Free Lewi's Legacy by Graham Adams Page A

lot to ask of the boy, living next door to his job, he might not like that’. Bill feigned a worried concerned look at Louis.
    Susan looked at Louis, then her mother and then her father. Well Louis, what do you say?’ she asked.
    ‘I don’t know exactly when dad is going to France but I will ask him tonight and let you know. Louis answered. Susan jumped to hug him, he felt her strong arms around his neck and she pressed herself hard against him. Embarrassed, he pulled away as he looked at Bills face.
    ‘Then if all of you think it’s a good idea then of course, I’d love to.’ As he looked around the three of them again, just by the look on their faces, it was a full approval from all of them.
    By November, he was well settled into a real family life for the first time, and his progress at the showroom continued to amaze his boss. In fact by that time there were very few occasions when the young man had to refer to Bill for any advice, he seemed to take to the job as if he was born to it. Just before Christmas Bill actually heard himself asking Louis for some advice on a car they rarely sold. The lad was a pleasure to work with; never before had he met anyone with such an appetite for car statistics.
    Bill’s attitude to car sales was ‘slow and sure’, always allowing time for the customer to change his mind, after all it was, in most cases their biggest single purchase apart from perhaps their house.
    At seventeen the following summer Louis was quite an accomplished little salesman. Yes he did make mistakes, but he never repeated the same one twice, and he was as just as enthusiastic on his last sale as he was with his very first one. By now, for every car that Bill sold, Louis was selling two, and every time a customer came into the showroom asking for Louis by name, initially Bill found this a hard pill to swallow. How could he argue though, his business had tripled in just twelve months, even the BMC car supplier was sitting up and taking notice.
    One day Bill was out delivering a new car to a customer, an operation that was never rushed, as he taught Louis that a satisfied customer will always return to them when they want to replace it. Leaving Louis alone in the showroom was now quite normal, but this morning when he opened the door on his return, he could hear a raised voice coming from his office, and started to worry. The seventeen year old was at his desk on the phone looking a little flushed. ‘Well Adrian, it’s about time too!’ He put the receiver on its cradle.
    ‘What’s going on Louis?’ Bill asked
    ‘Don’t you remember, you asked me to order those six new replacements, didn’t you?’ Bill nodded. ‘Well, because he normally speaks to you, he tried to charge me ten percent more for each vehicle. What he didn’t know was that I had his last invoice to us on the desk, here it is, and I told him no way.’ Louis said.
    Bill pointed to his chair and Louis reluctantly stood up as he pushed by and grabbed the phone. He dialled Adrian’s number.
    ‘Ah Adrian, sorry about the last phone call, my assistant got a little carried away, now what were you saying just then?’ Louis shrugged his shoulders and sauntered into the showroom, pretending to polish the nearest car to the office door. ‘What!’ Bill shouted down the phone, ‘What did you say? Yes that’s perfectly alright Adrian, thank you very much.’ He then replaced the receiver slowly.
    Bill looked up at Louis as he came back into the office. ‘I was so angry that he had tried to take advantage of me, that I told him that we were doing so well that you were thinking of going over to a Ford dealership.’ Louis looked at Bill as he got up from his chair and walked over to his assistant. He beamed as he put his arm around Louis’s shoulder.
    ‘You just got me another fifteen percent. It’s time we talked about your wages my boy, sit down.’
    The past year had certainly been one of self discovery. Louis had found something that