A WIDENING HORIZON
This is not a history of the motor car business, nor even of the
successive steps Wes Thompson took to win competent knowledge of that
Beanstalk among modern industries. If it were there might be sound
reasons for recounting the details of his tutelage under Fred Henderson.
No man ever won success without knowing pretty well what he was about.
No one is born with a workable fund of knowledge. It must be acquired.
That, precisely, is what Thompson set out to do in the Groya shop. In
which purpose he was aided, abetted, and diligently coached by Fred
Henderson. The measure of Thompson's success in this endeavor may be
gauged by what young Henderson said casually to his father on a day some
six months later.
"Thompson soaks up mechanical theory and practice as a dry sponge soaks
up water."
"Wasted talent," John P. rumbled. "I suppose you'll have him a wild-eyed
designer before you're through."
"No," Henderson junior observed thoughtfully. "He'll never design. But
he will know design when he sees it. Thompson is learning for a definite
purpose--to sell cars--to make money. Knowing motor cars thoroughly is
incidental to his main object."
John P. cocked his ears.
"Yes," he said. "That so? Better send that young man up to me, Fred."
"I've been expecting that," young Henderson replied. "He's ripe. I wish
you hadn't put that sales bug in his ear to start with. He'd make just
the man I need for an understudy when we get that Oakland plant going."
"Tush," Henderson snorted inelegantly. "Salesmen are born, not made--the
real high-grade ones. And the factories are turning out mechanical
experts by the gross."
"I know that," his son grinned. "But I like Thompson. He gives you the
feeling that you can absolutely rely on him."
"Send him up to me," John P. repeated--and when John P. issued a fiat
like that, even his son did not dispute it.
And Thompson was duly sent up. He did not go back to the shop on the top
floor where for six months he had been an eager student, where he had
learned something of the labor of creation--for Fred Henderson was
evolving a new car, a model that should have embodied in it power and
looks and comfort at the minimum of cost. And in pursuance of that ideal
he built and discarded, redesigned and rebuilt, putting his motors to
the acid test on the block and his assembled chassis on the road.
Indeed, many a wild ride he and Thompson had taken together on quiet
highways outside of San Francisco during that testing process.
No, Thompson never went back to that after his interview with John P.
Henderson. He was sorry, in a way. He liked the work. It was fascinating
to put shafting and gears and a motor and a set of insentient wheels
together and make the assembled whole a thing of pulsing power that
leaped under the touch of a finger. But--a good salesman made thousands
where a good mechanic made hundreds. And money was the indispensable
factor--to such as he, who had none.
Fred Henderson had the satisfaction of seeing his theory verified.
Thompson made good from the start. In three months his sales were second
in volume only to Monk White, who was John P.'s one best bet in the
selling line. Henderson chuckled afresh over this verification of his
original estimate of a man, and Fred Henderson smiled and said nothing.
From either man's standpoint Wes Thompson was a credit to the house. An
asset, besides, of reckonable value in cold cash.
"New blood counts," John P. rumbled in confidence to his son. "Keeps us
from going stale, Fred."
When a twelvemonth had elapsed from the day Sophie Carr's red roadster
blew a tire on the San Mateo road and set up that sequence of events
which had landed him where he was, Thompson had left his hall bedroom at
the Globe for quarters in a decent bachelor apartment. He had a
well-stocked wardrobe, a dozen shelves of miscellaneous books, and three
thousand dollars in the bank. Considering his prospects he should have
been a fairly sanguine and well-contented young man.
As a matter of fact he had become so, within certain limits. A man whose
time is continuously and profitably occupied does not brood. Thompson
had found a personal satisfaction in living up to John P. Henderson's
first judgment of him. Through Fred Henderson and through his business
activities he had formed a little group of pleasant acquaintances.
Sophie Carr was growing shadowy--a shadow that sometimes laid upon him
certain regrets, it is true, but the mere memory of her no longer
produced the old overpowering reactions, the sense of sorry failure, of
a dear treasure lost because he lacked a man's full stature in all but
physical bulk.
It could easily have happened that Thompson would have embraced with
enthusiasm a future bounded by San Francisco, a future in which he would
successfully sell Groya cars until his amassed funds enabled him to
expand still further his material success. If that future embraced a
comfortable home, if a mate and affection suggested themselves as
possibilities well within his reach, the basis of those tentative
yearnings rested upon the need that dwells within every normal human
being, and upon what he saw happening now and then to other young
men--and young women--within the immediate radius of his observation.
But upon this particular May morning his mind was questing far afield.
The prime cause of that mental projection was a letter in his hand, a
letter from Tommy Ashe. Thompson had a lively imagination, tempered by
the sort of worldly experience no moderately successful man can escape. And
Tommy's letter--the latest in a series of renewed correspondence--opened
up certain desirable eventualities. The first page of Tommy's screed was
devoted to personal matters. The rest ran thus:
Candidly, old man, your description of the contemplated Henderson
car makes a hit with me. The line I handle now is a fair seller.
But fair isn't good enough for me. I really need--in addition--to
have a smaller machine, to supply a pretty numerous class of
prospects. I should like to get hold of just such a car as you
describe. I am feeling around for the agency of a small, _good_
car. Send me all the dope on this one, and when it will be on the
market. There is a tremendous market here for something like that.
I'd prefer to take up a line with an established reputation behind
it. But the main thing is to have a car that will sell when you
push it. And this listens good.
Aren't you about due for a vacation? Why don't you take a run up
here? I'd enjoy a chin-fest. The fishing's good, too--and we are
long on rather striking scenery. Do come up for a week, when you
can get off. Meantime, by-by.
Tommy
Thompson laid down the letter and stared out over the roof-tops. He
couldn't afford to be a philanthropist. A rather sweeping idea had
flashed into his mind as he read that missive. His horizon was
continually expanding. Money, beyond cavil, was the key to many doors, a
necessity if a man's eyes were fixed upon much that was desirable. If he
could make money selling machines for Groya Motors Inc., why not for
himself? Why not?
The answer seemed too obvious for argument. The new car which had taken
final form in Fred Henderson's drafting room and in the Groya shop was
long past the experimental stage. All it required was financing and John
P. Henderson had attended efficiently to that. There was a plant rising
swiftly across the bay, a modern plant with railway service, big yards,
and a testing track, in which six months hence would begin an estimated
annual production of ten thousand cars a year. John P. had remarked once
to his son that for the Henderson family to design, produce, manufacture
and market successfully a car they could be proud of would be the summit
of his ambition. And the new car was named the Summit.
It was a good car, a quality car in everything but sheer bulk. Thompson
knew that. He knew, too, that people were buying motor cars on
performance, not poundage, now. He knew too that he could sell
Summits--if he could get territory in which to make sales.
He had thought about this before. He knew that in the Groya files lay
dealers' contracts covering the cream of California, Oregon and
Washington. These dealers would handle Summits. There had not seemed an
opening wide enough to justify plans. But now Tommy's letter focused his
vision upon a specific point.
If he could get that Vancouver territory! Vancouver housed a hundred
thousand people. A Vancouver agency for the Summit, with a live man at
the helm, would run to big figures.
No, he decided, he would not hastily grasp his fountain pen and say to
Tommy Ashe, "Jump in and contract for territory and allotment, old boy.
The Summit is the goods." Not until he had looked over the ground
himself.
He had two weeks' vacation due when it pleased him. And it pleased him
to ask John P. as soon as he reached the office that very morning if it
was convenient to the firm to do without him for the ensuing fortnight.