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