“That's because you are a boy with a wonderful unlived life. Keep it up, because unreasoning love is a good foundation for the maturer habit of affection from which I expect the Tecumseh stockholders and the Tecumseh employees alike to benefit. I am after a family feeling. Some day I'll tell you the story of Bob Holland, the treasurer of the company, the only man I know who thinks of dollars as an annoying necessity, but of the Tecumseh finances in terms of health insurance. He is one of my Experiments.” And Thompson smiled. Knowing that he also was one and fearing because he was, Tommy, who did not feel like smiling, smiled as he asked: “Are all your Experiments always successful?” “Always,” answered Thompson, emphatically. “Always,” he repeated, and looked unsmilingly at Tommy. And Tommy made up his mind that the least he could do was to see to it that Thompson's record was not broken. “Grosvenor is another, and Nevin,” went on Thompson. “You know them. La Grange is still a Sophomore, but on the right road. Bill Byrnes is a first-day Freshman. Watch him. I won't give the others away. You know Leonard Herrick?” “Yes, sir.” “But you don't know why I pay him a salary?” “No, sir.” “For his grouch. I made him cultivate it, until from being merely a personal pleasure he elevated it to the dignity of an impersonal art. What was only a grouch has become intelligent faultfinding. He is the cantankerous customer on tap, the flaw-picking perfection-seeker, our critic-in-chief. He is a walking encyclopedia of objections, and they have to be good ones. He's a wonder!” Thompson paused and looked at Tommy doubtfully. Tommy wondered why. “It used to worry me whenever I thought of that man's family life, so I looked about for a wife for him, and when I found the woman I wanted I married him off to her before he could say Jack Robinson. She is very happy. She is stone-deaf and has borne him two children--both girls. I didn't arrange for their sex, Tommy; honest I didn't; but I prayed for girls! Anyhow, he got them. He'll butt his head against them in vain; they are women and they will be modern women. They will preserve his grouch until he's through living. His usefulness to the company will thus be unimpaired and he'll die in harness, grouchy and an asset to the end. Do you still want to know whether all my Experiments are successful?” Thompson looked so meaningly at Tommy that Tommy flushed as he answered: “I don't know whether I can ever do anything to repay you--” “The company, Tommy,” corrected Thompson, quickly. “But I know I'd rather work here for five dollars a week than anywhere else for a hundred.” “That answers your question. Now for your job!” Thompson became so serious that Tommy knew his would be a difficult task. Well, he would do it or die trying! “Your job is to be the one man in the employ of the Tecumseh Motor Company who can walk into the president's private office at any time without knocking.”