CHAPTER XVII.
“Plans of mice and men gang aft aglee.”
Morning’s business offices were on the west side of Broadway, below Trinity Church, but he gave attention to his large and increasing correspondence in his rooms at the Hoffman House, where he had a suite of apartments fronting on Broadway.
The largest room of the suite had always been reserved by the proprietors for a private dining room, but Morning insisted upon its constituting a part of his suite, and as he permitted the hotel keepers to name their own price, it was reluctantly surrendered to him. In this room Morning had a large-sized phonograph receiver fitted into the wall opposite his desk, the instrument itself being placed upon a long table against the partition in the adjacent room. A cord which swung over the desk was fastened to a lever connected with an electric motor, also in the next room.
It was Morning’s habit each day after breakfast to seat himself at his desk, open his letters, pull the cord which started the electric motor, and “talk” his replies to the phonograph receiver. The instrument in the next room was arranged to hold a cylinder of sufficient length to receive a communication an hour in length. After Morning had completed this portion of his daily labors, it was the duty of his secretary to remove the cylinders, and place them in other phonographs, where two and sometimes three clerks received their contents, and reduced the same to typewriter manuscript.
This simple contrivance had still another use. Morning knew that there was no such fruitful source of business difficulties and consequent litigation as that which emanated from misunderstanding or misrepresentation of verbal communications. He endeavored, therefore, to conduct all important business conversations in this room, and all the utterances of either party were recorded by the faithful and unerring phonograph, and the cylinders upon which they were reported were properly labeled, dated, and stored away. He did not fail in any instance to inform the person with whom he was conversing that all their words were thus finding accurate record.
One day in October, 1895, while Morning was in Chicago—where he had gone to perfect the organization of a Labor Aid Corporation—the great financier, Mr. Arnold Claybank, stopped at the Hoffman House on his way down town, and ordered a choice dinner for three to be served at seven o’clock that day.
“And have it served in the room fronting upon Broadway, where we always dine,” said the millionaire.
“Very sorry, Mr. Claybank,” answered the clerk, “but that room is at present rented to Mr. David Morning, as a part of his suite, and when he is in town he uses it as a room in which to receive and answer his correspondence; at present he is in Chicago.”
“If he is in Chicago,” replied the Wall Street magnate, “you can have our dinner served in the room as usual. It will not disturb him, certainly, even if he should know of it, and he is not likely to know of it unless you tell him. I have dined in that room with my friends at least once a week during the last twenty years, and, not supposing you would ever rent it for other purposes, I have already invited them to meet me there this evening. I don’t like to change, in fact, I won’t change, and if you will not accommodate me I will take my patronage elsewhere.”
After some hesitation, the clerk agreed to have dinner served in the room desired, and at seven o’clock that evening Mr. Arnold Claybank, with his guests, Mr. Isaiah Wolf and Mr. John Gray, assembled to discuss both the menu and the subject of their gathering.