“It is the foundation principle of business—­that a reputation for trustworthiness can be built only on the rock of real merit.  The appearance of the store must not tell one lie—­not one—­from front door to back—­not even the shadow of a lie.  Nothing must be left to the customer’s discretion.  If he pays so much money he must get so much value, whether he knows it or not.”  He stopped abruptly, waited for a little, his eyes searching the faces before him.  Then he said, with a change of tone: 

“Do you want to tell me something about the management of the business, gentlemen?”

“We want to do just that, Mr. Kendrick,” Benson answered.

So they set it before him, he and Alfred Carson, as they had worked it out, Richard remaining silent, even when appealed to, merely saying quietly:  “I’m only the crudest kind of a beginner—­you fellows will have to do the talking,” and so leaving it all to the others.  They showed Mr. Kendrick the books of the firm, they explained to him their system of buying, of analyzing their sales that they might learn how to buy at best advantage and sell at greatest profit; of getting rid of goods quickly by attractive advertising; of all manner of details large and small, such as pertain to the conduct of a business of the character of theirs.

They grew eager, enthusiastic, as they talked, for they found their listener ready of understanding, quick of appreciation, kindly of criticism, yet so skilful at putting a finger on their weak places that they could only wonder and take earnest heed of every word he said.  As Richard watched him, he found himself understanding a little Matthew Kendrick’s extraordinary success.  If his personality was still one to make a powerful impression on all who came in contact with him, what must it have been, Richard speculated, in his prime, in those wonderful years when he was building the great business, expanding it with a daring of conception and a rapidity of execution which had fairly taken away the breath of his contemporaries.  He had introduced new methods, laid down new principles, defied old systems, and created better ones having no precedent anywhere but in his own productive brain.  It might justly be said that he had virtually revolutionized the mercantile world, for when the bridges that he built were found to hold, in spite of all dire prophecy to the contrary, others had crossed them, too, and profited by his bridge building.

The three young men did their best to lead Mr. Kendrick to talk of himself, but of that he would do little.  Constantly he spoke of the work of his associates, and when it became necessary to allude to himself it was always as if they had been identified with every move of his own.  It was Alfred Carson who best recognized this trait of peculiar modesty in the old man, and who understood most fully how often the more impersonal “we” of his speech really stood for the “I” who had been the mainspring