“Not a bit; in fact, I—” He caught himself on the verge of saying that Mr. Thompson could not pick out a more pleasing topic. Thompson smiled slightly. Then he leaned back in his chair and relaxed physically.
“Tommy”—he spoke very quietly—“I think I know you now so that I don't have to ask you to tell me anything more about yourself. In fact, I know you so well that I am going to talk to you about myself.”
Tommy's expectancy was aroused to such a high pitch so suddenly that he was distinctly conscious of a thrill. Mr. Thompson went on: “Can you guess what made me go into automobile manufacturing?”
“I suppose you saw very clearly the possibilities of the business,” ventured Tommy, not over-confidently.
It seemed too commonplace a reason, and yet it was common sense.
“I won't be modest with you, Tommy. I'll say right out that few men who develop a big business successfully are primarily concerned with the cash profits. The work itself must grip them. Of course when the reward is money, if they make a great deal this merely proves how efficient their work is. As a matter of fact, I went into this business twelve years ago because—” Thompson paused. His eyes were half closed and his lips half smiling, as if he were looking at young Thompson and rather enjoying the sight; the paternal mood that comes over a man of forty when he gets a glimpse of the boy he used to be. He went on, “Because I had a dream about a pair of roller-skates.”
“Roller-skates? Were you in that business?”
“I wasn't in any business. I had tried half a dozen things, only to give them up. And each time people told me I was a fool not to stick to what I was in, especially as I was making good. But I couldn't see myself devoting my whole life to such work. I was on my way to talk to a man who had lost all his teeth. He had a proposition that looked good to me.”
He glanced at Tommy, but Tommy shook his head and paid Thompson the stupendous compliment of not smiling.
“Don't you see, my boy, he had no teeth, but he had brains. Therefore he capitalized his misfortune. He'd got dyspepsia because he could not masticate and hated soup. So he invented a machine for chewing food not only for the toothless, but for the thoughtless who bolt their food. Not a food-chopper, but a food-grinder. No more dyspepsia; no need of Fletcherizing; the machine did it for you. He had evolved a series of easy maxillary motions to stimulate the salivary glands, and he had gathered together hundreds of quotations from the poets and from scientists and wise men of all time. I tell you it promised.