There was gray in his hair but there was still more brown than white and he wasn't going bald. He was clean-shaven, clean in general, and well-dressed. He was still no prize by up-timer standards, but was a well-enough-formed man of the short and stocky sort. He still had the pock marks that were fairly common in the seventeenth century, but had virtually disappeared from the twentieth.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" said a voice in up-timer English.
Johan looked up to see a woman in a hair net and apron, holding a great pot of knockwurst and sauerkraut, apparently today's lunch main course. All of which lead him to believe that she was a down-timer lunchroom servant, but the language shouted up-timer. So did the clear, rosy complexion. Even after two years, the discontinuity made Johan a little uncomfortable, though he knew perfectly well that it shouldn't. She put the big tray in the steam table and gave Johan a look of increasing suspicion.
"I am doing paperwork," Johan said.
"I could see that. Why are you doing it in the high school lunchroom?"
"I'm waiting for Master David," Johan said, fully aware that he was making a hash of the whole mess.
Darlene Myers wished she had asked one of the other cafeteria workers about the man before she approached him, but he had just been sitting there, in mostly down-timer style clothing-rich down-timer clothing, if she was any judge. And she had thought about all the stories from up-time about predators frequenting schools, and assumed down-time had had the same sort. And he looked sort of creepy, or at least he had at first glance. Now she was more than a little lost. Who was this Master David? Was there some down-time noble going to the high school? She realized that there must be. She hadn't thought about it, but she had just gotten this job a few days ago. Through a friend who thought she was crazy to take it.
"Who is this Master David?" she asked. "Is he a student here?"
"Master David Bartley," the man said, with what sounded to Darlene like considerable pride in his voice. Now that sounded like an up-timer, not a down-timer. Though. .No. She remembered the Higgins Sewing Machine Company and OPM. David Bartley was one of the up-timer kids who had started getting rich after the Ring of Fire. Apparently, David had gone native in a big way, servants and the whole deal. What Darlene wanted to do was send this servant off with a bee in his ear about the rights of man and give this David Bartley a good talking to on the same subject. The problem was, she didn't actually know anything about the situation. So she gave the man a warning look and a humpf and retreated back to the kitchen to gather more intelligence.
"Who is that guy in the serving room?" Darlene asked. "He says he is waiting for Master David Bartley, no less."
Gretel Hoffmann looked over at the calendar. "I bet it's the HSMC board meeting. Johan Kipper is on the board, you know. Even after the Schmidt takeover, he stayed on the board along, with Delia Higgins and Mr. Marcantonio."
Which didn't answer Darlene's question at all.
"What?"
Gretel, an old Grantville hand and a great gossip, gave Darlene a condescending look. About half the kitchen staff here was convinced she was an idiot, otherwise what was she doing serving meals to teenagers when her up-timer knowledge was so valuable. Gretel, after questioning her, just figured she was crazy.
"Well, it's like this. David Bartley is the real head of OPM and is one of the biggest stockholders in HSMC. Johan Kipper is his man. He represents David Bartley in board meetings and the like, because David Bartley is too young to sit on the board of a corporation by your up-timer law."
It really wasn't the sort of discussion that Darlene had expected from the kitchen staff of a high school lunchroom, but she hadn't thought about what the changes the down-time world had brought to Grantville would mean.
"How many of our students are millionaires?" Darlene wondered aloud.
"Oh, lots," Gretel said and started going through the names.
"Never mind," Darlene interrupted the list. "Why does Herr Kipper-at least, I assume it's Herr Kipper out there-call David Bartley 'Master David'? Hasn't anyone mentioned to him that we don't have slavery in Grantville?"
For a minute Gretel just looked at her like she was strange. Then she said, "He is just a little old-fashioned. Johan Kipper came to them as a former soldier, a beggar, hoping for work, and now he is rich." Gretel clucked her tongue at such undeserved good fortune. "Some people are just born lucky."
All this left Darlene confused, but very intrigued. She picked up another tray for the steam table and headed out to check out the guy. He wasn't a great looking specimen, short and stocky and with the leftovers from the worst case of acne she had ever imagined. No, she realized. Johan Kipper had survived smallpox. He was as tough as he looked, apparently. "Is the board meeting of Higgins Sewing Machine Company coming up?" she asked, mostly because it was all she could think of to open the conversation with.
He looked up. "Yes. How did you. ."
"Gretel. She knows everything about everyone. At least she claims to. Why does that mean you need to be here?"
"Because Young Master David needs to know what will be decided at the board meeting. Herr Schmidt is arguing again to increase the sales price."
"Why? Have costs gone up?"
"No. They have gone down. But we sell a sewing machine and, often as not, the buyer turns around and resells it the next day for a considerable profit."
"And Herr Schmidt figures you might as well make the extra profit."
"Yes."
"So, why not?" Darlene asked. "I mean, I can understand why you guys might want to be generous, but if the generosity isn't getting to the people who are the end-users, why not make the extra profit?"
Johan looked at her in confusion for a moment. "End-user? Oh, I get it! Very clever. Sometimes it takes me a minute to understand up-timer expressions. Young Master David is concerned that if we price the units too high, we are likely to force someone else to go into competition. Herr Schmidt insists that they will anyway, as soon as they can figure out how. He wants to guard our proprietary information more strongly." Johan grinned, an open, friendly expression, with just a touch of impishness. "A couple of weeks ago, he was threatening to lock the Partow twins out of the factory if they kept giving away secrets."
Darlene was finding this a very interesting conversation. She had been so busy the last couple of years, grieving for her husband and her son, Johnny, both left up-time, and trying to help reinvent electrical power generation over at the power plant, that she hadn't had much time to consider what was happening in the rest of Grantville. But she was more interested in what this man thought. "What do you think?"
"About the Partow twins?"
"No. About raising the price."
"I think Herr Schmidt is right about someone starting to build sewing machines as soon as they can, but I don't see any way of stopping them from learning how to do it. Too much is public record."
"So should you raise the price?"
Johan stopped and clearly gave Darlene's question some thought. "I think Herr Schmidt is right about the price."
"Are you going to tell David that?"
"Yes."
Then Gretel came out of the kitchen and Darlene had to go back to work.