“How very good of you to come all this way to see us.” He pressed me into a chair. “Do sit down. Now let me see, it’s Mr. Marlow, isn’t it? Splendid.” He waved a deprecatory hand at his marginal calculations. “Just a little problem in mechanics, Mr. Marlow. I’ve been trying to work out approximately how many foot-pounds of energy an eighteen handicap man saves on an average round by having a caddy to carry his clubs for him. It’s a tremendous figure.” He chuckled. “Do you play golf, Mr. Marlow?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“A great game. The greatest of all games.” He beamed at me. “Well, well now. To business, eh? We wrote to you, didn’t we? Yes, of course.” He relapsed into his chair again and stared at me through the lower half of his spectacles for fully thirty seconds. Then he leaned forward across the table. “ Se non e in grado,” he said deliberately, “ di accettare questa mia proposta, me lo dica francamente. Non me l’avro a male.”
I was a little taken aback, but I replied suitably: “ Prima prendere una decisione vorrei sapere sua proposta, Signore.”
His eyebrows went up. He snapped his fingers delightedly. He lifted the slide-rule, banged it down on the table and sat back again.
“Mr. Marlow,” he said solemnly, “you are the first person to answer our advertisement who has read it carefully. I have seen six gentlemen before you. Three of them could speak tourist French and insisted that most Italians would understand it. One had been in Ceylon and had a smattering of Tamil. He declared, by the way, that if you shouted loud enough in English anyone would know what you were driving at. Of the other two, one spoke fluent German, while the last had been on a cruise and spent a day in Naples. You are the first to see us who can speak Italian.” He paused. Then a sudden expression of alarm clouded his features. He looked like a child who is about to be hurt. “You are an engineer, aren’t you, Mr. Marlow?” He plucked anxiously at his collar. “You are not, by any chance, an electrician or a chemist or a wireless expert?”
I summarised my qualifications briefly and was about to refer him for greater detail to the letter I had written when I saw that my letter was on the table in front of him and that he was nodding happily over it while I talked. Mr. Pelcher was evidently not quite so ingenious as he appeared.
When I had finished, he slid the letter discreetly under his blotter and emitted a loud sigh of relief. “Then that’s all right. I feel that we understand one another, Mr. Marlow. Now tell me”-he looked like a small boy asking a riddle-“have you had any sales experience?”
“None at all.”
He looked crestfallen. “I was afraid not. However, we can’t have everything. A good engineer who can speak Italian with reasonable accuracy is something you don’t find every day. Excuse me one moment.” He lifted the telephone. “Hallo, Jenny, my dear, please ask Mr. Fitch if he would mind stepping over to my office for a moment.” He put the telephone down and turned to me again. “Mr. Fitch is our export manager. A very nice fellow, with two bonny children, a boy and a girl. His wife, poor soul, is dead. I think you will like him.”
“I wonder,” I said, “if you would mind giving me some idea of what the post involves, Mr. Pelcher?”
He clasped his forehead. “Good heavens, of course. I thought I’d told you. You see, Mr. Marlow”-he clutched at his collar-“we are not a very big concern. We specialise in one particular class of machine. You probably know that.” I didn’t, but I nodded. “We have,” he continued, “a slogan. ‘There is a Spartacus machine for every high-production boring job.’ It is, within limits, a comprehensive description of our activities. Actually, however, we have been concentrating more and more during the past year or so on high-speed automatic machines for shell production. About a third of our shop space is at present given over to that work. It was started more or less as a side-line. I had some ideas on the subject of that type of machine. We worked them out. They were successful. We secured world patent rights on the design of the Spartacus Type S2 automatic. Incidentally, the word Spartacus was my idea originally. It’s good, don’t you think-Spartacus the slave-neat. However, to return to the S2. We hold world patent rights, and I must say they’ve proved very valuable to us. We have licensed some of our American friends to manufacture; but we retained the European market for ourselves. I think we were wise. The Germans have produced a machine to compete with the S2, but it’s no better than ours, and we have had a good start. Business with the Continent has been really brisk. The Italians, in particular, took to the S2 immediately. The ordnance department of the Italian Admiralty were very interested. Firms installing our machines were able to reduce their costs quite phenomenally. We have, of course, been approached by British concerns, but frankly we have been kept so busy with export business that we haven’t bothered so far to cultivate the home market. The Italians have been so very helpful, too, in arranging the financial details. As a rule, you know, it’s quite difficult to get money out of Italy in these days. In our special case they pay with drafts on New York. You see, they need the machines. Very friendly of them. About a year ago we decided that it would pay us to open an Italian office. I couldn’t spare the time to keep on running over there all the time. Milan is, as you may know, the centre of things from our point of view. We got hold of a very good man for the job. You may have heard of his sad death. Ferning was the name.”
“I can’t say that I know of him.”
“No? It was mentioned in the trade papers. But perhaps a man of your age doesn’t read the obituary notices.” He chuckled and pulled so violently at his collar that I thought the stud would snap. He became serious again. “Poor Ferning! A nervous, sensitive sort of fellow I always thought. But then you can’t always judge by appearances. He made an amazingly good thing of the Milan office. With an order we got from Turkey, we’ve sold practically the whole of our present output of S2 automatics for the next two years. It’s a nice machine. Naturally, that is only on our present production basis. We’re putting up a new shop, and as soon as that is going we shall be in a position to accept all the orders we can get. Bad luck about Ferning. The poor chap was run over a few weeks back. A very sad affair. As far as we can gather it was foggy and he was walking home when it happened. Killed outright, fortunately. The driver of the car, whoever it was, didn’t stop. Probably didn’t even know he’d hit anybody in the fog. They’re sometimes pretty thick in Milan, you know. Unmarried, thank goodness, but he leaves a sister who was dependent on him. Very hard lines.”
“Yes, very.”
“Ferning’s assistant, Bellinetti, is carrying on at the moment. But we are not regarding that arrangement as permanent. A good assistant, no doubt, but not yet ready for responsibility. Besides, he’s not a trained engineer. That’s what we need, Mr. Marlow. A trained man, a man who can go into the works and show the customer how to get the best out of our machines. With the Germans so active at the moment, we’ve got to keep well in with the people who matter, and”-he winked broadly-“and co-operate with the Italian officials. However, Mr. Fitch will tell you more about that.” He lifted the telephone again. “Hullo. Is Mr. Fitch coming over, Jenny? On his way? Good.” He clawed at his collar and turned to me again. “Naturally, Mr. Marlow, if we were to come to terms we should want you to spend a week or so here in the works before you left. But there again, that’s something we can discuss later. Of course, you may not like the look of us ”-he chuckled as if at the idea of such a fantastic possibility-“but I must say I feel that we might profitably discuss the matter in more detail first.”
I laughed politely, and was about to intimate that more detail, and in particular more detail in connection with the financial aspects of the job, was precisely what I should like, when there was a knock at the door.