The Lost Prince Read Online Free PDF Page B

Pittsburgh, then catch an early train and be in Cincinnati by early afternoon. From the train station in Cincinnati she learned that a considerable tram ride and a short run by cab would deliver her to the door of Cincinnati Soap and Candle, where the owner would be waiting for her, she hoped, because of a cable she had sent announcing very naïvely her intention of having a meeting and providing financing for his company, Frank’s words “all businesses want investors” echoing in her head.
    The company office was in the original and formidable pre–Civil War brick factory building, and inside a compound with a large wrought iron gate and the company’s initials welded in, in a style familiar from the company’s printed materials.
    She tried her best to appear totally self-possessed as she approached the imposing edifice and walked through the heavy oak door. She announced herself at the large front desk, and a studious-looking woman, tall and slender and, Eleanor could see from the absence of a wedding band, a spinster, with her gray hair pulled up in a bun, greeted her formally. “My brother is expecting you, Miss Putnam,” she said, making it clear that Cincinnati Soap and Candle prided itself on being a family company. “He says you have come at a good time.”

    Homer Smith, an older man in his late sixties, reminded her, in his robustness and hardy vigor, of Teddy Roosevelt. He had headed the family company since his early adulthood, she knew, and had a reputation as something of a hothead, but a fierce competitor and a demon for details and numbers. “Cincinnati Soap and Candle Company has been successful,” he said, “because my family has a long-standing cultivation of the hardworking factory families. They think of us as a vital part of their lives. That is a position and a prestige we are not willing to give up.” There was a fierce defiance in his eyes, as if he was looking into the face of a competitor.
    “I am here only to invest,” Eleanor said quickly. “My fund knows of this area’s history and your company’s fine place in it, and would like to help.”
    Early in the century, with the advent of railroads in the Midwest, Cincinnati had been a center for hog slaughter, and the consequent abundance of tallow as a by-product made it a center for the production ofcandles, and soap as well. In Homer Smith’s grandfather’s day, the company was formed, first distinguished by candle manufacture and then by soap. By something of an accident, employees began experimenting with the addition of air to the soap bars, which were already large and pure white, making them—quite inadvertently—buoyant. “The floating bars did not sink into the dirty water of coal miners’ baths,” Homer Smith explained, “and hence a tradition grew and Workman’s Soap became a family necessity.” The soap appeared in time for the American Civil War, which called for a great volume of both soap and candles, and the company’s reputation spread, leading to wide popularity among soldiers, coal miners, and factory workers.
    Homer Smith seemed to accept Eleanor’s conciliatory offering. “Workman’s Soap is not scented or fancy. It is simply inexpensive and pure. It is just what the people know and respect. It has been a solid and dependable product. And now the giant octopus Procter and Gamble wishes to take us over. And you know what?” He slammed down his palm on the rolltop desk. “They’re not going to do it. Thousands of small companies, good companies, are being swallowed up by giants all over the country. It is all part of Mr. J. P. Morgan’s vision. Big and giant is efficient and good, he says. Well, those big eastern trusts are not efficient and not good for the average American citizen, and I personally am not going to allow it. I’ll sell to the Colgate people before I let the giants run us over.” There was a fierceness in his eyes beyond what Eleanor thought reasonable and a ruddiness to his