“You should know.”  Thompson could not help a shade of doubt in his tone.  “But I must say I could approach a man with a proposition to sell him an article with more confidence if I knew that article inside and out, top and bottom.  If I really knew a thing was good, and why, I could sell it, I believe.”

“He has the right hunch, Dad.”

Thompson had not heard young Henderson come in.  He saw him now a step behind his chair, garbed in overalls that bore every sign of intimate contact with machinery.

He nodded to Thompson and continued to address his father.

“It’s true.  Take two men of equal selling force.  On the year’s business the one who can drive mechanical superiority home because he knows wherein it lies will show the biggest sales, and the most satisfied customers.  I believe six months’ shop work would just about double the efficiency of half our sales staff.”

John P. gazed good-naturedly at his son.

“I know, Fred,” he drawled.  “I’ve heard those sentiments before.  There’s some truth in it, of course.  But Simons and Sam Eppel and Monk White are products of my method.  You cannot deny their efficiency in sales.  What’s the idea, anyway?”

Young Henderson grinned.

“The fact is,” he said, “since I listened in on this conversation I have come to the conclusion that you’ve good material here.  I need a helper.  He’ll get a thorough grounding.  Whenever you and he decide that he has absorbed sufficient mechanics he can join the sales end.  I’d like to train one man for you, properly.”

“Well,” John P. remarked judicially, “I can’t waste the whole morning discussing methods of training salesmen in the way they should go.  I’ve made Mr. Thompson a proposition.  What do you say?”

He turned abruptly on Thompson.

“Or,” young Henderson cut in.  “You have the counter proposition of an indefinite mechanical grind in my department—­which is largely experimental.  If you take to it at all I guarantee that in six months you will know more about the internal combustion motor and automobile design in general than any two salesmen on my father’s staff.  And that,” he added, with a boyish grimace at his father, “is saying a lot.”

It seemed to Thompson that both men regarded him with a considerable expectancy.  It perplexed him, that embarrassment of opportunity.  He was a little dazed at the double chance.  Here was Opportunity clutching him by the coat collar.  He had nothing but impulse, and perhaps a natural craving for positive knowledge, to guide his choice.  He wasted few seconds, however, in deciding.  Among other things, he had outgrown vacillation.

“It is just as I said,” he addressed Henderson senior.  “I’d feel more competent to sell cars if I knew them.  I’d rather start in the shop.”

“All right,” Henderson grunted.  “You’re the doctor.  Be giving Fred a chance to prove one of his theories.  Personally I believe you’d make a go of selling right off the bat, and a good salesman is wasted in the mechanical line.  When you feel that you’ve saturated your system with valve clearances and compression formulas and gear ratios and all the rest of the shop dope, come and see me.  I’ll give you a try-out on the selling end.  For the present, report to Fred.”