"H'm, h'm," said Roger, "that's a fact. Marcosson said that, as soon as any one could do better for me than they could, they expected me to leave. And it is a fact that, out of all the managers they have had, only three of them have left. Of course, it's a fairly young organization--been in existence only about five or six years; but the employees are treated so well that they rarely want to leave. "You know I get an interest in the profits the store makes--" And that reminded me, I hadn't yet worked out that profit-sharing plan for my people! It had been no easy job. "Another thing," continued Roger, "Marcosson said that impressed me very much. 'We are going to give you a share in the profits, Mr. Burns,' he said, 'because we believe it is due you.' You know, Jackdaw, Marcosson is the kind of man you can speak right out to--not the kind of man you get scared of at all; so I said to him: 'I've heard many people say that profit-sharing isn't a success.' 'So far as we are concerned, it is,' he said. 'Most retailers who go into profit-sharing plans go into them with but a very slight study of the problem. They don't think the thing through to a logical conclusion, and they put into operation some half-baked plan which, of course, does not work out right, and then, instead of blaming the plan they damn the policy as a whole! Profit-sharing is necessary in modern retail business; but its operation must be planned in a common-sense way to be successful. One might just as well complain of the principles of arithmetic because one cannot do a sum correctly!' "But let me get back to my story of how we came here," said Roger, lighting a fresh cigar. . . . While he was talking, I had been looking at Roger, and comparing him to the old Roger Burns I had known a year or so ago. He had grown bigger--not in size, you understand, but he was a bigger man--he had a personality which he never had had before. He had more confidence in himself, and I attributed this to the fact that he was sure of what he was about. He knew exactly what was expected of him--he had been trained thoroughly to do it, and that had given him a confidence which I was sure will make for his success in Farmdale. Frankly, I felt that, as a competitor, he was going to be a much keener one than Stigler ever had been. "The New England Hardware Company," continued Roger, "has money enough to open as many stores as it wishes; but it can open stores only as quickly as it can get men. So the first thing it seeks is a man who is likely to make a good manager, then it looks for a location in which to place him." "Is that how all chain-store organizations do?" I asked.