When
finished the booklet would be sent out to those who had answered
advertisements put into magazines and newspapers. The company had a
process of manufacture peculiar to Wheelright bicycles and in the
booklet this was to be much emphasised.
The manufacturing process in regard to which John Van Moore was to wax
eloquent had been conceived in the brain of a workman and was
responsible for the company's success. Now the workman was dead and
the president of the company had decided that he would take credit for
the idea. He had thought a good deal of the matter and had decided
that in truth the notion must have been more than a little his own.
"It must have been so," he told himself, "otherwise it would not have
worked out so well."
In the offices of the bicycle company the president, a grey gross man
with tiny eyes, walked up and down a long room heavily carpeted. In
reply to questions asked by the advertising man, who sat at a table
with a pad of paper before him, he raised himself on his toes, put a
thumb in the armhole of his vest and told a long rambling tale of
which he was the hero.
The tale concerned a purely imaginary young workman who spent all of
the earlier years of his life labouring terribly. At evening he ran
quickly from the shop where he was employed and going without sleep
toiled for long hours in a little garret.
Pages:
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245