I
Jenkins was a special writer of national reputation, and he had come on
from Philadelphia to see Homer Dean, the automobile man whose name is a
registered trade-mark borne by some hundred thousand cars of the first
class upon the nation’s thoroughfares. Jenkins’ appointment with Dean
was for two-thirty in the afternoon, but he was in the reception room
outside the other’s office a little ahead of time.
While he sat there Dean came out with an older man, to whom he was
saying goodby, and when this older man was gone the millionaire turned
to Jenkins with a friendly nod of invitation, and Jenkins followed him
into his office. But Dean at once went to a closet in the corner and
brought out his coat and hat, saying: “I’m going to have to put you off
till to-morrow, Mr. Jenkins. Old Jasper Hopkins, my first boss--that was
him who just went out--has just told me something I should have known
twenty years ago. I’ve got to--straighten it out. Come in to-morrow, can
you?”
The writer’s disappointment showed in his face. “I had figured on taking
the six o’clock to-night.”
Dean hesitated, glancing at his watch. “Just what is it you wanted of
me?” he asked.
Jenkins smiled. “The usual thing. The story of how you did it. People
are always interested in such things. Self-made man, you know. It’s old
stuff, sir, but it’s sure-fire.”
“I know,” the automobile man agreed, nodding thoughtfully. He considered
for a moment, then, with abrupt decision, took off his coat, his hat.
“After all, it’s waited twenty years,” he said. “Another two hours won’t
matter. And--the affair may interest you.” He turned back to his desk,
indicated a chair for the other. “Sit down,” he directed. “I think I
understand what you’re planning. ‘How to Make Yourself. By One Who Has
Done It.’ Is that the idea?”
“Yes.”
Dean smiled. “I’ve heard folks speak of me as self-made,” he confessed.
“In fact, that has been, secretly, my own idea. Until an hour ago. Just
how much do you know of my--success, anyway?”
“I know you’re the head of one of the half dozen biggest concerns in the
business.”
“Know how I came to be here?”
“You were managing vice-president in the beginning; bought out Hopkins
ten years or so ago.”
“Can you go back any farther than that?”
“I’ve understood you were sales manager of the old Hopkins Tool Company;
that you were a world beater in that job.”
Dean laughed. “Those were boom times, and sales jumped. I happened to be
the head of the department, and I got the credit. Ever hear how Hopkins
came to make me sales manager?” Jenkins shook his head.
“He had put me on as a salesman,” Dean explained. “My first trip, a big
prospect hunted me up, said he’d decided to trade with us, and gave me a
whooping order. My predecessor had worked on them four years; they fell
into my lap, and Hopkins thought I was a worker of miracles from that
day.”
Jenkins shook his head, smiling. “You give yourself the worst of it,” he
commented.
Dean’s eyes had become sober and thoughtful; he spoke slowly, as though
invoking memory. “You’ve called me a self-made man. But, as a matter of
fact, it was the mere accident that I was on the spot which gave me that
first order; and that order made me sales manager within two months’
time. By and by the automobile came along, and Old Jasper remodeled his
factory and went after the business--with me in charge. He gave me some
stock; and a year or two later his son Charlie died and took the heart
out of the old man. He offered to sell out to me, and I gave him a
bundle of notes for the whole thing. The business paid them off inside
of five years. Do you see? The fact that I was salesman made me sales
manager; the fact that I was sales manager made me vice-president; the
fact that I was vice-president threw the business into my hands; and the
fact that everybody wanted to buy cars has done the rest. Still call me
a self-made man?”
“After all,” Jenkins suggested, “you had made good or you wouldn’t have
been given the job as salesman.”
Dean nodded emphatically. “That’s the key to the whole structure,” he
agreed. “That first job as salesman. And that’s what I want to tell you
about. If you care to hear.”
The reporter did care to hear, and this--as he shaped the tale in his
thoughts thereafter--is what he heard: