And sang, maybe.
The factory’s output increased fifty percent without straining a ligament. The puddler seemed as interested as the President in everything that was doing around the Works.
If you had stood on the corner when the morning whistles blew, and watched the dinner-pailers heading up Main Street, you could have picked the workers of Fairman from the toilers of Grabit with your eyes 22° off centre.
The Grabiters all had that “I wasn’t-hired-to-do-that” air, and groused about the Boss in low dismal tones all the way from liver-and-coffee to forge and furnace, and back again. Every shoulder balanced its chip; and grouch, gruff and grump settled over the Works so thick you couldn’t rip it with a rapier.
Every morning when Grabit opened his mail he was regaled with much pleasing news from Kicking Kusstomers about defective Goods, shortage and all those things that wallow in the wake of a system of inspection that has sagged to a dull routine through indifference and the lack of pussonel interest.
Grabit didn’t sneak behind any door and whisper to himself what he really thought of the unreasonable dubs that made these complaints. On the contrary, he called his melancholy stenographer and dictated a masterful piece of satire and roofraising rhetoric that was calculated to double them up like a jack-knife.
Now all this kind of thing was planked sirloin for the Salesmen of Fairman. They shared in the profits of their Concern and didn’t have to knock down Bus Fares any more in their expense books, and so they were full of joy and jump.
They got after the disgruntled Customers of Grabit like bees after blossoms and did not exactly have to shoot up the place to scare any of them away from their old connections.
Grabit’s Salesmen were drawing down their good old $100 a month salary, and turning in vouchers for street-car fares, and so when they ran up against the Order Baggers of Fairman they were able to put up about as strong a rebuttal as a girls’ debating society.
Each succeeding season saw a new addition to the Fairman works, until forty acres had been brought under roof and the town had been made a regular stop for the Fast Express. Grabit noted every progressive step with increasing pains in the pit of the stomach, but not to be outdone, he revolutionized things himself by installing a new factory whistle.