Carmichael grunted. I suspected that he might like to have me offer the firm a chance to come into my business, but I had no such idea. I saw a great future in sausage, and, after that, other things—down a long vista of golden years.
About this time Lou Pierson disappeared from the house and never came back. Slocum went East and did his best to find the girl. He may have been too proud to marry her sister, but he felt badly enough over Lou's going that way. Later, when I saw the girl in New York, I concluded her return could do no good to any one, and said nothing. After Lou disappeared the old man began to drink pretty hard, and finally had to go to the hospital. The Van Buren Street house was a drearier place than ever, and Slocum and I decided to move and start housekeeping together. Ma Pierson needed us no longer. The Hostetters were keeping house for the old lady; for Ed married Hillary shortly after the trial, and together they tried running the Enterprise. But they could not make it go, somehow; so later I made Ed my manager, as I have said. Some time after this, when the old lady Pierson got sick, Slocum and I saw that she had a little rest and comfort to the end of her days. For her son Dick could never look after anybody but himself.
We had not been long in our comfortable flat on the South Side before an unexpected chance came to me to make a lot of money. As I have said, the Duchess brand of sausage, packed in dainty little boxes, was making a name for itself and attracting the attention of the trade. I began to have rivals, and my profits were cut somewhat; but they could never drive out the Duchess, which had a good start. One day Carmichael asked me if I would like to sell my sausage factory, as he called the Aurora plant. I told him jokingly he hadn't the money to buy it. But in reality I was ready to sell, for I saw that if the big packers went into the business in earnest, I could not compete. And it was only a matter of time before they would see, as I had seen, the immense profit in such small things. So when, a few days later, Carmichael said that one of Strauss's men had asked him to bring me over to their place, I went quick enough.
Carmichael took me into Strauss's office and introduced me to one of the men, a shrewd little fellow, who managed some of the old man's deals for him. After a little while, the man, Gooch, began to talk of my sausage business, praised the idea, and hinted that his boss might consider buying me out "for a proper figure." So we began to deal, and pretty soon Gooch named a figure, twenty-five thousand dollars or something of the sort, expecting me to bite. I laughed, and Carmichael, who was sitting by enjoying the fun, said: "He's no kid, Gooch, though he looks it. Better go your whole figure straight off." Gooch then said thirty-five thousand dollars—that was the limit. I began to talk about the kosher meat business the Schunemann brothers were handling for me, and I could see Gooch's eyes open. He got up and went back into an inner office, and when he returned he made the figure fifty thousand dollars. Carmichael expected me to take his offer, and if I had been asked that morning I should have said it was a big price. But suddenly it came into my mind that in that inner office was the great Strauss himself. He thought I was too small fry to deal with: he left me to his lieutenant. And I had a good mind to bring him out to buy my plant of me. So I talked on, and Gooch asked me to name my figure.
"Seventy thousand," I answered pretty quick.
Gooch turned to his desk, as if to tell me to go home, and Carmichael grunted, thinking how he would laugh at me about my cheek. I began to think I had gone too far, when the door of that inner office was pulled back and Strauss himself walked into the room. He nodded to Carmichael and gave me a look from head to foot, but said nothing. Gooch waited for the great man to speak.
"We'll take your figure, Mr. Harrington," Strauss said, after he had looked me up and down, and walked out again.
It took my breath away: the next moment I was sorry I hadn't said a hundred, it seemed so easy. But Strauss was back in his office and the door was pulled to.
The next I knew I was on the street, and big John was laughing so that men turned to look at him. "Pretty good for a kid," he kept saying between his bursts of laughter. "You had the old fox on the run. He wanted your cat's-meat place bad, though."