The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-08
Bullock, Hyde
ard Co.

NI sour. MT. Hyde was tempera- 1V4 4 mental, active and suave. They made an excellent team, and the firm of Bullock & Hyde had a reputation of being one of the most successful in the tannery business. Many men attributed the firms prosperity to the wisdom of MT. Bullock. Others ascribed it to the urbanity and tireless energy of MT. Hyde.
 Within twelve years the firm had made a profit of more than two mill lions of dollars. Its plant, which was worth about SSOo,0O0, was one of the best equipped in New England. Mir. Hyde had been fortunate in obtaining the services of a tanner named Ray mond. This tanner was but 22 years old when he went with the firm. He was not only a born chemist, but he loved his work and he knew every phase and angle of it. Much depends in a tannery upon the skill of the tan ner No rule for the treatment of the skins can be made absolutely hard and fast It must be varied within certain limits, according to conditions. Some thing must always be left to the sixth sense of the man directly in charge, whose discretion should amount almost to intuition.
 Bullock & Hyde did a business Of from six to seven million dollars year. A clumsy or careless tanner could have spoiled tens of thousands of dollars worth of hides without showing any evidences of his neglect. As matter of fact, there were less waste, fewer mis- takes and better management In the Bullock &y Hyde establishment than in almost any other tannery in the coun- try. Raymond had that indefinabie quality so valuable and so rare in any and every business, of doing exactly the right thing at the right time.
 MT. Hyde had only one fault to find with Raymond. The tanner had not gotten rid of the illusions of youth. He had ambitions In addition, he had de- cided opinions as to his own worth. | Although he had been started at a sal ary of $2500 a year, he had not been working for more than three years be- fore he made demand for an increase. | MT. Hyde was not at all pleased. In l fact, he considered the young mans ac- tion rank presumption, but after some hesitation he raised his tanners com- l pensation to s3000.
 A few years later Raymond wanted more. This time MT. Hyde almost lost his temper. He discoursed at length upon the unreasonableness of the request. The tanner was but a young man, he pointed out. His pay was already high enough to enlist the envy of almost any man of his age He was unincumbered with the responsibility of a family. He had but one soul dependent upon him for support his mother. The New England town of fered much in the way of comforts and wholesome living for little money. In short, a young man so well situated as he should not only live wei land content edly upon his salary. but ought to be say iyg a couple of thousand dollars a year.
 Raymond listened with patience and courtesy, but continued to see things through his own eyes.
 MT. Hyde did not consent to this raise without conference with his partner MT. Bullock declared in no uncertain terms that thls $3500 was to be understood as the highest notch the young man could hope 10 reach. MT. Bullock had just been routed in one of his many battles with his daughter, rather determined young V oman, whose ideals he could never com prehend. It was on account of this daugh- ter that sourness was among his notable characteristics. MT. Bullock was able to manage everybody except this girl, who weighed some 99 pounds or so. He had en- deavored to direct her education along the regulation, approved, conservative lines. But she would have none of it. I.e wanted her to live in his big home, with tlS nHe AleW UT lHt ldHuery. bul Sle preferred New York. He had plans for her marriage with the son of his esteemed partner, MT. Hyde. But she would not swim in the same ocean with young MT. Hyde
 All this might have been forgiven If it were not for the fact that she brought the name of Bullock into notoriety and almost shame by becoming a parlor socialist and doing settlement work in New York. In one of the shirtwaist strikes she gloried fin the fact that, acting as a picket. she was arrested twice and had her picture in all the papers. MT. Bullock would have heen pleased to have visited amending