d-by and turned to his father. Thompson made his exit.

Half a block away he turned to look back at the house of Henderson. It
was massive, imposing, the visible sign of a prosperous concern, the
manifestation of business on a big scale. Groya Motors, Inc. It was
lettered in neat gilt across the front. It stood forth in four-foot
skeleton characters atop of the flat roof--an electric sign to burn like
a beacon by night. And he was about to become a part of that
establishment, a humble beginner, true, but a beginner with uncommon
prospects. He wondered if Henderson senior was right, if there resided
in him that elusive essence which leads some men to success in dealings
with other men. He was not sure about it himself. Still, the matter was
untried. Henderson might be right.

But it was all a fluke. It seemed to him he was getting an entirely
disproportionate reward for mauling an insolent chauffeur. That moved
him to wonder what became of Pebbles. He felt sorry for Pebbles. The man
had probably lost his job for good measure. Poor devil!

As he walked his thought short-circuited to Sophie Carr. Whereat he
turned into a drugstore containing a telephone booth and rang her up.

Sophie herself answered.

"I guess my saying good-by last night was a little premature," he told
her. "I'm not going north after all. In fact, if things go on all right
I may be in San Francisco indefinitely. I've got a job."

"What sort of a job?" Sophie inquired.

He hadn't told her about the ten o'clock appointment with Henderson. Nor
did he go into that now.

"I've been taken on in an automobile plant on Van Ness," he said. "A
streak of real luck. I'm to have a chance to learn the business. So I
won't see you in Vancouver. Remember me to Tommy. I suppose you'll be
busy getting ready to go, so I'll wish you a pleasant voyage."

"Thanks," she answered. "Wouldn't it be more appropriate if you wished
that on us in person before we sail?"

"I don't know," he mumbled. "I--"

A perfectly mad impulse seized him.

"Sophie," he said sharply into the receiver.

"Yes."

He heard the quick intake of her breath at the other end, almost a gasp.
And the single word was slightly uncertain.

"What did you mean by a man standing on his own feet?"

She did not apparently have a ready answer. He pictured her, receiver in
hand, and he did not know if she were startled, or surprised--or merely
amused. That last was intolerable. And suddenly he felt l