MR. HENDERSON'S PROPOSITION
Late that evening Thompson walked into his room at the Globe. He seated
himself in a rickety chair under a fly-specked incandescent lamp, beside
a bed that was clean and comfortable if neither stylish nor massive.
Over against the opposite wall stood a dresser which had suffered at the
hands of many lodgers. Altogether it was a cheap and cheerless abode, a
place where a man was protected from the weather, where he could lie
down and sleep. That was all.
Thompson smiled sardonically. With hands clasped behind his head he
surveyed the room deliberately, and the survey failed to please him.
"Hell," he exploded suddenly. "I'd ten times rather be out in the woods
with a tent than have to live like this--always."
He had spent a pleasant three hours in surroundings that approximated
luxury. He had been graciously received and entertained. However, it was
easy to be gracious and entertaining when one had the proper setting. A
seven-room suite and two servants were highly desirable from certain
angles. Oh, well--what the devil was the difference!
Thompson threw off his clothes and got into bed. But he could not escape
insistent thought. Against his dull walls, on which the street light
cast queer patterns through an open window, he could see, through drowsy
eyes, Sophie half-buried in a great chair, listening attentively while
he and her father talked. Of course they had fallen into argument,
sometimes triangular, more often solely confined to himself and Carr.
Thompson was glad that the Grant Street orators had driven him to the
city library that winter. A man needed all the weapons he could command
against that sharp-tongued old student who precipitated himself joyfully
into controversy.
But of course they did not spend three hours discussing abstract
theories. There was a good deal of the personal. Thompson had learned
that they were in San Francisco for the winter only. Their home was in
Vancouver. And Tommy Ashe was still in Vancouver, graduated from an
automobile salesman to an agency of his own, and doing well in the
venture. Tommy, Carr said, had the modern business instinct. He did not
specify what that meant. Carr did not dwell much on Tommy. He appeared
to be much more interested in Thompson's wanderings, his experiences,
the shifts he had been put to, how the world impressed him, viewed from
the angle of the ordinary man instead of the ministerial.
"If you wish to achieve success as modern society defines success,
you've been going at it all wrong," he remarked sagely. "The big rewards
do not lie in producing and creating, but in handling the results of
creation and production--at least so it seems to me. Get hold of
something the public wants, Thompson, and sell it to them. Or evolve a
sure method of making big business bigger. They'll fall on your neck and
fill your pockets with money if you can do that. Profitable
undertakings--that's the ticket. Anybody can work at a job."
That sounded rather cynical and Thompson said so. Carr laughed genially.
One couldn't escape obvious conclusions, he declared. Perhaps youth and
enthusiasm saw it differently.
Thompson, through sleep-heavy eyes, saw Carr hold a glass of port wine,
glowing like a ruby, up between himself and the light and sip it slowly.
Carr was partial to that wine. Wonder if the old chap didn't get
properly lit up sometimes? He looked as if--well, as if he enjoyed easy
living--easy drinking. There was brandy and soda and a bottle of Scotch
on the sideboard too.--And Sophie _was_ beautiful. All the little
feminine artifices of civilization accentuated the charm that had been
potent enough in the woods. Silk instead of gingham. Dainty shoes
instead of buckskin moccasins.--What an Aladdin's lamp money was,
anyway. Funny that they had settled upon Vancouver for a home. Tommy was
there too. Of course. Should a fellow stick to his hunch? Vancouver
might give birth to an opportunity. Profitable undertakings.--At any
rate he would see her now and then. But would he--working? Did he want
to? Would a cat continue to stare at a king if the king's crown rather
dazzled the cat's eyes? Suppose--just suppose--
Thompson sat up in bed with a start. It seemed to him that he had just
lain down, that the train of his thought was still racing. But it was
broad day, a dull morning, gloomy with that high fog which in spring
often rides over the city and the bay till near noon.
He stretched his arms, yawning. All at once he recollected that he had
something to do, a call to make upon Mr. John P. Henderson at ten
o'clock. Groya Motors--he wondered what significance that held. At any
rate he proposed to see.
It lacked just forty minutes of the appointed time. Thompson bounced out
of bed. Within twenty minutes he had swallowed a cup of coffee at a
near-by lunch counter and was on his way up Van Ness.
The corner of Van Ness and Potter revealed a six-story concrete
building, its plate-glass frontage upon the sidewalk displaying three or
four beautifully finished automobiles upon a polished oak floor. The
sign across the front bore the heraldry of the card. He walked in,
accosted the first man he saw, and was waved to a flight of stairs
reaching a mezzanine floor. Gaining that he discovered in a short
corridor a door bearing upon its name-plate the legend:
Mr. John P. Henderson.
Private.
Thompson looked at his watch. It lacked but two minutes of ten. He
knocked, and a voice bade him enter. He found himself face to face with
the master of the gray car. Mr. John P. Henderson looked more imposing
behind a mahogany desk than he did on the street. He had a heavy jaw and
a forehead-crinkling way of looking at a man. And--although Thompson
knew nothing of the fact and at the moment would not have cared a
whoop--John P. was just about the biggest toad in San Francisco's
automobile puddle. He had started in business on little but his nerve
and made himself a fortune. It was being whispered along the Row that
John P. was organizing to manufacture cars as well as sell them--and
that was a long look ahead for the Pacific coast.
He nodded to Thompson, bade him be seated. And Thompson sank into a
chair, facing John P. across the desk. He wanted nothing, expected
nothing. He was simply smitten with a human curiosity to know what this
stout, successful man of affairs had to propose to him.
"My name is Thompson," he stated cheerfully. "It is ten o'clock. I have
called--as you suggested."
Henderson smiled.
"I have been accused of hastiness in my judgment of men, but it is
admitted that I seldom make mistakes," he said complacently. "In this
organization there is always a place for able, aggressive young men.
Some men have ability without any force. Some men are aggressive with no
ability whatever. How about you? Think you could sell motor-cars?"
"How the deuce do I know?" Thompson replied frankly. "I have never
tried. I'm handicapped to begin. I know nothing about either cars or
salesmanship."
"Would you like to try?"
Thompson considered a minute.
"Yes," he declared. "I've tried several things. I'm willing to try
anything once. Only I do not see how I can qualify."
"We'll see about that," John P.'s eyes kept boring into him. "D'ye mind
a personal question or two?"
Thompson shook his head.
He did not quite know how it came about, but he passed under Henderson's
deft touch from reply to narration, and within twenty minutes had
sketched briefly his whole career.
Henderson sat tapping the blotter on his desk with a pencil for a silent
minute.
"You have nothing to unlearn," he announced abruptly. "All big
commercial organizations must to a certain extent train their own men. A
man who appears to possess fundamental qualifications is worth his
training. I have done it repeatedly. I am going to proceed on the
assumption that you will become a useful member of my staff, ultimately
with much profit to yourself. I propose that you apply yourself
diligently to mastering the sale of motor cars to individual purchasers.
I shall pay you twenty-five dollars a week to begin. That's a mechanic's
wages. If you make good on sales--there's no limit to your earning
power."
"But, look here," Thompson made honest objection. "I appreciate the
opportunity. At the same time I wonder if you realize what a lot I have
to learn. I don't know a thing about cars beyond how to change a tire
and fill grease cups. I've never driven, never even started a motor.
How can I sell cars unless I know cars?"
"You overestimate your handicap," John P. smiled. "Knowing how to build
and repair cars and knowing how to sell cars are two entirely different
propositions. The first requires a high degree of technical knowledge
and a lot of practical experience. Selling is a matter of
personality--of the power to convince. You can learn to drive in two or
three days. In a month you will handle a machine as well as the other
fellow, and you will learn enough about the principal parts and their
functions--not only of our line, but of other standard machines--to
enable you to discuss and compare them intelligently. The rest will
depend upon a quality within yourself that has nothing to do with the
mechanical end."
"You should know." Thompson could not help a shade of doubt in his tone.
"But I must say I could approach a man with a proposition to sell him an
article with more confidence if I knew that article inside and out, top
and bottom. If I really knew a thing was good, and _why_, I could sell
it, I believe."
"He has the right hunch, Dad."
Thompson had not heard young Henderson come in. He saw him now a step
behind his chair, garbed in overalls that bore every sign of intimate
contact with machinery.
He nodded to Thompson and continued to address his father.
"It's true. Take two men of equal selling force. On the year's business
the one who can drive mechanical superiority home because he knows
wherein it lies will show the biggest sales, and the most satisfied
customers. I believe six months' shop work would just about double the
efficiency of half our sales staff."
John P. gazed good-naturedly at his son.
"I know, Fred," he drawled. "I've heard those sentiments before. There's
some truth in it, of course. But Simons and Sam Eppel and Monk White are
products of _my_ method. You cannot deny their efficiency in sales.
What's the idea, anyway?"
Young Henderson grinned.
"The fact is," he said, "since I listened in on this conversation I have
come to the conclusion that you've good material here. I need a helper.
He'll get a thorough grounding. Whenever you and he decide that he has
absorbed sufficient mechanics he can join the sales end. I'd like to
train one man for you, properly."
"Well," John P. remarked judicially, "I can't waste the whole morning
discussing methods of training salesmen in the way they should go. I've
made Mr. Thompson a proposition. What do you say?"
He turned abruptly on Thompson.
"Or," young Henderson cut in. "You have the counter proposition of an
indefinite mechanical grind in my department--which is largely
experimental. If you take to it at all I guarantee that in six months
you will know more about the internal combustion motor and automobile
design in general than any two salesmen on my father's staff. And that,"
he added, with a boyish grimace at his father, "is saying a lot."
It seemed to Thompson that both men regarded him with a considerable
expectancy. It perplexed him, that embarrassment of opportunity. He was
a little dazed at the double chance. Here was Opportunity clutching him
by the coat collar. He had nothing but impulse, and perhaps a natural
craving for positive knowledge, to guide his choice. He wasted few
seconds, however, in deciding. Among other things, he had outgrown
vacillation.
"It is just as I said," he addressed Henderson senior. "I'd feel more
competent to sell cars if I knew them. I'd rather start in the shop."
"All right," Henderson grunted. "You're the doctor. Be giving Fred a
chance to prove one of his theories. Personally I believe you'd make a
go of selling right off the bat, and a good salesman is wasted in the
mechanical line. When you feel that you've saturated your system with
valve clearances and compression formulas and gear ratios and all the
rest of the shop dope, come and see me. I'll give you a try-out on the
selling end. For the present, report to Fred."
He reached for some papers on the desk. His manner, no less than his
words, ended the interview. Thompson rose.
"When can you start in?" young Henderson inquired.
"Any time," Thompson responded quickly. He was, in truth, a trifle eager
to see what made the wheels go round in that establishment. "I only have
to change my clothes."
"Come after lunch then," young Henderson suggested. "Take the elevator
to the top floor. Ask one of the men where you'll find me. Bring your
overalls with you. We have a dressing room and lockers on each floor."
He nodded good-by and turned to his father. Thompson made his exit.
Half a block away he turned to look back at the house of Henderson. It
was massive, imposing, the visible sign of a prosperous concern, the
manifestation of business on a big scale. Groya Motors, Inc. It was
lettered in neat gilt across the front. It stood forth in four-foot
skeleton characters atop of the flat roof--an electric sign to burn like
a beacon by night. And he was about to become a part of that
establishment, a humble beginner, true, but a beginner with uncommon
prospects. He wondered if Henderson senior was right, if there resided
in him that elusive essence which leads some men to success in dealings
with other men. He was not sure about it himself. Still, the matter was
untried. Henderson might be right.
But it was all a fluke. It seemed to him he was getting an entirely
disproportionate reward for mauling an insolent chauffeur. That moved
him to wonder what became of Pebbles. He felt sorry for Pebbles. The man
had probably lost his job for good measure. Poor devil!
As he walked his thought short-circuited to Sophie Carr. Whereat he
turned into a drugstore containing a telephone booth and rang her up.
Sophie herself answered.
"I guess my saying good-by last night was a little premature," he told
her. "I'm not going north after all. In fact, if things go on all right
I may be in San Francisco indefinitely. I've got a job."
"What sort of a job?" Sophie inquired.
He hadn't told her about the ten o'clock appointment with Henderson. Nor
did he go into that now.
"I've been taken on in an automobile plant on Van Ness," he said. "A
streak of real luck. I'm to have a chance to learn the business. So I
won't see you in Vancouver. Remember me to Tommy. I suppose you'll be
busy getting ready to go, so I'll wish you a pleasant voyage."
"Thanks," she answered. "Wouldn't it be more appropriate if you wished
that on us in person before we sail?"
"I don't know," he mumbled. "I--"
A perfectly mad impulse seized him.
"Sophie," he said sharply into the receiver.
"Yes."
He heard the quick intake of her breath at the other end, almost a gasp.
And the single word was slightly uncertain.
"What did you mean by a man standing on his own feet?"
She did not apparently have a ready answer. He pictured her, receiver in
hand, and he did not know if she were startled, or surprised--or merely
amused. That last was intolerable. And suddenly he felt like a fool.
Before that soft, sweet voice could lead him into further masculine
folly he hung up and walked out of the booth. For the next twenty
minutes his opinion of John P. Henderson's judgment of men was rather
low. He did not feel himself to be an individual with any force of
character. In homely language he said to himself that he, Wesley
Thompson, was nothing but a pot of mush.
However, there in the offing loomed the job. He turned into the first
clothing store he found, and purchased one of those all-covering duck
garments affected by motor-car workers. By that time he had recovered
sufficiently to note that an emotional disturbance does not always
destroy a man's appetite for food.