"Well, can't you do it?" Coffee Jim inquired. Ford shook his head. "Cost too much," he said. "I've laid off work a lot this summer, trying to get capital, and the boy's been sick. I'd have to buy a new car for the racing. I might rake up money enough for material, but I couldn't make the car in time, working evenings, and I can't afford to give up my job and spend my whole time on it." CHAPTER XVIII WINNING A RACE Coffee Jim pondered the situation. He knew Ford thoroughly; he believed in the car. To win the Grosse Point races would give Ford his chance--a chance he was missing for lack of money. Coffee Jim thought of his own bank account, which had been growing for years, nickel by nickel, dime by dime, from the profits on fried-ham sandwiches and hamburger and onions. "See here, Ford," he said suddenly: "I'll take a chance. I'll back you. You go on, quit your job, build that car and race her. I'll put up the money." Ford accepted the offer without hesitation. He believed in the car. Coffee Jim waved aside Ford's suggestion of securing the loan by his personal note, or by a mortgage on the little house. "Take the money; that's all right. Pay it back when you can. Your word's good enough for me," he said. He believed in Ford. It was a demonstration of the practical value of friendship--a pure sentiment which had come unexpectedly to the rescue when all material means had failed. Hard work, real ability, business sagacity, had been unable to give Ford the start which his friendship with the owner of the little lunch wagon had brought him. It was one of those experiences which helped to form Ford's business philosophy, that philosophy which sounds so impractical and has proved so successful. "Any man who considers everything from the standpoint of the most good to the most people will never want for anything," he says. "No, I don't mean mental influence, or psychic attraction, or anything like that. I mean plain common sense. That's the attitude that makes friends--all kinds of friends, everywhere, some that you never even hear about--and friends bring all the rest." He took Coffee Jim's money, gave up his job at the Edison plant, and went to work on the little racer. "It seemed pretty good to be able to work all day on the car, as well as the evenings," he says. He took down the engine and entirely rebuilt it, substituting the best of material for the makeshifts he had been obliged to use. He spent long hours designing a racing body, figuring out problems of air-resistance and weight. Eight months of careful thought and work went into that car. At last, in the early summer of 1902, it was finished. At 4 o'clock one morning, business being over at the lunch wagon, he and Coffee Jim took it out for a trial.