I
JENKINS was a special writer of national reputation, and he had come on from Philadelphia to see Homer Dean, the automobile man whose name is a registered trade-mark borne by some hundred thousand cars of the first class upon the nation’s thoroughfares. Jenkins’ appointment with Dean was for two-thirty in the afternoon, but he was in the reception room outside the other’s office a little ahead of time.
While he sat there Dean came out with an older man, to whom he was saying goodby, and when this older man was gone the millionaire turned to Jenkins with a friendly nod of invitation, and Jenkins followed him into his office. But Dean at once went to a closet in the corner and brought out his coat and hat, saying: “I’m going to have to put you off till to-morrow, Mr. Jenkins. Old Jasper Hopkins, my first boss—that was him who just went out—has just told me something I should have known twenty years ago. I’ve got to—straighten it out. Come in to-morrow, can you?”
The writer’s disappointment showed in his face. “I had figured on taking the six o’clock to-night.”
Dean hesitated, glancing at his watch. “Just what is it you wanted of me?” he asked.
Jenkins smiled. “The usual thing. The story of how you did it. People are always interested in such things. Self-made man, you know. It’s old stuff, sir, but it’s sure-fire.”
“I know,” the automobile man agreed, nodding thoughtfully. He considered for a moment, then, with abrupt decision, took off his coat, his hat. “After all, it’s waited twenty years,” he said. “Another two hours won’t matter. And—the affair may interest you.” He turned back to his desk, indicated a chair for the other. “Sit down,” he directed. “I think I understand what you’re planning. ‘How to Make Yourself. By One Who Has Done It.’ Is that the idea?”
“Yes.”
Dean smiled. “I’ve heard folks speak of me as self-made,” he confessed. “In fact, that has been, secretly, my own idea. Until an hour ago. Just how much do you know of my—success, anyway?”
“I know you’re the head of one of the half dozen biggest concerns in the business.”
“Know how I came to be here?”
“You were managing vice-president in the beginning; bought out Hopkins ten years or so ago.”
“Can you go back any farther than that?”
“I’ve understood you were sales manager of the old Hopkins Tool Company; that you were a world beater in that job.”
Dean laughed. “Those were boom times, and sales jumped. I happened to be the head of the department, and I got the credit. Ever hear how Hopkins came to make me sales manager?” Jenkins shook his head.
“He had put me on as a salesman,” Dean explained. “My first trip, a big prospect hunted me up, said he’d decided to trade with us, and gave me a whooping order. My predecessor had worked on them four years; they fell into my lap, and Hopkins thought I was a worker of miracles from that day.”
Jenkins shook his head, smiling. “You give yourself the worst of it,” he commented.
Dean’s eyes had become sober and thoughtful; he spoke slowly, as though invoking memory. “You’ve called me a self-made man. But, as a matter of fact, it was the mere accident that I was on the spot which gave me that first order; and that order made me sales manager within two months’ time. By and by the automobile came along, and Old Jasper remodeled his factory and went after the business—with me in charge. He gave me some stock; and a year or two later his son Charlie died and took the heart out of the old man. He offered to sell out to me, and I gave him a bundle of notes for the whole thing. The business paid them off inside of five years. Do you see? The fact that I was salesman made me sales manager; the fact that I was sales manager made me vice-president; the fact that I was vice-president threw the business into my hands; and the fact that everybody wanted to buy cars has done the rest. Still call me a self-made man?”
“After all,” Jenkins suggested, “you had made good or you wouldn’t have been given the job as salesman.”
Dean nodded emphatically. “That’s the key to the whole structure,” he agreed. “That first job as salesman. And that’s what I want to tell you about. If you care to hear.”
The reporter did care to hear, and this—as he shaped the tale in his thoughts thereafter—is what he heard: