To Slip the Surly Bonds

St. Louis, Missouri,

Winter, 1883

The next several weeks were busy ones. As promised, Horace began bringing workmen, pipe fitters and engineers into the factory to begin the process of reorganizing the production floor.

At the same time, Nahum and Simeon started to receive responses to the various letters and telegrams they had sent the week before. They were able to secure an additional twenty-thousand dollars in funding to pay for the work that would need to be done. They would still have have return to the bank for an additional loan, but as it was only ten thousand dollars, they were more sanguine about doing so. They were confident they would be able to pay back the loan with little difficulty, once the company was on its feet, which they estimated would take about a year.

When Nahum wasn’t in his office, he was travelling. As such, he spent much of his time on trains, crisscrossing the country, attempting to drum up sales for his new invention. He had visited prospective clients in Detroit, Toledo, Chicago and Pittsburg. Now he was on his way to St Louis.

The rap on the door of his compartment woke him with a slight start. Nahum sat up and reached for his pocket watch. Nahum’s bedroom compartment consisted of a small table and chair, both of which were folded up and a small washbasin with a tap underneath a mirror. It was five o’clock in the morning. The knock on the door came a second time.

“Mr. Goddard, sir?” said the voice of the sleeping car porter from the corridor outside. “Are you awake, sir?”

Nahum pushed back the covers and got out of bed. He crossed the compartment in a couple of steps and opened the door. The coal-black face of the sleeping car attendant was framed in the doorway. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Goddard,” he said, “but your stop is coming up soon, you had best get dressed, sir.”

Nahum nodded his understanding, “yes, thank you.” He pressed some coins into the man’s hand. The porter pocketed the coins and touched his cap in appreciation.

“Thank you very much, sir,” he said. He shut the compartment door with a snap.

Washed and freshly shaven, with his travelling case tucked under his arm, Nahum stepped off the train and on-to the platform an hour later. He joined the flow of people making their way into the train station. Following breakfast in the station’s restaurant, Nahum made his way to the sidewalk outside. The mingled smells of horse manure and coal smoke hung in the air. The street was already crowded with people, most dressed in expensive-looking suits. They hurried past without acknowledging each other. A crisp early morning breeze gusted between the tall buildings. Nahum hailed a passing cab and climbed in.

He arrived at the Palace Hotel twenty minutes later.The lobby of the Palace Hotel was paved with an intricate mosaic of marble tiles. The soles of Nahum’s shoes clacked loudly as he crossed the lobby to the reservations desk. Sunshine pressed against the windows, illuminating the tastefully arranged clusters of armchairs and little tables scattered among the potted palm trees. The man behind the reception desk was tall and boxy.

“May I help you sir?” he asked.

“Yes,” he said, “I have a reservation under the name of Goddard.”

The concierge pulled a large ledger book toward him and began rifling through its pages.

“Ah, yes, Mr. Goddard, you are in room six-thirteen.” He picked up a little bell and rang it with a tinkling chime. A bellhop appeared as if out of thin air.

Nahum was handed a key on a shiny brass fob. An elaborate letter P was stamped into its surface. “Please take Mr.Goddard to his room,” the desk clerk instructed.

“Yes, sir.” He took Nahum’s travelling case. “If you’ll please come with me, Mr. Goddard.”

Nahum fell into line behind the bellhop and followed him around the corner to a cramped elevator. The door was made of elaborately worked wrought iron. It rattled open and Nahum and the bellhop stepped inside.

The bellhop shut the elevator doors and pressed a large brass handle forward and setting the elevator into motion. A minute or two later, the elevator rattled to a stop and the bell hop pulled open the elevator doors and stepped out with Nahum’s travelling case.

“Sixth floor,” he announced.

He followed the bellhop down the hall. The corridor was covered with a thick, soft carpet, which muffled their footsteps. Electric lights glowed from wall sconces. They eventually stopped in front of a door with a polished oak veneer. A brass plaque displayed the room number. Nahum followed the bellhop inside the room. The young man-no more than eighteen-deposited Nahum’s travelling case on the room’s single bed. Nahum dug in his pocket and pressed some change into the boy’s hand before he left the room, the door swinging shut on its well-oiled hinges as he exited

The room consisted of a bed with a brass bedstead, a nightstand with an electric light, and a closet in a corner. A side door led into a bathroom, consisting of a pedestal sink under a round mirror with a beveled edge, a toilet and a large cast iron claw foot bathtub. The walls were painted a soft shade of pastel blue and the floor was tiled with tiny hexagonal subway tiles. The bedroom carpet dark blue, setting off the room’s flora wallpaper.

Nahum crossed the room in a couple of steps and opened the latches on his travel case. Inside was a neatly folded jacket and trousers, as well as socks, shoes, shirts, underwear, and his shaving kit. Nahum quickly unpacked his travelling case, which he left in a corner between the nightstand and the wall. He thrust a hand into his pocket and pulled out his notebook. He quickly rifled through the pages, flipping to the last page, on which he had scribbled an address and the time of his next appointment. Nahum put his notebook away and glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand in the corner next to the bed. It was early. He stood, put his room key in his pocket, turned and went out of the room. He walked down the hall and rode the cramped and rattling elevator back down to the lobby.

Fifteen minutes later, Nahum was climbing into a horse-drawn cab. He gave the cabbie the address and they rattled off into the early morning traffic. The cab ride from the hotel to the headquarters of the St. Louis Hat Company took twenty-five minutes. The cab pulled up and stopped in front of an imposing skyscraper. Carved gargoyles crouched over the doors. The windows seemed to frown down as Nahum as he exited the cab. People in business attire and bowler hats were going in and out through revolving doors with briefcases tucked under their arms. Nobody paid Nahum the slightest attention. He joined the stream of people flowing into the expansive lobby.

The lobby of the St. Louis Hat Company was a large, circular space that rose through three floors. Rows of cylindrical columns supported successive tiers of arches, which in turn supported a large dome. The inside of the dome was painted a deep blue and covered with gold stars. The gilt stars caught and refracted electric light, suffusing the entire space with a pale golden glow.

The lobby echoed with the early morning bustle of people going to work. The soles of Nahum’s shoes clicked loudly on the highly polished marble floor. He crossed the vast space to the reception desk, directly under the blue and gold dome. After speaking to one of the receptionists, Nahum crossed to the bank of elevators on the other side of the lobby and stepped inside. The elevator attendant wore a crimson uniform with a double row of gold buttons down the front and a matching bell hop’s hat. The elevator was panelled from to ceiling with mahogany panelling. A shiny brass rail ran around the perimeter of the elevator. Nahum piled in with several other people.

A chorus of voices responded to the request for floors.

Eight.

Nine.

Fourteen.

Seven.

Twenty.

The elevator jerked upward. A few minutes later, the elevator stopped on the twenty-eighth floor. Nahum stepped out of the elevator into another lobby. This one was smaller and less elaborate than the rotunda downstairs. There was another bank of elevators opposite the one he had just stepped out of. Corridors ran off in both directions. Nahum turned and started walking, his shoes clacking loudly on the stone floor. He stopped in front of a pair of frosted double glass doors. Beside them was a directory with a list of names, departments and office numbers. Nahum reached for his notebook and quickly double-checked the name he had written down against the name on the directory.

Jonas Berringer

Manager of Procurement

Rm. 28364

Nahum put away his notebook and stepped through the double doors. He found himself in a long corridor. Sunlight drew a checkerboard pattern of light and shadow across the floor. A series of doors marched away down the corridor. Brass doorknobs and number plates shone brightly. Nahum found the door he was looking for ten minutes later. Inside was a comfortably furnished reception room. A pair of leather chairs sat on either side of a small marble topped table. The top of the table held an ornamental lamp and several recent periodicals.

Nahum approached the young woman sitting at the desk in the opposite corner. She wore wearing a simple blue dress and her dark hair fell to her shoulders. She sat behind a typewriter. The rhythmic clack of keys filled the room. She looked up as Nahum approached. “May I help you?”

“Yes.” He fished a business card out from inside his breast pocket. “I have an appointment with Mr. Berringer.”

The young woman took Nahum’s card and examined it closely. “Please wait here, and I’ll see if Mr. Berringer is available.” She got up and went through an inner door. Nahum sat down and waited.

He picked up one of the periodicals on the little table. It was last month’s copy of Popular Science. Nahum’s attention had been fully absorbed by a lengthy article on Otto Lilienthal’s experiments with gliders, when the door opened again and the young secretary reappeared. “Mr. Berringer will see you now. Please follow me.” Nahum followed her through the door, which snapped shut behind them. She led him through a warren of offices until they reached a door with a pane of frosted glass.

MR. JONAS BERRINGER

MANAGER OF PROCUREMENT

The words were were stencilled in black and gold letters. The young secretary knocked once and opened the door. “Mr Goddard to see you, sir.”

Nahum got a brief glimpse of a man sitting at a large desk. “Thank you, Eunice, please show him in.”