Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/80

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right," conceded Mr. Morris with something like a gasp.

He had been secretly piqued that Olds and Ford could sell their cars while he had not sold his. The thing which George had just done tickled his natural and perfectly justifiable vanity. The thing George proposed to do tickled it still more—while it staggered him.

"I could build 'em, too," he decided, "if we had the money."

"Mr. Morris," said George speaking slowly, trying to strain out of his tones anything of overweening self-conceit, "I say it modestly but firmly—solemnly—I believe I can get the money. Manufacturing is your end; selling is mine. I'll go down here and sell ourselves to the banks for a couple of hundred thousand dollars—that's what I'll do. You go to work on the basis of turning out eleven hundred cars by June 30th. I'll find the money."

Under the spell of the younger man's enthusiastic dream the eyes of the older lighted, and his blood began to tingle. For a moment at least he saw the vision himself, the vision of the automobile—making smooth the road and short the way from every man's door to every mart of trade or pleasure—a new pastime and a new service to mankind, a bringing of the country to the city and the city to the country, a retaking of the world in the name of humanity.