and now he wants to indenture you, make you his bound boy, for a pittance. He’s
trying to milk you like a cow. Let him know that you know it… and that you won’t
let him get away with it.’
My husband nodded soberly. ‘I won’t let him. Beloved, I knew what he was trying to
do. But I had to think of you and our children.’
`You do. You will. You always have.’
Brian came home early the next day, carrying a battered Oliver typewriter. He put it
down and kissed me. `Madam, I have joined the ranks of the unemployed.’
‘Really? Oh, goodie!’
`I am an ungrateful wretch. I am no better than a Wobbly and I probably am one. He
has treated me like his own son, his own flesh and blood. And now I do this to him.
Smith, get out of here! Leave these premises; I don’t want to see your face again.
Don’t you dare take even a piece of paper out of this office. You are through as a
mining consultant; I’m going to let the whole mining community know how thoroughly
unreliable, completely undependable, utterly ungrateful you are.’
‘Doesn’t he owe you some salary?’
‘Salary and two weeks notice and earned participation in that Silver Plume Colorado
deal. I declined to budge until he paid up. He did, reluctantly, with more comments
on my character.’ Briney sighed. ‘Mo, it upset me to listen to what he said. But I
feel relieved, too. Free, for the first time in more than six years.’
‘Let me draw you a tub. Then dinner in your robe and then to bed. Poor Briney! I
Page 85
Heinlein, Robert A – To Sail Beyond the Sunset.txt
love you, sir.’
My sewing-room became an office and we installed a Bell telephone in addition to our
Home instrument and put the them side by side near my typewriter. Our letterhead
carried both numbers and a post office box number. I kept a baby bed in there and a
couch I used for quick naps. Mr Fones animosity did not seem to hurt’ us, and it may
have helped simply by emphasising that Brian was no longer working for Davis and
Fones – a fact Brian advertised in all the trade journals. My first job with the
typewriter was to write to about one hundred and fifty people and or firms,
announcing that Brian Smith Associates was now in business… and announcing a new
policy.
‘The idea is, Mo, that I am betting on my own judgement, I’ll confer with anyone,
first visit free, here in Kansas City. If I travel, it’s my railroad ticket, two
dollars a night for a hotel room, three dollars a day for food, costs such as livery
stable rents as required by the survey, plus per diem consulting fee… all in
advance. In advance because I saw while working for Mr Fones how nearly impossible
it is to get a client to pay for a dead horse. Fones did it by refusing to budge
until he had a retainer in hand equal to his projected expenses, applied overhead,
and expected minimum profit… more, if he could squeeze it out.
‘It’s on that per diem that I’ll differ in my methods from Davis and Fones. I will
use a formal, signed contract, with two options, the client to make his choice ahead
of time. Forty dollars a day -‘
‘What!!’
But Briney had spoken seriously. ‘Mr Fones charged a client that much for my
services. My dear, there are plenty of lawyers who get paid that much per diem for
nice clean work in a warm courtroom. I want to be paid at that rate for trudging and
sloshing and sometimes crawling through mines that are always cold and usually wet.
For that price they’ll get my best professional judgement as to how much it will
cost to work that mine, including capital investment required before they ship their
first ton of ore… and my best guess, based on assays, geology, and other factors,
as to whether or not the claim can be worked at a profit… for it is a sad fact
that, in the mining business as a whole, more money goes into the ground than ever