“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.