Rangar, his father's secretary, and the man who stood as shield between Bonbright Foote VI and unpleasant contacts with his business and the world's business, entered. Rangar was a capable man whose place as secretary to the head of the business did not measure his importance in the organization. Another man of his abilities and opportunity and position would have carried the title of general manager or vice president--something respect-carrying. As for Rangar, he was content. He drew the salary that would have accompanied those other titles, possessed in an indirect sort of way the authority, and yet managed to remain disentangled from the responsibilities. Had he suddenly vanished the elder Foote would have been left suspended in rarefied heights between heaven and his business, lacking direct contact with the mills and machine shops and foundries; yet, doubtless, would have been unable to realize that the loss of Rangar had left him so. Rangar was a competent, efficient man, if peculiar in his ambitions. "Your father," said he, "has asked me to show you through the plant." "Thank you--yes," said Bonbright, rising. They went out, passing from the old, the family, wing of the office building, into the larger, newer, general offices, made necessary by the vastly increased business of the firm. Here, in a huge room, were bookkeepers, stenographers, clerks, filing cabinets, desks, typewriters--with several cubicles glassed off for the more important employees and minor executives. "We have tried," said Rangar, "to retain as far as possible the old methods and systems. Your father, Mr. Foote, is conservative. He clings to the ways of his father and his grandfather." "I remember," said Bonbright, "when we had no typewriting machines." "We had to come to them," said Rangar, with a note of regret. "Axles compelled us. But we have never taken up with these new contraptions--fads--like phonographs to dictate to, card indices, loose-leaf systems, adding machines, and the like. Of course it requires more clerks and stenographers, and possibly we are a bit slower than some. Your father says, however, that he prefers conducting his business as a gentleman should, rather than to make a mere machine of it. His idea," said Rangar, "of a gentleman in business is one who refuses to make use of abbreviations in his correspondence." Bonbright was looking about the busy room, conscious that he was being covertly studied by every occupant of it. It made him uncomfortable, uneasy. "Let's go on into the shops," he said, impatiently.