Early in the spring of the following year Richard acquired a new toy in return for a cautious investment of capital in a rhan called Henry Ford, who was claiming he could produce a motor car for the people. The bank entertained Mr. Ford at luncheon, and Richard was coaxed into the acquisi - tion of a Model T for the princely sum of eight hundred and fifty dollars.
Henry Ford assured Richard that if only the bank would back him, the cost could eventually fall to three hundred and fifty dollars within a few years and everyone would be buying his cars, thus ensuring a large profit for Ids backers. Richard did back him, and it was the first time he had placed good money behind someone who wished his product to halve in price.
Richard was initially apprehensive that his motor car, sornbrely black though it was, might not be regarded as a serious mode of transport for the chairman of a bank, but he was reassured by the admixing glances from the pavements which the machine attracted. At ten miles an hour it was noisier than a horse but it did have the virtue of leaving no mess in the middle of Mount Vernon Street. His only quarrel with Mr. Ford was that the man would not listen to the suggestion that a Model T should be made available in a variety of colours. Mr. Ford insisted that every car should be black in order to keep the price down. Anne, more sensitive than tier husband to the approbation of polite society, would not drive in the vehicle until the Cabots had acquired one.
William, on the other hand, adored the 'automobile'. as the press called it, and immediately assumed that the vehicle had been bought for him to replace his now redundant and unmechanised pram. He also preferred the chauffeur - with his goggles and flat hat - to his nurse. Grandmother Kane and Grandmother Cabot claimed that they would never travel in the dreadful machine and never did, although it should be pointed out that Grandmother Kane travelled to her funeral in a motor car, but was never informed.
During the next two years the bank grew in strength and size, as did William. Americans were once again investing for expansion, and large sums of money found their way to Kane and Cabot's to be reinvested in such projects as the expanding Lowell leather factory in Lowell, Massachusetts. Richard watched the growth of his bank and his son with unsurprised satisfaction. On William's fifth birthday, he took the child out of womens' hands by engaging at four hundred and fifty dollars per annum a private tutor, a Mr. Munro, personally selected by Richard from a list of eight applicants who had earlier been screened by his private secretary. Mr. Munro was charged to ensure that William was ready to enter St. Paul's by the age of twelve. William in - nnediately took to Mr.
Munro, whom he thought to be very old and very clever. He was, in fact, twenty - three and the possessor of a second - class honours, degree in English from the University of Edinburgh.
William quickly learned to ' read and write with facility but saved his real enthusiasm for figures. His only complaint was that, of the eight lessons taught every weekday, only one was arithmetic. William was quick to point out to his father that one - eighth of the working day was a small investment of time for someone who would one day be the president of a bank.
To compensate for his tutor's lack of foresight, William dogged the footsteps of his accessible relatives with demands for sums to be executed in his head. Grandmother Cabot, who had never been persuaded that the division of an integer by four would necessarily produce the same answer as its multiplication by one quarter, and indeed in her hands the two operations often did result in two different numbers, found herself speedily outclassed by her grandson, but Grandmother Kane, with some small leaning to cleverness, grappled manfully with vulgar fractions, compound interest and the division of eight cakes among nine children. 'Grandrnother,' said William, kindly but firmly, when she had failed to find the answer to his latest conundrum, 'you can buy me a slide - rule; then I won't have to bother you.'
She was astonished at her grandson's precocity, but she bought him one just the same, wondering if he really knew how to use the gadget. It was the first time in her life that Grandmother Kane had been known to take the easy way out of any problem.
Richard's problems began to gravitate eastwards. The chairman of his London branch died at his desk and Richard felt himself required in Lombard Street. He suggested to Anne that. she and William should accompany him to Europe, feeling that the education would not do the boy any harm: he could visit all the places about which Mr. Munro had so often talked. Anne, who had never been to Europe, was excited by the prospect, and filled three steamer trunks with elegant and expensive new clothes in which to confront the Old World. William considered it unfair of his mother not to allow him to take that equally essential aid to travel, his bicycle.