He reached for some papers on the desk.  His manner, no less than his words, ended the interview.  Thompson rose.

“When can you start in?” young Henderson inquired.

“Any time,” Thompson responded quickly.  He was, in truth, a trifle eager to see what made the wheels go round in that establishment.  “I only have to change my clothes.”

“Come after lunch then,” young Henderson suggested.  “Take the elevator to the top floor.  Ask one of the men where you’ll find me.  Bring your overalls with you.  We have a dressing room and lockers on each floor.”

He nodded good-by and turned to his father.  Thompson made his exit.

Half a block away he turned to look back at the house of Henderson.  It was massive, imposing, the visible sign of a prosperous concern, the manifestation of business on a big scale.  Groya Motors, Inc.  It was lettered in neat gilt across the front.  It stood forth in four-foot skeleton characters atop of the flat roof—­an electric sign to burn like a beacon by night.  And he was about to become a part of that establishment, a humble beginner, true, but a beginner with uncommon prospects.  He wondered if Henderson senior was right, if there resided in him that elusive essence which leads some men to success in dealings with other men.  He was not sure about it himself.  Still, the matter was untried.  Henderson might be right.

But it was all a fluke.  It seemed to him he was getting an entirely disproportionate reward for mauling an insolent chauffeur.  That moved him to wonder what became of Pebbles.  He felt sorry for Pebbles.  The man had probably lost his job for good measure.  Poor devil!

As he walked his thought short-circuited to Sophie Carr.  Whereat he turned into a drugstore containing a telephone booth and rang her up.

Sophie herself answered.

“I guess my saying good-by last night was a little premature,” he told her.  “I’m not going north after all.  In fact, if things go on all right I may be in San Francisco indefinitely.  I’ve got a job.”

“What sort of a job?” Sophie inquired.

He hadn’t told her about the ten o’clock appointment with Henderson.  Nor did he go into that now.

“I’ve been taken on in an automobile plant on Van Ness,” he said.  “A streak of real luck.  I’m to have a chance to learn the business.  So I won’t see you in Vancouver.  Remember me to Tommy.  I suppose you’ll be busy getting ready to go, so I’ll wish you a pleasant voyage.”

“Thanks,” she answered.  “Wouldn’t it be more appropriate if you wished that on us in person before we sail?”

“I don’t know,” he mumbled.  “I—­”

A perfectly mad impulse seized him.

“Sophie,” he said sharply into the receiver.

“Yes.”

He heard the quick intake of her breath at the other end, almost a gasp.  And the single word was slightly uncertain.

“What did you mean by a man standing on his own feet?”