I had then on hand two orders for standard surface plates and straight edges, one from the Colt Armory and one from Pratt & Whitney. Mr. Meyers had just finished work on these when Mr. Goodfellow appeared. He had not been at work in the shop but a day or two when he asked me if I had got the cross-wind out of those straight edges.
I made him the ignorant answer that they were so narrow the matter of cross-wind had not occurred to me as important, as our planer did very true work. He said nothing, but pulled a hair out of his head and laid it across a straight edge at its middle point. He then inverted another straight edge on it and swung this on the hair as a pivot. It swung in one direction freely, but in the other direction the corners caught and it was revealed that the surfaces were spirals. I gave him the job of taking out this twist. He was occupied about two days in making the three interchangeable straight edges quite true. When finished I tried them with great satisfaction, the test showing also their absolute freedom from flexure. The first swing on the hair pivot was in each direction as if the upper straight edge were hanging in the air. As this was repeated back and forth, I felt the surfaces gradually approaching each other, the same increasing resistance being felt in each direction of the swing, and finally they were in complete contact. What became of the hair I could not find out. This refinement of truth, so easily attained and demonstrated when we know how, was of course a necessity. I made the engines at that time with the steam-chest separate from the cylinder; so two long steam joints had to be made between cylinder, chest, and cover.
I fitted up these standards, both surface plates and straight edges, with their edges scraped also to true planes and all their angles absolute right angles. For this and other purposes I made two angle plates, each face 8 inches square, with diagonal ribs. These were scraped so that when the two were set on a surface plate, either surface of one would come in complete contact with either surface of the other, and also when one or the other was set on its edges. This angle plate also is [shown].
For our screw-thread work I made a pair of steel 60-degree standards, the truth of which was demonstrated as follows: The outside gauge being set up on a surface plate, the inside triangular block set on the surface plate passed through the former in exact contact, whichever angle was up and whichever side was presented. From the cylindrical gauges of Smith & Coventry I made flat inside and outside gauges of steel with faces hardened, reserving the former for reference only. I had wondered why this was not done in England. Presume they have learned the importance of it long ago.
We could not advertise—the fact is I was ashamed to; but we had as many orders as we could take with our very limited means of production. Indeed, we had frequent applications which called for engines too large for us to consider them. We had some applications from parties who were short of power, and on measuring their engines with the indicator always found that we could supply their requirements by putting in smaller engines. In one case I remember we put in an engine of just one half the size, and requiring but one quarter the weight of fly-wheel, of the one taken out, and gave them all the additional power they wanted, and more uniform motion. This would seem an extravagant statement were not its reasonableness proved by the experience of makers of high-speed engines generally. Sometimes the indicator showed ludicrous losses of pressure between boiler and engine.
On account of his familiarity with the requirements of more exact construction, I made Mr. Goodfellow my foreman after he had been with me a short time, and he proved to be the very man for the position. He made all my engines in Harlem and afterwards in Newark, and I was largely indebted to him for my success.
Before the close of our first year Mr. Smith proposed that our business be transferred to a company, to which he would pay in a little additional money, in consideration of which, and of his previous advances to the business, he demanded a controlling interest in the stock. I did not like the idea, but Mr. Hope and Mr. Allen favored it, and I consented. So the company was incorporated. Mr. Smith was made its president, and one of his sons was made secretary and treasurer. He transferred to this son and also to another one qualifying shares of his stock, and both were added to the board of directors, that making six of us. The admirable way in which this machinery worked will appear by and by.
Mr. Smith proceeded at once to get out a catalogue and build on the vacant lot a new business office, of quite respectable size and two stories high, finishing the second story for Mr. Goodfellow with his family to live in. When this building was ready Mr. Smith installed himself in the office and busied himself in meddling and dictating about the business, impressing me with the great advantage of having a thorough business man at the head of it. If I ventured any word on this subject, I always received the sneering reply, “What do you know about business?” The following incident in this connection may amuse the reader as much as it did me. I may mention in the first place that when, as already stated, he with Mr. Hope acquired the entire indicator patents, of which he assumed the individual management and so I always supposed had secured the larger part, the first thing he did was to repudiate my agreement with Mr. Richards to pay to him 10 per cent. of the receipts from the patents, this being a verbal agreement (as all the transaction was), and so Mr. Richards never received another penny.
One morning Mr. Smith came into my office and said, “Do you know that the license to Elliott Brothers to manufacture the indicators has expired?” I had licensed them only for seven years, not knowing whether or not they would prove satisfactory licensees. “Well,” said I, “suppose it has?” “Would you let them go on without a license?” he demanded; “that shows how much you know about business.” “If it were my affair,” I replied, “I should not stir it up. I see every reason for letting it alone. It is the business of the licensee, if he feels unsafe, to apply for the extension of his license.” With a contemptuous sneer Mr. Smith left me and immediately wrote Elliott Brothers, reminding them that their license had expired and requesting an answer by return mail to say if they wanted to renew it.
He received the answer that I knew he would, for what good business man ever lets such an opening go by him? They said they were just on the point of writing him that they did not wish to renew unless on very different terms. By the contract they made with me they paid a royalty of £2 on each indicator sold at retail, and £1 10 shillings on each one sold at wholesale. The selling price was £8 10 shillings. They made a large profit on extra springs, of which they sold a great number at 10 shillings each, and which cost them about 2 shillings. They wrote at length on the difficulty of holding the market against the competition of cheap indicators selling at £4 (which was just the competition against which the indicator was at first introduced but which had long before ceased to be serious) and closed by saying that if Mr. Smith would agree to accept one half the former royalty, they would themselves make a corresponding reduction in their profits and would be able to put the indicators at a price that would probably make the business satisfactory. Otherwise they would find themselves compelled to discontinue the manufacture altogether, which they should do unless they received an affirmative reply at once. Of course they got the affirmative reply. Mr. Smith had no alternative. They never reduced the selling price one penny. They had no competition during the life time of the patent, and their sales were enormous. The amount of royalties lost during the remaining seven years of the patent was certainly not less than $35,000.