The younger Wylie laughed, languidly exhaling a lungful of cigarette smoke.  “When Dad gets ready to purchase, he’ll let you know,” said he.

Six months later the Atlantic Bridge Company placed a mammoth order with Hanford’s rival concern, and he was not even asked to figure on it.

That is how the seeds of this story were sown.  Of course the facts got out, for those Atlantic salesmen were not wanting in a sense of humor, and Hanford was joshed in every quarter.  To make matters worse, his firm called him to account for his wasted time, implying that something was evidently wrong with his selling methods.  Thus began a lack of confidence which quickly developed into strained relations.  The result was inevitable; Hanford saw what was coming and was wise enough to resign his position.

But it was the ridicule that hurt him most.  He was unable to get away from that.  Had he been at all emotional, he would have sworn a vendetta, so deep and lasting was the hurt, but he did not; he merely failed to forget, which, after all, is not so different.

It seemed queer that Henry Hanford should wind up in the bridge business himself, after attempting to fill several unsatisfactory positions, and yet there was nothing remarkable about it, for that three months of intense application at the Atlantic plant had given him a groundwork which came in handy when the Patterson Bridge Company offered him a desk.  He was a good salesman; he worked hard and in time he was promoted.  By and by the story was forgotten—­by every one except Henry Hanford.  But he had lost a considerable number of precious years.

* * * * *

When it became known that the English and Continental structural shops were so full of work that they could not figure on the mammoth five-million-dollar steel structure designed to span the Barrata River in Africa, and when the Royal Commission in London finally advertised broadcast that time was the essence of this contract, Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., realized that his plant was equipped to handle the job in magnificent shape, with large profit to himself and with great renown to the Wylie name.  He therefore sent his son, Jackson Wylie, the Second, now a full-fledged partner, to London armed with letters to almost everybody in England from almost everybody in America.

Two weeks later—­the Patterson Bridge Company was not so aggressive as its more pretentious rival—­Henry Hanford went abroad on the same mission, but he carried no letters of introduction for the very good reason that he possessed neither commercial influence nor social prestige.  Bradstreets had never rated him, and Who’s Who contained no names with which he was familiar.

Jackson Wylie, the Second had been to London frequently, and he was accustomed to English life.  He had friends with headquarters at Prince’s and at Romano’s, friends who were delighted to entertain so prominent an American; his letters gave him the entree to many of the best clubs and paved his way socially wherever he chose to go.