, subdued chatter of work-girls, Turkovitch’s voice raised in sharp expostulation, occasionally the thump which told him that the new “U.K.” machine—their fourth—was being swiftly erected. But “Pretty” Bramson thought only indirectly of Nirvana.

He had dined, the night before, with his cousin Marcus; and Marcus had asked, quite casually, about the factory. “Were they earning dividends yet? Why didn’t one see the stuff about more? How about the export trade?” Marcus had hinted too, barely hinted, that if at any time. . . .

“Pretty” Bramson put the temptation resolutely behind him. Jamesons had plenty of capital; could always find more if they wanted it. Besides, he had a little money put by himself. Probably, if things continued to go well, “young Peter” would let him in as a minority shareholder. Afterwards, they would float it on the public. Meanwhile, £500 a year plus a sliding-scale commission on the constantly increasing output was not to be sneezed at by a man of thirty-two.

§ 2

Peter Jameson paid his taxi; threw away the stump of his after-breakfast cigar; and walked straight through the open doors of the goods entrance into his factory.

He was neither an over-imaginative nor a romantic person, this quiet gray-eyed young man in the bowler hat and the well-cut tweed overcoat: but he never could look at that big glass-roofed building, at the work-girls in their clean smocks, at the vague forms of machinery whirling away behind their frosted-glass partitions, at the men pricking and soldering the vacuum export-tins (plunged base-deep in hot sand to expel the corrupting air), at the great bins of sweet-smelling tobacco,—at the whole paraphernalia of this living entity he was creating—without a certain thrill of satisfaction. He had given up a good deal for this same Nirvana—leisure, money, his gun in the little Norfolkshire shoot, trout fishing, the possibility of a car. But Nirvana, almost home! was worth it.

Ivan Turkovitch bustled out from behind one of the partitions; trotted over.

“Vell, Petere. And how are you? Come overe and see de new machine. Ve are just getting him put up. Peautiful!”

The small hands gesticulated satisfaction; the tawny beard waggled accompaniment. Like the rest of his “vork-peoples,” Turkovitch wore a smock. It made him a rather grotesque little figure.

But Turkovitch’s satisfaction, as an artist, with the growth of the factory, was only superficial. As a man, a man of small ideas, he could not grasp the ultimate scheme, the big conception which inspired Peter. Frankly, it frightened him. More orders and more orders! More expenses and more expenses! What would be the end? He—Ivan Turkovitch—had never wanted a vast business; felt himself incapable of controlling it.

“Peautiful,” he said again, as they stood in the machine-room. Overhead, fly-wheels whirled, driving-belts clacked. On the clean hardwood floor, the three machines stamped and clicked at their endless tasks. Perched on high seats, girls fed the hoppers with flocky golden armfuls of tobacco. The machines swallowed it; spewed it forward, forcing it through steel tubes into a rod: drew up paper from the slow-moving reels; wrapped it about the tobacco; printed it; chopped the paper-covered rod into cigarettes; delivered them to the waiting hands of the girls who patted them into wooden trays. A shirt-sleeved mechanic tended each machine, now this part, now that. Sparks spurted as deft grindstone met swift-revolving knife. The fourth and newest “U.K.” was not yet working: by it, adjusting, measuring, screwing up a bolt here and there, stood a German workman.

For the “United Kingdom” Cigarette-machine was not made in this England, where craftsmen starved while Free Traders preached to them!

Turkovitch spoke to the German; queried something.

“_Dass ist mir verboten_,” said the man. “_Es muss genau so gemacht werden._”

“What does he say?” asked Peter.

“He says he cannot do what I ask him. It is forbidden. Never mind, when he goes back to Hamburg, we do it ourselves. They do not know everything, these Germans.”

They passed on; through the drying-rooms; and the cutting-rooms where girls picked-over the dried leaves and “blenders” fed them into presses that forced the thick mass forward to the dropping knife; through the label-printing room; into the main factory again; past the box-making tables where more girls laboured with paste-brush and zinc-board; and the packing tables, piled high with filled boxes waiting their seals; into the stock-room.

“Rather low, aren’t we?” queried Peter, looking at the half-empty shelves.

“Very low, Sir?” said the dispatch-forewoman, busy making up the day’s orders.

“You go on with your vork, Mary,” snapped Turkovitch. The woman went out of the room, leaving them alone.

“Look here, Turkovitch”—Peter’s gray eyes had grown just a shade darker—“you know I won’t stand that sort of thing. I spoke to the girl; and she answered me. You’ve no right to be rude to her.”

The little man became apologetic. . . . “But you do not understand the vork-peoples, Petere. You have never been one of the vork-peoples. I have. De vork-peoples they do not respect you ven you talk nicely to them.”

“Don’t you believe it, Turkovitch”—the quarrel between them was an old one—“the ‘vork-peoples,’ as you call them, respect a man who respects them; who knows what he wants, and tells them how he wants it done—decently.”

Ivan, inventing an excuse, went back to the machine-room. “How on earth I shall ever be able to introduce the copartnership system into this place with that Hungarian obstructionist in charge,” thought Peter, “the Lord knows.” He stood there with his hands in his pockets for a minute or two: then, lighting a cigar, strode off to Bramson’s room.

§ 3

“Bramson,” said Peter—greetings over—“how much do you know about the manufacturing part of this business?”

“Well, Sir. . . .”

“Oh, never mind about the ‘Sir.’ You’re not a clerk.”

“Well, when I was with my cousin, I used to spend a good deal of time in the various departments.” The Jew looked up shrewdly, intimately. “Why? Is anything wrong with T.?”

“No. I was asking—for information. One-man shows are never safe. Supposing Turkovitch were taken ill, could you run the place for—say three months?”

“I ran it while he was on his holidays.”

“H’m. That’s rather different. Know anything about blending?”

“Not much.”

“We could get a foreman to do that,” remarked Peter reflectively. “And I’m not entirely ignorant on the subject myself. How about the rest of it—printing, box-making, looking after the girls? . . . That new master-printer seems a pretty efficient kind of fellow.” He broke off; said, “Don’t let this conversation go any further”; and took up the routine of the day.

Bramson, in addition to his principal duty of sales-manager, acted as Peter’s right-hand man in the not-always-smooth financing of the concern: so that their discussion lasted—uninterrupted save for occasional telephone calls—till the whistle blew, and a shuffle of moved stools on the hard-wood floor presaged the midday break. Nirvana provided free cooking for its employés; and the three principals shared the facility.

“Vell,” said Turkovitch, peeling off his smock as he entered, “now ve have some lunch. You join us, eh, Petere?”

One of the girls brought in a table; laid it; produced three chops, potatoes, beer. The Hungarian had apparently got over his huff. “Orders is plentiful, especially de export,” he said.

“Bramson and I have just been discussing that. Something’s got to be done about the home trade. We must have two more travellers. The press-advertising wants gingering up. I’ve telephoned for Higham to come and see me this afternoon. And I think we ought to have one or two electric signs. Big ones. Flashing, if we can afford them.”

“But the money? . . .” remonstrated Turkovitch.

“Oh, damn the money. Don’t you worry about that. I’ll find the money all right, if you’ll only get the orders out quickly. That last big lot for the Argentine took nearly six weeks.”

Turkovitch protested; and a wrangle ensued. Bramson sat very quiet. He was not a shareholder in the concern—yet. But, if he knew anything about anything, “young Peter” would get his own way; even if he had to buy Turkovitch out. Then that thousand pounds of savings would go into “ordinary” shares of Nirvana Ltd. . . .

“We’d better have all this out at the board-meeting next Monday,” said Peter finally. “Reid will have the year’s figures ready by then.”

§ 4

Reid, Chatterton and Reid, Chartered Accountants, inhabited a cold gloomy office on the fourth floor of Great Winchester House—an office by no means in keeping with their status as one of the premier auditing firms in the City. George Reid himself—a deliberate-looking middle-aged man of University education, square-chinned, clean-shaven, lined of face but twinkling of eye—welcomed Peter; led him into the “board-room”—a shabby apartment furnished with twelve wood-seated chairs, an enormous table and a rather gimcrack sofa.

“The others haven’t arrived yet. Have some tea?”

“Thanks,” said Peter. “Tell me,” he went on, after the two cups had been brought, “has Turkovitch been to see you?”

“Unofficially,” grinned Reid. “Yes. What have you been doing to the little man? He’s in a rare stew. Says he wishes he could get his money out.”

“He can,” said Peter laconically. “I’m about through with friend Ivan. It isn’t that I grudge him the eventual profits. But the chap’s no good for a show like this. He hasn’t got the spunk.”

“Well, don’t lose your temper with him this afternoon,” warned Reid, who knew Peter of old. “By the way, how’s Jameson’s getting on these days? You really ought to have their accounts audited, you know.”

“Simpson won’t. He’s very old-fashioned; says he can’t stand outsiders prying into his affairs.”

Bramson and Turkovitch came in, shook hands, sat down. Reid opened the “minute-book,” gabbled off the minutes of the last meeting which Peter signed perfunctorily. (Nirvana was a private company, the requisite number of shareholders being made up by clerks.)

“And now,” began Reid, “for the accounts. As far as I can see—there are one or two adjustments still to be made—we have managed, for the first time, to pay all our expenses and earn a small dividend.”

“Do ve pay out de dividend?” asked Turkovitch.

“Of course we don’t,” snapped Peter, “the money’s wanted for expansion.”

“Den vot’s the good of making it?” growled Turkovitch.

“One moment, gentlemen,” went on Reid. “I find, on careful analysis of the figures, that—had it not been for the high profits earned on the export trade—we should have made, not a profit, but a loss.” He gave details, and concluded, “I don’t think that’s a sound position.”

“Nor I,” commented Peter.

But here Turkovitch—tact thrown to the winds—boiled over. It was _his_ business; _his_ name was on all the brands; he knew quite well what “Petere” wanted; “Petere” wanted to be a millionaire; “Petere” wished to spend all the profit in some crazy scheme of advertising; why should they advertise? the cigarettes were the finest cigarettes in the world; he, Turkovitch, guaranteed them. . . .

“Oh, shut up,” muttered Peter, exasperated.

“I vill not shut up. You are always interfering. You interfere with me and de vork-peoples. You interfere vith my tobacco merchants. And now you vant to interfere vith de dividends.”

“Damn it, _you_ draw a salary of seven hundred a year; and I haven’t had a penny piece out of the concern yet.”

Turkovitch became plaintive, even less intelligible than usual. “But vy not pay out de dividend? A leetle dividend. Drei per cent on de cabital.”

“Because, there’s no money to do it with: because we’re trading on bank-credit: because. . . . Oh, you try and explain things to him, Reid,” said our Mr. Jameson hopelessly.

Reid plunged into an exhaustive bath of facts and figures. There was big money to be made out of Nirvana. Reid knew it; Peter knew it; Bramson knew it. The hopeless period of an advertising business, the pay-pay-pay-and-not-a-jitney-of-it-back stage had been passed. Now, all they needed was work, a little more capital, and—supremely—confidence. But the Hungarian didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t see it.

“Dis is not business, eet is gambling,” he kept on saying. “You spend and you spend. And dere are no deevidends. I vish I had my cabital out of de gompany. . . .”

Reid glanced at Peter, who took the cue, screwed the butt of his cigar into the corner of his mouth, and said, very slowly:

“Look here, Turkovitch. You’re being a frightful ass. I don’t like to see any man who has worked with me throwing away a fortune. . . .”

“Fortune?” sniffed Turkovitch. “Vith no deevidends.”

“_Do_ let me speak for a minute. As I was saying, you’re being very foolish. But if you really mean what you say, you shall have your capital out. _I’ll_ buy your shares off you. At a fair price.”

“Vot price?”

Peter, who had devoted the week-end (Poor Patricia!) to a careful study of the anticipated problem, drew a piece of paper from his pocket.

“When I first consented to join you in this show,” he began, “you were worth, at an outside estimate, two thousand pounds. For six years, you’ve been drawing £700 a year.”

“Dat,” said Turkovitch, slightly mollified already, “vos for my vork, for my experience.”

“Quite right. I wasn’t asking you to give it me back, was I? Then there’s six years’ compound interest at, say, five per cent. Call it two thousand eight hundred. I’ll give you”—Peter hesitated for a moment, went up two hundred in his mind—“Three thousand pounds for your shares in Nirvana. The lot, of course.”

* * * * *

And so—after about a fortnight of negotiation—they got rid of the obstructionist. He went, in the end, quietly; delighted with his cheque; saying: “Now, I and my wife, ve take a little trip to Salonica. Perhaps, ven I come back, ve do some business in de leaf-tobacco, eh, Petere?”

“Right you are,” said our Mr. Jameson, who had no patience with fools but never bore malice.