She did not apparently have a ready answer.  He pictured her, receiver in hand, and he did not know if she were startled, or surprised—­or merely amused.  That last was intolerable.  And suddenly he felt like a fool.  Before that soft, sweet voice could lead him into further masculine folly he hung up and walked out of the booth.  For the next twenty minutes his opinion of John P. Henderson’s judgment of men was rather low.  He did not feel himself to be an individual with any force of character.  In homely language he said to himself that he, Wesley Thompson, was nothing but a pot of mush.

However, there in the offing loomed the job.  He turned into the first clothing store he found, and purchased one of those all-covering duck garments affected by motor-car workers.  By that time he had recovered sufficiently to note that an emotional disturbance does not always destroy a man’s appetite for food.

CHAPTER XIX

A WIDENING HORIZON

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.