“Who were the Shrimpstones?” I inquired.
“The Shrimpstones! Jiminy crickets! Is it possible that you are not familiar with the fame of Joshua Shrimpstone?”
“I have to plead guilty,” was my answer.
“To tell you the truth, so do I,” he went on, “but my own ignorance never surprises me. There is so much of it that a little more or less does not matter. It is the ignorance of so many of my fellow countrymen regarding this important subject that fills me with pity and astonishment. I have never met a man who could give me the slightest information regarding the Shrimpstones.
“It would seem that Mrs. Butters enjoys an arrogant and heartless monopoly of all knowledge about them. One does not feel like asking her to dispel his ignorance when she speaks the word 'Shrimpstone' as if it opened vistas of incomparable splendor and inspiration. No, there are things which even a lawyer can not do. There is a special look in her eye and a lyrical note in her voice when she says 'my grandfather, the late Joshua Shrimpstone.' I imagine that Bill Hohenzollern looks like that when he says: 'My grandfather, Frederick the Great' But I imagine, too, that Bill's manner is a bit more casual.
“I had done some business for Mrs. Butters now and then, and one day she came to get my advice on a strictly personal matter. Her son, John Shrimpstone Butters, was just out of college. She had expected Butters & Bronson, of the great corset factory, in which she had a considerable interest, to take him into the firm and give him a commanding position in the office. As they had not come forward with an invitation, she had asked them for that favor. They had refused—actually and firmly refused—and what do you think they had offered John—a great grandson of Joshua Shrimpstone? Why, they had offered him a place as errand boy at five dollars a week. They actually expected him to begin at the bottom of the ladder and work his way up as if he were nothing more than the ambitious son of a ditch digger. Mrs. Butters lost her self-control and sobbed as she confided the distressing fact to me.
“I told her that I would have a talk with Bill Bronson, the head of the firm, and see what could be done about it, and she left me.
“In my talk with him, Bill said:
“'We should like to do anything we can for Mrs. Butters's boy but all we can do is to give him a chance—the same chance that my own boy will have. He can begin at the bottom and we will push him along from one department to another as rapidly as he can master its details. He must learn every process from the making to the delivery of the goods. Above all, he must learn to be a good salesman. After a few years he might become the Butters of Butters & Bronson if he were willing to work hard.'
“I wired Mrs. Butters to call again at my office. She called. I told her what Bill Bronson had said to me.