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.