Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/82



EXT day when, carrying his sheaf of orders with drafts attached for one hundred and two M. M. automobiles, George Judson began to visit the bankers, he found that Mr. Morris's pessimism was well-founded. Yet these bankers knew all about Olds' second year. They had heard that he was selling four thousand cars and would show a cash surplus of $600,000 for the twelve months. But that was Olds. New men and new machines—that was different; that was not an investment, it was a gamble, and bankers were not gamblers—so they told him.

After three days of industrious assault upon the bulwarks of finance the only real encouragement lay in the fact that while none of these bankers could believe in young Mr. Judson's scheme which he talked so enthusiastically, every one of them came within a few minutes to believe in young Mr. Judson himself. There was, for instance, Stephen Gilman. He was the distinguished president of the great St. Clair Trust Company and quite imposing to look upon. He was tall, with a high, narrow fore-