After dinner he was invited up to Marvin’s room, and there he spread out the patterns of his ponderous upstanding punch-presses. He stood twirling a pencil while Marvin figured out for himself the ingenious device by which Jimmy had stopped the almost daily accidents. The device was simple enough. Jimmy’s machines could not be started except by pressing two buttons that stood far apart, and so at the critical moment both hands were removed from danger.
More talk made it clear that James Endicott Hogg, though very modest about it, was on his way to an important departmental managership. It was also clear that he did not believe in profit-sharing, and that he would never admit workmen to the slightest share in administration. He was hard to the point of brittleness.
Yet he was not heartless. Though he could not be driven, he could be led. Though hard, he was ductile—a contradiction in terms till one thinks of a certain steel alloy which can be drawn out but which cannot be shaped except by grinding. The workman who demanded least consideration from Jimmy would probably receive the most.
But some ductility comes not save by shock, and this is noticeably true of family pride. Having something pretty personal to say to Jimmy, Marvin finally concluded to try the heat and shock method.
“I wish that instead of being named Mahan I had been named Onions.”
Jimmy merely lifted his eyebrows.
“Yes, Onions. In France I knew a chap so called, and it proved to be because his forefathers came from Auvergne. There may be other Onions, but doubtless their origin is equally respectable. Now, I am Marvin because my mother was a Marvin, but ‘Mahan’ means a bear. I say it’s an insult.”
“The word Mahan,” replied Jimmy, “does not mean a bear. It means a friend of mine.”
“You are no friend of mine when you flatly contradict me. You are so damned self-satisfied that you have no regard for my feelings. I don’t like to be contradicted and I don’t like to be called a bear.”
“The word Mahan,” calmly repeated Jimmy, “does not mean a bear. Neither does Hogg mean a hog. Nobody thinks of the origin of a name.”