"Well, where do I come in on this deal?" I asked, somewhat suspiciously, I must own.
"Listen, Dawson," said Charlie, putting his hand on my knee, "you're a mighty original chap. Some of the selling stunts you have pulled off here show you have an excellent merchandising instinct. You have made some 'bulls,' of course, but I'd hate to have a fellow around me who couldn't make some mistakes. When we've got our plan in this town working properly, we would like you, if we could get you, to thoroughly study the automobile accessories business, and think up ways and means of selling them; and then we'd like you, if you would to come in with us as a partner and take charge of the selling and displaying of the accessories for all our stores. We would also like to have you write up form letters to send to car owners, and go around and visit the stores and see that the goods are being displayed properly. Think up new selling wrinkles for salesmen, and things of that sort."
Then he got up abruptly, leaving my head in a whirlwind with the torrent of thoughts he had given me, and said, "Think it over, old man, and talk about it with Betty, but don't let it go any further!"
CHAPTER XLIV
A BUDGET OF SURPRISES
There followed three such strenuous months that everything had to go by the board, except business; and I cannot with any clearness remember everything that took place.
We started our profit-sharing plan, as arranged on June 1, the beginning of my fiscal year. I had thought we had so thoroughly threshed out the plan that it would work like a charm; but two months had barely passed before friction started. Larsen felt he ought to get a larger percentage of the profits than his salary called for, because he went out selling, and said that he thereby created business which no one else could get and he did his regular work besides. Whenever the boy Jimmie made a suggestion of any kind he, at the same time, added that he ought to have a special extra bonus for that suggestion, if it was any good. I talked the matter over with Jock, and finally we straightened it out, but I have not the time to tell you how we satisfied the warring elements.
I would also like to tell in detail of the starting of the new chain garage plan. In three months it was already working well in Farmdale, and negotiations had been completed for the second garage in Hartleyville. We had struck an awful lot of snags in starting this plan. How to handle the store, and at the same time study automobile accessories, had been some job, but Fred Barlow and Charlie Martin were certainly live wires, and they could think up more ways of doing a thing than I ever dreamed of.
I remember once reading something by Elbert Hubbard in which he said that every business required a pessimist, an optimist, and a grouch. I believed we would succeed, for old Barlow was certainly the pessimist in the bunch, and whenever Charlie or Fred went to him with any new idea they wanted to "pull off" in connection with the garage chain plan he acted like a brake to their enthusiasm—or, as he put it, kept them down to Mother Earth.
Charlie's father had oodles of money, and was the principal director of the idea, and he was the grouch. Charlie used to say that his dad never believed anything until he actually saw it.