The Last Penny by Edwin Lefevre

THE train rushed eastward, but Tommy's thoughts reached New York first. He did it by considering the task that Thompson had given him to do. He read the typewritten statement very carefully, studied the statistics of growth and profits and values, and fervently blessed Thompson, who had taken pains clearly to indicate the significance of each item so that nobody could fail to understand.

From that Tommy passed on to an elaborate dramatization of his own stock-selling campaign. He rehearsed his speeches to the fathers of the friends who ought to become stockholders of the Tecumseh Motor Company. He heard his own arguments very distinctly indeed, but when he came to listen to theirs he was not so successful. To be on the safe side, he assumed that he had to overcome indifference, distrust, and the exasperating conservatism of old people. It did not occur to him that greed must also be overcome, for he concerned himself with his own inexperience. He felt certain that his own training under Thompson would not be regarded with admiration by Eastern capitalists. And yet in Dayton Thompson was believed to be shrewd and far-seeing, and had built up a successful business, and was about to do much more. And Tommy was one of Thompson's business Experiments.