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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.

Fred Henderson had the satisfaction of seeing his theory verified. Thompson made good from the start. In three months his sales were second in volume only to Monk White, who was John P.'s one best bet in the selling line. Henderson chuckled afresh over this verification of his original estimate of a man, and Fred Henderson smiled and said nothing. From either man's standpoint Wes Thompson was a credit to the house. An asset, besides, of reckonable value in cold cash.

"New blood counts," John P. rumbled in confidence to his son. "Keeps us from going stale, Fred."

When a twelvemonth had elapsed from the day Sophie Carr's red roadster blew a tire on the San Mateo road and set up that sequence of events which had landed him where he was, Thompson had left his hall bedroom at the Globe for quarters in a decent bachelor apartment. He had a well-stocked wardrobe, a dozen shelves of miscellaneous books, and three thousand dollars in the bank. Considering his prospects he should have been a fairly sanguine and well-contented young man.

As a matter of fact he had become so, within certain limits. A man whose time is continuously and profitably occupied does not brood. Thompson had found a personal satisfaction in living up to John P. Henderson's first judgment of him. Through Fred Henderson and through his business activities he had formed a little group of pleasant acquaintances. Sophie Carr was growing shadowy—a shadow that sometimes laid upon him certain regrets, it is true, but the mere memory of her no longer produced the old overpowering reactions, the sense of sorry failure, of a dear treasure lost because he lacked a man's full stature in all but physical bulk.

It could easily have happened that Thompson would have embraced with enthusiasm a future bounded by San Francisco, a future in which he would successfully sell Groya cars until his amassed funds enabled him to expand still further his material success. If that future embraced a comfortable home, if a mate and affection suggested themselves as possibilities well within his reach, the basis of those tentative yearnings rested upon the need that dwells within every normal human being, and upon what he saw happening now and then to other young men—and young women—within the immediate radius of his observation.

But upon this particular May morning his mind was questing far afield. The prime cause of that mental projection was a letter in his hand, a letter from Tommy Ashe. Thompson had a lively imagination, tempered by the sort of worldly experience no moderately successful man can escape. And Tommy's letter—the latest in a series of renewed correspondence—opened up certain desirable eventualities. The first page of Tommy's screed was devoted to personal matters. The rest ran thus:

Candidly, old man, your description of the contemplated Henderson car makes a hit with me. The line I handle now is a fair seller. But fair isn't good enough for me. I really need—in addition—to have a smaller machine, to supply a pretty numerous class of prospects. I should like to get hold of just such a car as you describe. I am feeling around for the agency of a small, good car. Send me all the dope on this one, and when it will be on the market. There is a tremendous market here for something like that. I'd prefer to take up a line with an established reputation behind it. But the main thing is to have a car that will sell when you push it. And this listens good. Aren't you about due for a vacation? Why don't you take a run up here? I'd enjoy a chin-fest. The fishing's good, too—and we are long on rather striking scenery. Do come up for a week, when you can get off. Meantime, by-by. Tommy

Thompson laid down the letter and stared out over the roof-tops. He couldn't afford to be a philanthropist. A rather sweeping idea had flashed into his mind as he read that missive. His horizon was continually expanding. Money, beyond cavil, was the key to many doors, a necessity if a man's eyes were fixed upon much that was desirable. If he could make money selling machines for Groya Motors Inc., why not for himself? Why not?

The answer seemed too obvious for argument. The new car which had taken final form in Fred Henderson's drafting room and in the Groya shop was long past the experimental stage. All it required was financing and John P. Henderson had attended efficiently to that. There was a plant rising swiftly across the bay, a modern plant with railway service, big yards, and a testing track, in which six months hence would begin an estimated annual production of ten thousand cars a year. John P. had remarked once to his son that for the Henderson family to design, produce, manufacture and market successfully a car they could be proud of would be the summit of his ambition. And the new car was named the Summit.

It was a good car, a quality car in everything but sheer bulk. Thompson knew that. He knew, too, that people were buying motor cars on performance, not poundage, now. He knew too that he could sell Summits—if he could get territory in which to make sales.

He had thought about this before. He knew that in the Groya files lay dealers' contracts covering the cream of California, Oregon and Washington. These dealers would handle Summits. There had not seemed an opening wide enough to justify plans. But now Tommy's letter focused his vision upon a specific point.

If he could get that Vancouver territory! Vancouver housed a hundred thousand people. A Vancouver agency for the Summit, with a live man at the helm, would run to big figures.

No, he decided, he would not hastily grasp his fountain pen and say to Tommy Ashe, "Jump in and contract for territory and allotment, old boy. The Summit is the goods." Not until he had looked over the ground himself.

He had two weeks' vacation due when it pleased him. And it pleased him to ask John P. as soon as he reached the office that very morning if it was convenient to the firm to do without him for the ensuing fortnight.