“Yes, it's bedtime,” said Mr. Thompson, absently. Then he came back to Tommy. “Tommy,” he said, “if you ever feel like coming to me to tell me what an ignorant ass you think you are, do so. I'll agree with you; and perhaps, after I listen to your reasons I'll even raise your salary on the spot. If you get lonesome walk it off; don't come to me. But Mrs. Thompson will introduce you to a lot of nice young people--” Tommy shook his head violently. “Thank you very much, Mr. Thompson. But I'd--” He floundered till a ray of light showed him the way out. He finished, “I'd be more than glad if Mrs. Thompson would let me call once in a while so I could confidentially tell her what I think of her husband.” Tommy smiled what he thought was a debonair smile. He wasn't going to know nice young people who some day might read in the newspapers--And, anyhow, he wasn't in Dayton to have a good time, but to sweat seventeen thousand dollars' worth. “I see I can't do a damned thing for you, young man,” said Thompson, evenly. He accompanied Tommy to the door. He held out his hand. “Remember, when you want to tell me that you are not only an ignoramus, but an ass, and, to boot, blind, come up and say it. Good night, Tommy!” And he shook Tommy's hand firmly. “All I know,” thought Tommy to himself on the way home, “is that he is the greatest thing that ever came down the pike.” He thought of the day when he could feel that he owed nothing and dreaded nothing. He fell asleep thinking he ought to look into the selling end of the business. CHAPTER IX TOMMY found, after his dinner with Mr. Thompson, that the responsibility of learning the business by doing his own studying in his own way did not weigh so heavily upon him. There were times, of course, when the slowness of his own progress was not comfortable, but he learned the most valuable of all lessons--to wit, that you cannot turn raw material into finished product by one operation in one second. He now divided his time between the general business office in the Tecumseh Building and the office at the works. In the morning he was with the selling force, listening to the dictated replies to all sorts of correspondence or to the explanations and pointers of men who looked after the merchandising of the company's product. But his own interest in the psychology of selling was not personal enough. He couldn't bring himself to feel that in selling for the Tecumseh Company he was pleasing Thomas Francis Leigh quite as much as the company. Of course it would please him to succeed; but he acknowledged to himself that the pleasure would not be because of the selling, but because of the success. He could not project himself into his imaginary auditors, for the wonderful possession of another's ears with which to hear his own voice was not to him what it is to the bom pleader.