“Have a care, Amidon! You must be careful of your facts even in social conversation. Mr. Kinney had a small interest in a brickyard, which is very different. By the way, your opportunities for cultivating Mr. Copeland’s acquaintance are rather restricted? Except on those rare occasions when he summons you to make sure your orders cover your expense account, you don’t see much of him?”
“Oh, he used to give me a jolly occasionally before I went on the road—ask me why our ball team was glued to the tail of the league and things like that. Once he asked me to look up a good chauffeur for him—and I got him a chap who’d been a professional racer. I guess that made a hit with him.”
“An assumption not wholly unwarranted. I hope he finds the chauffeur satisfactory?”
“I guess he does; he must like him, for he bails him out about once a week when he gets pinched for speeding.”
“Rather unfortunate that you’re not an inside man, so you could observe the boss more closely; not, of course, to the extent of exercising an espionage—but it might be possible—er—”
“Well, I can have an inside job if I want it. My being on the road was just a try-out, and I’m not so keen about hopping ties with the sample-cases. If I’m going to tackle the reading you’ve laid out for me, I’ll have to change my job. The head stock-man’s quitting to go into heavy chemicals on his own hook; I guess I could get his place.”
“Don’t refuse it without full consideration. My attitude toward you thus far has been wholly critical; I’ve refrained from compliments; but it would interest me to—er—see what you can do with your brains. I suggest that you learn everything there is about the business outside and in: become indispensable, be tolerant of stupidity, forbearing amid jealousy, and indifferent to contumely; zealous, watchful, polite, without, let us say, sissiness. Manners, my dear boy, are appraised far too low in our commercial life.”
The grin occasioned by these injunctions died on Amidon’s face as he realized that the lawyer was in earnest; but he was very much at sea. Eaton was a busy man, as his generous office space and the variety of his paraphernalia testified; just why he had sought an interview, for the sole reason, apparently, of extracting a little information and giving a little advice, caused Amidon to wonder. He was still wondering when Eaton rose and glanced at the tiniest of watches, which he carried like a coin in his trousers pocket and always looked at as though surprised to find he had it.
“Time for me to be off; arguing a case in Pittsburg Monday.”
He opened a bag that lay beside him on the floor, pulled a packet from a drawer and dropped it in, and told Jerry he might, if he had nothing better to do, accompany him to the station.