The Mutable Many: A Novel

The office of Monkton & Hope’s great factory hung between heaven and earth, and, at the particular moment John Sartwell, manager, stood looking out of the window towards the gates, heaven consisted of a brooding London fog suspended a hundred feet above the town, hesitating to fall, while earth was represented by a sticky black-cindered factory-yard bearing the imprint of many a hundred boots. The office was built between the two huge buildings known as the “Works.” The situation of the office had evidently been an after-thought—it was of wood, while the two great buildings which it joined together as if they were Siamese twins of industry, were of brick. Although no architect had ever foreseen the erection of such a structure between the two buildings, yet necessity, the mother of invention, had given birth to what Sartwell always claimed was the most conveniently situated office in London. More and more room had been acquired in the big buildings as business increased, and the office—the soul of the whole thing—had, as it were, to take up a position outside its body.

The addition, then, hung over the roadway that passed between the two buildings; it commanded a view of both front and back yards, and had, therefore, more light and air than the office Sartwell had formerly occupied in the left-hand building. The unique situation caused it to be free from the vibration of the machinery to a large extent, and as a door led into each building, the office had easy access to both. Sartwell was very proud of these rooms and their position, for he had planned them, and had thus given the firm much additional space, with no more ground occupied than had been occupied before—a most desirable feat to perform in a crowded city like London.

Two rooms at the back were set apart for the two members of the firm, while Sartwell’s office in the front was three times the size of either of these rooms and extended across the whole space between the two buildings. This was as it should be; for Sartwell did three times the amount; of work the owners of the business accomplished and, if it came to that, had three times the brain power of the two members of the firm combined, who were there simply because they were the sons of their fathers. The founders of the firm had with hard work and shrewd management established the large manufactory whose present prosperity was due to Sartwell and not to the two men whose names were known to the public as the heads of the business.

Monkton and Hope were timid, cautious, somewhat irresolute men, as capitalists should be all the world over. They had unbounded confidence in their manager, and generally shifted any grave responsibility or unpleasant decision to his shoulders, which bore the burdens placed upon them with equanimity. Sartwell was an iron man, with firm resolute lips, and steely blue eyes that were most disconcerting to any one who had something not quite straight to propose. Even the two partners quailed under these eyes and gave way before them if it came to a conflict of opinion. Sartwell’s rather curt “It won’t do, you know” always settled things.

Sartwell knew infinitely more about the works than they did; for while they had been at college the future manager was working his way up into the confidence of their fathers, and every step he took advanced his position in the factory. The three men were as nearly as possible of the same age, and the hair of each was tinged with grey; Sartwell’s perhaps more than the others.

It was difficult to think of love in connection with the two partners, yet it is pleasing to know that when love did come to them at the proper time of life, it had come with gold in one hand and a rigid non-conformist conscience in the other. The two had thus added wealth to wealth by marrying, and, as their wives were much taken up with deeds of goodness, done only after strict and conscientious investigation, so that the unworthy might not benefit, and as both Monkton and Hope were somewhat timorous men who were bound to be ruled by the women they married some of their wealth found its way into the coffers of struggling societies and organizations for the relieving of distress.