Hitherto Lightener had made his own engines complete.  From outside manufactories he could obtain the other essential parts, but his own production of engines held him back.  The only solution for the present was to find some one to make engines to his specifications, and he turned to Bonbright Foote, Incorporated.  Whatever might be said of the Foote methods, their antiquity, their lack of modern efficiency, they turned out work whose quality none might challenge—­ and Malcolm Lightener looked first to quality.

He reached his determination at noon, while he was eating his luncheon, and to Mrs. Lightener’s amazement sprang up from the table and lunged out of the room without so much as a glance at her or a word of good-by.  In some men of affairs this might not be remarkable, but in Malcolm Lightener it was remarkable.  Granite he might be; crude in his manner, perhaps, more dynamic than comfortable, but in all the years of his married life he had never left the house without kissing his wife good-by.

He drove his runabout recklessly to his office, rushed into the engineering department, and snatched certain blue prints and specifications from the files.  He knew costs down to the last bolt or washer on the machine he made, and it was the work of minutes only to determine what price he could afford to pay for the engines he wanted.

His runabout carried him to the entrance to Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, and he hurried up the stairs to the office.

“Mr. Foote in?” he snapped.

“Just returned, Mr. Lightener.”

“Want to see him—­right off—­quick.”

“Yes, sir.”

The girl at the switchboard called Mr. Foote and informed him.

“He says to step right in, sir,” she said, and before she was done speaking Lightener was on his way down the corridor.

Mr. Foote sat coldly behind his desk.  He held no kindness for Malcolm Lightener, for Lightener had befriended Bonbright in his recalcitrancy.  Lightener had made it possible for the boy to defy his father.  Lightener’s wife and daughter had openly waged society war against his wife in behalf of his son’s wife. ...  But Mr. Foote was not the man to throw away an enormous and profitable business because of a personal grudge.

Lightener paused for no preliminaries.

“Foote,” he said, “I want ten thousand engines complete.  You can make ’em.  You’ve got room to expand, and I can give you approximate figures on the costs.  You make good axles and you can make good engines.  What d’you think about it?”

Mr. Foote shrugged his shoulders.  “It doesn’t attract me.”

“Huh!...  You can have that plant up in six months.  I’ll give you a contract for five years.  Two years’ profits will pay for the plant.  Don’t know what your profits are now, but this ought to double them. ...  Doesn’t half a million a year extra profit make you think of anything?”