He worried at the problem most of the night, even as tired as he was.
* * *
Paulus Sandler wasn't the only one worried. All through dinner, Muriel had worried. First, that he had involved her in his lie. Then about why he lied. Was it to save Ursula embarrassment or had he decided as soon as he saw her that he wasn't interested? That actually seemed to make more sense, though he hadn't acted uninterested in Ursula. If he was going to fade away, it might be best if Ursula never found out that Paulus Sandler had come to visit. That led her to worrying if perhaps he hadn't come here about Ursula at all and was just here to scope out their business. For all she knew he worked for Gerber. Finally after dinner she talked to Joyce and Gary about it. Then they started worrying.
"No, I don't think it was all a scam to get a look at how we operate." Gary grinned. "He was looking at Ursula all night and it wasn't the scar he was looking at."
"Gary Jordan, you are a dog." Joyce glared.
Gary grinned. "Arf, arf. But I'm your dog, darlin'. Point is, he was interested. Of course, he could be interested in both. There are guys who are interested in more than one thing." He pointed at his chest with his thumb, waited a beat for Joyce's disbelieving snort, then said, "I've met some."
"So what do we do? Drag him back down here and make him fess up?" Joyce asked. "He's going to have to sooner or later—and the longer he waits, the worse it's going to be for everyone."
Gary had been thinking about that. "I think the first thing to do is for me to go down there and have the 'what are your intentions' talk."
"Gary, Ursula's a grownup." It was clear from Joyce's tone she wasn't entirely convinced.
"I know she is, but she's also family, or close enough, and she's been hurt. I don't want to see her hurt again."
"So, if you're satisfied with his intentions, you're going to drag him back here to face the music?"
"I'm not sure. On the one hand, he surely deserves it. On the other hand, it seems like a great way to screw up any hope of them working things out. Ursula is liable to say something because she's pissed. He's liable to say something because he's trying to cover his ass. It might be better if he's not handy to pound on when Ursula gets the news."
Joyce shook her head. "Won't work. If he's not here, Ursula's going to feel like it's because he can't stand to look at her. I know it doesn't make sense, but that's how she's going to feel. Anyway, she's going to figure that the whole different name thing was just a way for him to wimp out. She's going to be hurt and if he's not here to explain himself, that's just going to nail it down."
* * *
"What are your intentions toward Ursula?" Gary felt like an idiot saying that but he couldn't think of another way to put it. Nor was he sure how he would answer if Paulus Sandler asked him what business it was of Gary's.
Instead, Paulus seemed relived. "I thought it was too late . . ." Paulus trailed off, clearly looking for the right words and not finding them.
"Okay." Gary sighed. "Let's go get some breakfast and you can tell me about it."
The tower, if you could call it that, of the Higgins Hotel wasn't finished yet so the restaurant was still located on the second floor of the middle building. But it was pretty darn fancy anyway. Which didn't seem to bother Paulus at all.
They sat down to scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes while the merchant told his story. After he had gone through it all and explained why the sudden name change, Gary agreed that he was in some trouble. "The good news is you get to figure out what the dog house is like early."
"That news doesn't seem all that good to me."
"Well, you earned it and you know it." Gary grinned.
"You wouldn't sort of, well, explain the situation to Ursula?"
"Nope. I thought about it. But Joyce doesn't think it would be that good an idea. She figures if you don't show, then Ursula will think it's because you can't stand to look at her."
"That makes no sense!"
"Since when have women ever made sense?"
"But Ursula is clearly a pleasant and reasonable young woman. Surely. . ."
"Ursula got cut up and and assaulted eight years ago and the people of her village blamed her for 'inviting' it. A bunch of sickos blaming the victim, if you ask me. Anyway, from what we can gather, she was pretty vain about her looks before that and probably something of a tease. She figured she had lost everything. Which was what the SOB apparently had in mind. Now she figures she's the next best thing to the hunchback of Notre Dame. I know it's not that bad, you know it's not that bad. There's no convincing Ursula, though. You've seen how she hides that side of her face."
"Is that how it happened?"
"Well, that's how we've put it together from the odd comment she's made and a couple of crying jags when she'd had a bit too much wine. Point is, if you're not there to tell her different, she's going to figure that it's because you can't stand to look at her. And that, my friend, means you're going to have to be the one to tell her you were lying about your name." By now Paulus was acting like a ten year old who knew he was caught and was trying to figure out a way to get out of 'fessing up. Figuratively speaking, Gary grabbed him by the ear and dragged him home.
* * *
Judging honestly, Gary felt that Paulus held his own fairly well. Of course, it was Ursula who had most of the ammunition. The results were not deep passionate love. It was way too soon for that. Some pictures in a magazine, one letter each way. One dinner when one of the pair hadn't even known who the other was. And one "how could you do such a thing?" It was more like an armed truce. Paulus had not lived up to Ursula's expectations; he was on notice that he was on thin ice and he'd already cracked it.
At the same time, Paulus had stood up there at the end and let Ursula know that she could well win a Pyrrhic victory and run him off, and was getting very close to doing so. Yes, he had blown it. People sometimes do. No, he didn't find the scar much of an issue, not nearly so much as the "holier than thou" attitude. No, he wasn't going to run screaming because her face wasn't perfect, but neither was he a lap dog for anyone. Not even her. Looking at Ursula's face, Gary figured she was rather pleased with that last.
* * *
"So how do we keep him here long enough for something to grow?" Joyce asked after the fighters had retreated to their respective corners to get ready for the next round. That is, Ursula went to her room and Paulus went back to the Higgins Hotel.
"Do we want to?" Gary asked.
"Gary Jordan!" Joyce screeched.
"Well." Gary defended himself as best he could. "We don't really know all that much about him. We know he's a merchant, a friendly guy and he wrote a funny letter. But that's about it. He could be the next thing to a con man for all we know."
"So find out!" Joyce commanded.
What Gary found out over the next few days, first from Paulus himself, then from some of the commercial interests that were now based in Grantville, was that Paulus was generally considered honest enough, if a bit hard-nosed, in matters of business. That he was a fairly successful wholesaler of everything from pig iron to pepper. The way they decided to keep him around, even before they had confirmation for most of this, was to see if they could get him to help with organizing their business.
* * *
"Transportation." Paulus sighed. "The problem, Ursula, or the biggest problem, is transportation." He took a big drink of his beer. "The railroad will help. It will help more than I would have imagined possible before seeing it. But it will be months before it reaches Halle, and longer still before it reaches Magdeburg. And it's running at close to capacity now. What that means is that something like seventy percent of your sales have been within natural-gas-car range of Grantville or the railroads. That's a corridor about twenty miles wide on either side of the railroad in which you have unbelievably cheap transport. After you get out of that pocket, the cost of transport goes way up—to the point that it cancels out the advantage you have in mass production. It works the other way, too
.
"Getting the raw materials up here costs a lot more if they aren't local, Look at the prices of your goods. Where the raw materials come through Hamburg, the cost of your goods is four to ten times higher than if the raw materials are found locally. What happens when your competitors have factories and warehouses in Magdeburg and yours are still here? Even with the railroad, they will be able to undercut your prices. You have to plan for the future."
"Is the river really that much cheaper then the railroad?" Ursula asked. "I mean, once the railroads reach Halle and Magdeburg?"
"It can be and it will be. Don't forget that by the time the railroad reaches Halle, it won't be competing with the little barges we have now. We'll build big barges with engines on them, maybe steam or, perhaps, internal combustion. We're still working that out. But my partners and I will have big barges built in Magdeburg before the rail line hits Halle. We'll be able to ship a hundred tons for what it cost us now to ship ten. And we'll have those hundreds of tons to ship, too, because of the industries that are starting up in Magdeburg and all along the Elbe."
Ursula was a bit worried. This particular batch of beer was pretty powerful. Apparently the local brewers were getting ready for the harvest celebrations. She'd determined that the last thing she wanted to do was get falling-down drunk in front of Paulus. Falling down might not be so bad. It was the drunk part she didn't much want. "But this is their home, Paulus. Many of the up-timers, especially the older ones, are afraid to leave Grantville."
Paulus burped. "Mark my words, my lovely, mark my words. It won't be that long until all the modern conveniences are available everywhere. Think about it. I come here and stay at the Higgins Hotel. I get up in the morning, walk to my own little bath house right there in my room. Get hot water with the turning of a knob. What do you think I'm going to do when I get home? The plumbing is coming. Well, for the wealthy. You can already buy a generator for the electric. There's no reason not to locate the business in a more optimum location."
Ursula grinned. Paulus had been doing a lot of talking with Huddy Colburn and picked up quite a bit of his vocabulary.
He swept his hand in the air, gesturing at the full room. "Every one of these people who wants to make money needs to consider the transportation. It will never be economically viable to have the mail order business located in such an inconvenient location. Well, the business offices can stay here. But not the warehouses and the shipping. What we need to do is convince Gary Jordan and Joyce. And Muriel. And Mom and Pop Burke." He grinned a bit blearily. "The old coot and the old hen. They don't all have to move. Muriel should probably stay here and it might be better for Mom and Pop Burke. Grantville does have the best medical facilities in the world."
"I've been reading, too. We need a parcel service like they had up-time. You Pee Ess, they called it."
"Might be possible, too. All the independent couriers . . . like that Martin over there . . ." Paulus paused. "Hm. I need to talk to Martin, I think. He'll have contacts." Then he shook his head. "That's for the future. Right now, what about us?"
He must be a bit drunk, Ursula thought. He was usually much more reticient. "What about us?"
"You still mad at me?"
Ursula took a sip of beer to delay answering. "Not really, I suppose." Their relationship had smoothed considerably in the last month. Perhaps it was time. "I'm not sure I ever really was. I was . . ." She touched the scar. "I was . . . afraid. Afraid that I would be alone forever. And then your letter came. And I thought maybe . . . but then . . ."
"I was afraid, too. Afraid I had destroyed what could have been."
* * *
Paulus had spent a lot of time with a new book in the last month. It had been written by some of the professional researchers who worked in the national library. It was a translation of management and organizational techniques developed up-time. Quite a bit of it was stuff Paulus already knew from experience, but it was organized and boiled down. Looked at in the light of Paulus' experience and "Business Management 101," the problem with the Burkes' business was that they were running it like a corner shop. They didn't have flow charts or much in the way of organizational structure. They weren't looking at who their suppliers were or, really, who their customers were. They weren't looking at what parts of the operation cost what, or seeing where things could be improved.
Paulus grimaced a bit. A lot of that could be applied to his own business as well. He and his partners had a great deal of experience. Between them they knew their business inside out, but not in a very organized way. Right now, he was a bit scared for his own fortune and his partners. It was unlikely that they would go out of business, but they could be hurt by the changes that were radiating out from the Ring of Fire. They were shippers of goods, mostly transhipers. They shipped quite a bit by barge up and down the Elbe and the Rhine, but they also had contracts with inns throughout northern and central Germany. They ran several mule trains carrying wine, cloth and all sorts of other goods. And one of the problems facing them was the change in the transportation picture. What was going to happen to the muleskinners when the railroad came? What would happen to their business as the muleskinners were affected?
While he had been building business flow charts for the Burkes, he'd also been building them for himself and his partners. Partly because he had an entirely different sort of merger on his mind, he started noticing the merger potential between the Burke's business and his. What he and his partners had was a distribution network, seventeenth-century style. What the Burkes had was access to the suppliers of up-time goods and a really good marketing idea that was already being copied. He started drawing new boxes and new lines, combining the two companies into one larger company, using each to add to the other to fill in missing pieces.
It was really just an exercise. Neither his partners nor the Burkes were likely to agree to it. His partners because they could copy the parts that the Burkes did readily enough. They hadn't yet because they mostly dealt in bulk goods. The Burkes because—like a lot of the up-timers—they seemed to want to keep control of everything in their own hands. At the same time, he did have a responsibility to his partners. The way things were looking, they were going to lose a lot of their trade over the next few years to the railroads.
* * *
"So you see, I really must be getting back. Albrecht, the real Albrecht, has written, asking for more details."
Ursula nodded. She and Paulus were walking through Grantville, her to do the shopping, Paulus just to keep her company and because he wanted to pick up some things he'd ordered. "You've been a lot of help. Even Gary says so. I did speak to him of the transportation problems. He is unsure."
"Ah. Here we are." Paulus put his hand on her waist and guided her through the door of Eberhart Leather. "I'm to pick up the briefcases today. Which will be much more professional-looking than a canvas tote."
Ursula giggled. "The mark of a businessman is his fancy leather brief case. Gary is going to start calling you a 'suit.'"
The counterman, having recognized Paulus, brought out the four briefcases he'd ordered. He'd had the initials of his partners applied to each. "Most excellent," Paulus said. "Most excellent. Wrap those up, please, but I will take this one now." He started transferring the load of file folders out of the tote, but he was a bit clumsy with it. One folder fell, spreading the contents over the floor.
It had to be that folder. Paulus reached for the organization chart, but it was too late. Ursula had already picked it up.
She looked up from it, face flushed. "Just what kind of merger are you planning, Herr Sandler? I don't recall . . ."
"Please don't be upset." He hesitated a moment. "I'm not really planing much of anything yet. It's more of a possibility than a plan."
"It looks pretty detailed to me."
"Yes, detailed, but not probable. What I haven't been able to figure out is the key to the whole thing . . . how to get anyone to agree to it." The clerk was looking at them, so, leaving Ursula i
n possession of the flow chart, Paulus took her arm and led her out of the shop.
"What do you mean?" Ursula waited till they were in the street to ask. One of the things that had impressed him about her was that she noticed things.
"Let's find a place where we can sit and talk." Paulus looked up and down the street for someplace fairly private.
* * *
A few minutes later, Ursula was seated in a corner of a café, waiting to hear Paulus' explanation. She hoped it would be a good one because she didn't really want to believe that he was going to try to steal the Wish Book from the Burkes.
"How many of the businesses in Grantville are now run by down-timers?" Paulus asked.
Ursula gave him a look but answered anyway, figuring this was part of the explanation. It had better be. "I don't know the exact numbers, but quite a few."
"Neither do I," Paulus acknowledged. "But I have noticed that a lot of them seem to have a certain amount of resentment attached to it, even when the up-timer gets rich off the deal . . . which a lot of them have."