Ford, who is now 40, is also in the midst of a crisis: though the car is beginning to catch on, and other makers are setting up factories, he is frustrated by his lack of business success. Ford’s friend Malcomson, impressed by the 999’s success on the race track, proposes that he and Ford set up the Ford Motor Company. Malcomson contributes to the start-up costs and the two men find enough investors to start the business.

One day, Abner happens to ride his bicycle past the building now occupied by the Ford Motor Company.

Abner parks his bicycle and enters the Ford Motor Company. Ford is, as usual, supervising production. Abner explains that he is one of the children who used to watch Ford work in his shed and help him push his car when it stopped. He tells Ford that he sees no room for further growth at his current job, but believes that Ford’s company will succeed, and asks for a job at the factory. Abner assures Ford that he isn’t seeking charity, but rather honest work, and that he is a hard worker who doesn’t drink and always comes to work.

Ford evaluates Abner and decides that he seems honest and hardworking. These are the two most important traits he looks for in employees:

Skill didn’t matter so much to Mr. Ford as willingness to be taught; for the fars he was planning to make were going to be as much alike as possible, and the work was going to be divided so that each man would have only a few tasks” (24).

Ford offers Abner a job; it is “the happiest moment of Abner’s life” (24) and he thanks Ford and the foreman “with a fervour which might have touched their hearts, had not their energies been so absorbed with the problems of production” (25).