TOMMY devoted himself whole-souledly to the study of the car Mr.
Thompson had told him to play with. It delighted him to put flesh on
what hitherto had been but the bones of theory. He was certain the car
would make him very valuable to the Tecumseh Company as a salesman. As
soon as he could drive with confidence he began to drive with pleasure,
and as soon as he could do that he dragged Bill from the little shop in
Mrs. Clayton's woodshed and gave him a joy-ride. Together they made a
long list of improvements, nearly all of them suggested by Tommy, who,
not being a mechanic, found difficult and complicated what to Bill was
a simple matter to fix and adjust. “The Beginner's Delight” was what
Tommy, the salesman, called the Tecumseh car as it ought to be, the
car that would sell itself. Bill, the mechanic, called it “The D. P.'s
Dream.”
Tommy at first dutifully reported the needed improvements to the men
in the shop, but they laughed at him and called him Daredevil Dick; or,
when they took him seriously, told him that the suggestions were either
impractical or unavailable, because they involved structural changes
that were either commercially extravagant or mechanically inexpedient.
“In a piece of machinery, as in everything else in life, Tommy,” La
Grange told him one day, because he saw the disappointment in Tommy's
eyes, “we are up against a series of compromises. One must try to lose
as little as possible in one place in order to gain more somewhere else.
It is a matter of weighing profits and losses.”
“You must be a bookkeeper under your vest,” retorted Tommy, “you are
so struck with the philosophical value of items. Life isn't a ledger.
'Profit-and-loss' was invented as a sort of wastebasket for the mistakes
industrial corporations make through their mechanical experts.”
“Keep on discovering defects, Tommy,” laughed La Grange, “you'll make a
fine salesman yet.” Then he became serious. “As a matter of fact, some
of the best suggestions have come from laymen.”
“Don't look at me. My trouble is that I am ahead of my time,” said
Tommy, haughtily, and went off to tell Bill his grievances. After that
they decided to jot down the suggestions, and if possible try them
out. But Tommy found that, as he understood the car better, fewer
improvements suggested themselves. He began to think the trouble was
with the buyers.
His resolve to repay the seventeen thousand dollars was by now divested
of all heroics and, consequently, of self-pity. It had become a duty
thoroughly assimilated. But the reason why the secret had lost its power
to torture him beyond measure was that, beginning by hoping, he ended
by being convinced that, if discovery came, Mr. Thompson and Bill and
Grosvenor and La Grange and Nevin and the others would know that he was
not to blame.
But when it occurred to him that his thoughts still were all of self,
the reaction was so strong that he almost yearned for discovery. He even
dramatized it. He saw the trial, heard the sentence, said good-by to
his father at the door of the jail, and then went back to his work in
Day-ton, to toil for the bank, to pay the debt just the same, to save
his wages, to make a new home and have it ready for his father. He would
pay with love what his father had paid for love. And then Tommy told
himself that it was not for him to see visions and dream dreams, but
to hustle and pay; so that the spur was just as sharp, but not quite so
cruelly applied.
One morning Tommy, in his car, left the shop on his way to the country.
On Main Street near Fourth he saw Mr. Thompson on foot. Thompson held up
his hand. Tommy drew up alongside.
“Give us a ride?” asked Thompson, pleasantly.
Tommy gravely touched his cap with rigid fingers, and asked, “Where to,
sir?”
“With you,” answered Thompson.
“Get in.” And Tommy opened the rear door.
Thompson shook his head, got in front, and sat beside Tommy.
Tommy shifted gears more diffidently than usual. They clashed horridly.
His face grew red.
“Excited?” asked Thompson, seriously.
“Yes,” answered Tommy, frankly.
“Get over it!” Thompson's advice was given in such a calm voice that
it did not help Tommy. Whereupon Thompson laughed and said, “Tommy, I
completely wrecked my first seven cars.”
A great wave of gratitude surged within Tommy. It gave him mastery of
the machine. He drove on carefully and easily until he reached a
good stretch of road near the city limits. He let her out. He did not
remember when he had felt such perfect control. He slowed down when they
came to a crossroad.
“Going to Columbus?” asked Mr. Thompson.
“If you wish,” replied Tommy, nonchalantly. “Not to-day. Let me off at
the trolley line.”
“I'll take you back,” said Tommy.
“Does it interfere with your plans?”
Interfere with his plans? This man who was paying him wages asked that
question! Did a finer man live anywhere?
“Not a bit. I was only trying out--” Tommy stopped short. He had been
taking liberties with the carburetor by advice and with the consent of
Bill. And it was Thompson's car! “What?” asked Thompson.
Tommy told him.
“Lots of room for improvement in the Tecumseh, eh?”
Mr. Thompson's voice was neither sarcastic nor admiring.
Tommy answered, “We think so.”
“Who is we?”
“Me and Bill Byrnes,” smiled Tommy.
“Lots of suggestions?”
“Some.”
“Decreasing as you learn?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Been in the testing-shop?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell 'em?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All the suggestions?”
“No, sir.”
“Only at first?”
“Right!”
“Why did you stop?”
“Well, we found out that some of the things we thought might be improved
couldn't be, by reason of expense or weight or something else. So we
decided to try to make sure our improvements would improve or could be
carried out before we spoke.”
“Want to go into the shop?”
“Not as a steady job. I'll never make a mechanic.”
“Bill want to experiment in our testing department?”
“I don't think so.”
“Why not?”
“He says it annoys him to have people round him when he wants to be
alone.”
“Must be an inventor.”
“Well,” apologized Tommy, “his father was.” Thompson laughed. “The
wisest things we say, my boy, are the things we say not knowing how
wise they are. And so La Grange and the others laughed when you casually
asked about the one thing you and Bill are so interested in?” Tommy
almost lost his grip on the wheel. He slowed down so that they barely
crawled, and asked, “Please, Mr. Thompson, did La Grange tell you?”
“No; he's never spoken to me about you.”
“Then how do you know?”
Tommy looked into Mr. Thompson's face intently. Thompson answered very
quietly: “Didn't you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And didn't they?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, that's how I know.”
Tommy could grasp only that it was obvious to Mr. Thompson. He gave up
trying to understand how such a mind worked, and began:
“You see, Mr. Thompson, it's this way. We think--”
“Don't tell me, Tommy,” interrupted Mr. Thompson, quickly. His face was
serious. He continued, “You and Bill work at it at home?”
“Yes, sir. That is, he works and I look on.”
“Quite right!” And Thompson relapsed into silence.
Could it be that Thompson spied on them? Tommy almost blushed with
self-anger at the suspicion. This man was a wonder, that was all. He
didn't have to be a crook. If he wished to be, what defense could avail
against him? Moreover, he couldn't be a crook, that was all.
Tommy drove him to the works. Mr. Thompson, without a word, got out. At
the door of the office he turned, faced Tommy, and said:
“That's your car.”
“I--I--don't understand--”
“Your car.”
“Oh, Mr. Thompson, I can't--”
“Yes, you can, in my garage. Plenty of room.”
“I didn't mean--exactly that,” floundered Tommy; but Mr. Thompson said,
thoughtfully: “You'd better stay with Mr. Grosvenor for a while. Want
your salary raised?”
“Not yet. But, Mr. Thompson, I am--”
“So am I!” And with that Mr. Thompson went into the office.
Tommy, determinedly endeavoring not to consider the car his private
property, drove it to Mr. Thompson's garage and walked to the Tecumseh
Building.
“I am to report to you again, Mr. Grosvenor,” he said to the head of the
sales department. “What for?”
“Mr. Thompson's orders.”
Grosvenor looked at Tommy and asked, “Anything else?”
“All he said was that I'd better stay with you for a while.”
“I am glad to have you, my boy. What do you want to do?”
This question would have resembled a sentence from a fairy tale to Tommy
if he had not been accustomed to Mr. Thompson's ways. He answered:
“Obey orders.” He meant it exactly, and he looked it.
Grosvenor stared at him and then lost himself in thought. At length
he turned to Tommy a face utterly expressionless, but there was a
suggestion of play-acting about it that made him think of Mr. Thompson,
to whom an inscrutable face came so natural.
Grosvenor said, “I want you to listen.”
“Yes, sir”; and Tommy looked expectant.
“That's all. You will sit in this office all day and listen.”
“Very well, sir.” Tommy's eyes looked intelligently at Mr. Grosvenor,
who thereupon pointed to a desk in a corner of the room.
Tommy sat down, looked at the empty pigeonholes, opened a drawer, saw
some scratch-pads there, took out one and laid it on the desk. Then he
looked to see if his lead-pencil was sharpened. It was.
Mr. Grosvenor, who was watching him, smiled.
“How do you like your new job, Tommy?”
“Very much.”
“What do you expect to learn?”
“How to listen.”
“And what will that teach you?”
“I hope, for one thing, that it will teach me to understand Thompson.”
“Some job, that,” said Mr. Grosvenor, seriously. Then, admiringly,
“Isn't he a wonder?”
“He is more than that to me, Mr. Grosvenor,” said Tommy, earnestly.
“And to me, too, my boy,” confessed Mr. Grosvenor, in a lowered voice.