Burned Bridges

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.