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Then I would sleep most of the thy, arrive late in the afternoon, sign whatever papers Belle had for me,
see what the shop had done during the day, then take
Belle out to dinner again. I didn't try to do much before then, because creative work makes a man stink
like a goat. After a hard night in the lab shop nobody could stand me but Pete.
Just as we were finishing dinner one day Belie said to me, "Going back to the shop, dear?"
"Sure. Why not?"
"Good. Because Miles is going to meet us there."
"Huh?"
"He wants a stockholders' meeting."
"A stockholders' meeting? Why?"
"It won't take long. Actually, dear, you haven't been paying much attention to the firm's business
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lately. Miles wants to gather up loose ends and settle some policies."
"I've been sticking close to the engineering. What else am I supposed to do for the firm?"
"Nothing, dear. Miles says it won't take long."
"What's the trouble? Can't Jake handle the assembly line?"
"Please, dear. Miles didn't tell me why. Finish your coffee."
Miles was waiting for us at the plant and shook hands as solemnly as if we had not met in a month. I
said, "Miles, what's this all about?"
He turned to Belle. "Get the agenda, will you?" This alone should have told me that Belle had been
lying when she claimed that Miles had not told her what he had in mind. But I did not think of it-hell, I
trusted Belle!-and my attention was distracted by something else, for Belle went to the safe, spun the
knob, and opened it.
I said, "By the way, dear, I tried to open that last night and couldn't. Have you changed the
combination?"
She was hauling papers out and did not turn. "Didn't I tell you? The patrol asked me to change it after
that burglar scare last week."
"Oh. You'd better give me the new numbers or some night I'll have to phone one of you at a ghastly
hour."
"Certainly." She closed the safe and put a folder on the table we used for conferences.
Miles cleared his throat and said, "Let's get started."
I answered, "Okay. Darling, if this is a formal meeting, I guess you had better make pothooks . . .
Uh, Wednesday, November eighteenth, 1970, 9:20 P.M., all stockholders present-put our names
down-D. B. Davis, chairman of the board and presiding. Any old business?"
There wasn't any. "Okay, Miles, it's your show. Any new business?"
Miles cleared his throat. "I want to review the firm's policies, present a program for the future, and
have the board consider a financing proposal."
"Financing? Don't be silly. We're in the black and doing better every month. What's the matter,
Miles? Dissatisfied with your drawing account? We could boost it."
"We wouldn't stay in the black under the new program. We need a broader capital structure."
"What new program?"
"Please, Dan. I've gone to the trouble of writing it up in detail. Let Belle read it to us."
"Well. . . okay."
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Skipping the gobbledegook-like all lawyers, Miles was fond of polysyllables-Miles wanted to do
three things: (a) take Flexible Frank away from me, hand it over to a production-engineering team, and
get it on the market without delay; (-but I stopped it at that point.) "No!"
"Wait a minute, Dan. As president and general manager, I'm certainly entitled to present my ideas in
an orderly manner. Save your comments. Let Belle finish reading."
"Well...all right. But the answer is still `no.'"
Point (b) was in effect that we should quit frittering around as a one-horse outfit. We had a big thing,
as big as the automobile had been, and we were in at the start; therefore we should at once expand and
set up organization for nationwide and world-wide selling and distribution, with production to match.
I started drumming on the table. I could just see myself as chief engineer of an outfit like that. They
probably wouldn't even let me have a drafting table and if I picked up a soldering gun, the union would
pull a strike. I might as well have stayed in the Army and tried to make general.
But I didn't interrupt. Point (c) was that we couldn't do this on pennies; it would take millions. Mannix
Enterprises would put up the doughÄwhat it amounted to was that we would sell out to Mannix, lock,
stock, and Flexible Frank, and become a daughter corporation. Miles would stay on as division manager
and I would stay on as chief research engineer, but the free old days would be gone; we'd both be hired
hands.
"Is that all?" I said.
"Mmm. . . yes. Let's discuss it and take a vote."
"There ought to be something in there granting us the right to sit in front of the cabin at night and sing
spirituals."
"This is no joke, Dan. This is how it's got to be."
"I wasn't joking. A slave needs privileges to keep him quiet. Okay, is it my turn?"
"Go ahead."
I put up a counterproposal, one that had been growing in my mind. I wanted us to get out of
production. Jake Schmidt, our production shop master, was a good man; nevertheless I was forever
being jerked out of a warm creative fog to straighten out bugs in production-which is like being dumped
out of a warm bed into ice water. This was the real reason why I had been doing so much night work and
staying away from the shop in the daytime. With more war-surplus buildings being moved in and a night
shift contemplated I could see the time coming when I would get no peace to create, even though we
turned down this utterly unpalatable plan to rub shoulders with General Motors and Consolidated. I
certainly was not twins; I couldn't be both inventor and production manager.
So I proposed that we get smaller instead of bigger-license Hired Girl and Window Willie, let
someone else build and sell them while we raked in the royalties. When Flexible Frank was ready we
would license him too. If Mannix wanted the licenses and would outbid the market, swell! Meantime,
we'd change our name to Davis & Gentry Research Corporation and hold it down to just the three of us,
with a machinist or two to help me jackleg new gadgets. Miles and Belie could sit back and count the
money as it rolled in.
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