DON'T GIVE UP THE TIP!
Listen! If you ever wake up some mornin' with an idea for something
new--whether it's a soup, a vaudeville act or a religion--and you
expect to cash on it, go to the nearest hardware store and ask the guy
behind the counter how much he'll take for all the locks in the joint.
Take 'em at any price and fasten 'em on the door of the safe where you
keep the idea--the same bein' your mouth--and then throw the keys in
any good, deep river!
If the inventors of stud poker, movin' pictures, the alligator pear,
pneumonia and so forth had gone around talkin' about them things before
they got 'em patented they never would of took in a nickel on their
idea, but their _friends_ would be draggin' down the royalties yet!
The minute you tip another guy to your stunt it's yours and his both.
He mightn't _mean_ to steal your stuff, but he can't help himself. The
more he thinks about it, the better he likes it, and it ain't long
before he gets believin' it was _his_ idea anyways and where do you get
off by claimin' you thought of it?
I admit freely that you can't cash on your scheme unless you get it
before the world, but the thing is to wait till you got it covered with
so many copyrights and patents that not even the James Boys could steal
it and then _tell 'em all at once_!
If Edgar Simmons had of did that, he'd be a rich millionaire to-day
instead of havin' to cut his winnin's with Alex. Edgar had an idea,
and he didn't know what to do with it.
Alex did!
The wife and I is sittin' down to the evenin' meal one night, when the
telephone rings. Only one of us got up.
"Hello!" I says.
"Hello!" is the answer. "This is Alex. What would you say to me
runnin' up there to supper to-night?"
"Nothin'," I answers. "I see where they was a guy got pinched only
last week for swearin' over the phone!"
"Look here!" he says, kinda peeved. "Do you want me to come up there
to-night or don't you?"
"Don't you!" I says.
"They's plenty of places where they would be glad to have me to
dinner," he snarls. "Places that is just as good as yours!"
"How do _you_ know how good they are?" I says. "You ain't never tried
no dinners nowheres else but up here."
"They ain't no man can keep me from seein' my cousin!" he says. "Tell
Alice I'll be right up!"
I hung up the phone.
"Well," I says to the wife, "I got bad news for you."
"Who was it?" she asks, droppin' the knittin' layout on the floor.
"That trick relative of yours," I tells her. "He's comin' up here for
dinner again, so I guess I'll go down to the corner and play a little
pinochle."
"You ought to be the weather man," says the wife, "you're such a rotten
guesser! You ain't goin' nowheres. You're gonna stay here and help
entertain Alex."
"Entertain him?" I says. "What d'ye think I am--a trained seal or
somethin'?"
"Don't kid yourself!" she says. "You ain't even makin' the money I
could get with a trained seal! You gotta stop this pinochle thing--you
don't see Alex wastin' his time playin' pinochle with a lotta loafers!"
"You bet you don't!" I comes back. "You'll never see Alex playin' no
game where they's a chance of the other guy winnin'! He wouldn't bet
zero was cold! And don't be callin' my friends loafers--every one of
them guys is successful business men!"
"That mob you hid out in here one night looked like a lotta plumbers to
me!" she says. "Any man who sits up half the night playin' cards is a
loafer!"
"One of them loafers I while away my time with lives in the next flat,"
I says, "and the dumbwaiter door is wide open."
"I don't care," says the wife, flushin' all up. "Let him hear me!"
"I ain't stoppin' him," I says. "But you don't want it to get rumored
all over New York that you and me is quarrelin', do you?"
The wife's answer is nothin'. She walks over to the window and looks
out on Manhattan, doin' a soft shoe dance with one toe on the floor.
If bein' good lookin' was water, she'd be Niagara Falls. You've seen
her picture many a time on a can of massage cream--which she never
touched in her life! The label claims it was this stuff that put her
over, but she don't know whether rouge is for red cheeks or measles.
They ain't a day goes by without some movie company pesterin' her to
sign up, and she can write her own ticket when it comes to salary.
Well, I'm in dutch again, but I don't care! This here knockout is wed
to me, and they ain't _nothin'_ can give me the blues!
"Listen!" I says. "Honey, we only been wed ten years--and here we are
scrappin' _already_!"
She turns on the weeps and I'm across the floor like a startled rabbit.
We come to terms in about five minutes, and as far as a disinterested
stranger could of seen, everything is O.K. again.
"Well," I says, finally, "you ain't mad at me no more, heh, honey?"
She wags her head, no.
"We got _that_ all settled, heh?" I says.
Her head is on my shoulder and why shouldn't it be, and she says yes.
They is a pause. To bust it up, I coughs.
"If that pest Alex wasn't comin' here to-night," I says, "we might go
to the theatre."
"The _movies_ hurts my eyes!" she answers, givin' me a sarcastical
smile.
"D'ye mean to give the neighbors the idea I have never staked you to
nothin' but the movies?" I hollers, gettin' sore, naturally enough.
"Don't be callin' my cousin no pest!" she says and--well, we're off
again!
In less than five minutes, some new-comers which has a flat across the
hall, knocks on the dumbwaiter bell furiously. I answered.
"Why don't you people let go?" inquires a harsh voice. "We can't stand
that tourney in there no longer!"
"They ain't no way of puttin' a man in jail for movin'," I says.
"The idea of a man hollerin' at his wife like that!" comes a female
voice in back of this guy.
"Shut up--I'm doin' this!" exclaims her lovin' spouse,--and then they
had a melee of their own!
In the middle of this our doorbell rings and in comes Alex.
"They should of named this apartment house the Verdun," he says. "They
seems to be a battle goin' on here every time I come up! I could hear
every word you people was sayin' as plain as day, away out in the hall!"
"What did you come in for then?" I asks him. "Especially as you could
hear this was the rush hour!"
He ignores me and kisses the wife--a thing he knows gets me wild.
"Now, boys!" butts in the wife, splittin' her world famous grin
fifty-fifty, "let's stop quarrelin'. They ain't a reason on earth why
we can't be friends, even if we are relatives."
"When are you gonna have dinner?" asks Alex.
"This here's eatless night with us," I says. "Not to give you a short
answer."
"Don't pay no attention to him, Alex," says the wife. "You know you
can eat here whenever you want."
"Sure!" I says. "Don't mind me. All I gotta do is pay for this
stuff--that's all!"
The wife gimme a bitter glance.
"That's right," she says. "Tell the world that I have wed a tightwad!"
"What d'ye mean?" I hollers. "I'm as loose as ashes with my money and
they ain't nobody knows it better than you. I don't even moan over the
monthly phone bill, which from the last one you musta been callin' up
friends in Australia!"
"Here!" butts in Alex. "This thing's gotta stop! Come on, kiss and
make up. The first thing you know the Red Cross will be openin' a
branch here. If I didn't know how much you people loved each other,
I'd get the idea that you was really angry."
"Of course we love each other!" I says. "We only pull this now and
then so's we won't get sickenin' to the neighbors by billin' and cooin'
_all_ the time! Ain't I right, honey?"
"Are you sorry?" inquires the wife.
"Sorry?" I says. "Why, I'd go out and buy a tube of carbolic acid if
it wasn't so high!"
With that they was peace.
We're just sittin' down to a well-earned meal, when the bell rings
again. Actin' as maid is one of the best things I do around my five
rooms, if you count the bath, so I answered it. They was a man and a
woman standin' there and my heart run up to play with my tonsils when I
seen them. I figured they was a couple more guests for dinner and you
knew what they're askin' for steak these days.
"I'm sorry to bother you," says the dame, "but we are the people who
live in the flat right under yours."
"If you think we're too noisy, moan to the landlord!" I says, "I gotta
right to stage an argument in my flat whenever I so choose!"
She giggles. The guy that was with her don't make a sound.
"Why, I'm sure we never heard any noise from above," she says. "I
think you and your wife are no doubt the quietest folks in the whole
house."
Oh, boy!!!
"How long have you been deaf?" I says.
"You're just like your wife claims," she grins. "Full of life and fun!
But I'm keepin' you from your food, ain't I? I wanted to know if you'd
let Mister Simmons climb down your fire escape."
"Feed him some veronal," I says, "and he'll no doubt be O.K. in the
mornin'. The first day is always tough!"
"Why, what do you mean?" she says. "I merely asked if my husband could
climb down your fire escape."
I seen I had wild pitched the first time, so I tried my luck again.
"Is your joint on fire?" I says.
"Oh, no!" she tells me. "But we are locked out. My husband invented a
new kind of lock--he's always inventing something that will do
everything but work. He put this lock on our door and now he can't
open it himself! Isn't that killing?"
"A riot!" I admits. "Come right in."
The wife is gettin' nervous at me bein' out there so long, and when she
heard a female voice laughin', of course that didn't help matters none.
She meets this dame half way in the hall and the minute they seen each
other they fall together in fond embrace. I found out later they'd
known each other as long as a week and the last time they met was an
hour before.
Well, we get introduced all around and then this bird which invented a
lock that nobody on earth could open, includin' himself, goes out on
the fire escape followed by his charmin' wife. They entered their flat
by the novel method of usin' the kitchen window. This guy didn't open
his mouth from the time he come in till he went out, and when spoke to,
he blushed all over and acted like he wished to Heaven he could hide
under the sofa. His wife, though, had nothin' against conversation as
a sport. She was talkin' when she come in and she went out the same
way. I never seen nobody in my life who could talk as fast and
frequent as this dame and if her husband had hung that trick lock on
her tongue he would of made himself solid with me!
"That's that lovely Mrs. Simmons," says the wife, when they had went.
"It's too bad her husband ain't a live one."
"Gettin' married has buried many a good man!" I says.
"It didn't change _you_ none," she says. "You was a dead one when I
got you!"
"Here!" butts in Alex. "Don't you people get started again! I wanna
finish my supper in peace. What's wrong with Mister Simmons?"
"He ain't got no pep," says the wife. "They's many a more ambitious
man than he is with a tomb around him! He's been keepin' books for
twenty dollars a week since the discovery of arithmetic, and he ain't
got a raise since they blowed up the _Maine_. He's afraid to ask for
more money for fear the boss will find out he's on the pay roll and
fire him. They's one ounce more brains in a billiard ball than they is
in his head. He--"
"Wait!" interrupts Alex. "This here sounds interestin' to me. In the
first place, they ain't a doubt in my mind but what you got that feller
figured all wrong! Like all the rest of you simple minded and innocent
New Yorkers, you get brains and _imagination_ mixed. They is a big
difference! _Brains_ is what puts a man over, and _imagination_ is
what keeps him back. The ideal combination is all brains and no
imagination! The feller with brains sets his mind on what he wants,
forgets everything else, goes to it and gets it. He don't for a minute
consider what might happen if he fails, or that the thing he proposes
has never been done before, or that maybe his scheme ain't really as
good as he first thought it was. Why don't he think of them things?
Because he ain't got no imagination! The imaginative feller is beat
from the start. He keeps thinkin' from every possible angle, what
might happen to him if he _fails_ and, by the time he gets that all
figured out, his idea is cold and his enthusiasm for it has drowned in
the sea of possibilities his roamin' mind has created! The feller
which said, 'look before you leap!' might of been clever, but I bet he
thought a five-dollar bill was as big as they made 'em till he went to
his grave! If I'd had imagination, I'd never of come to New York and
made good. I'd of been afraid the town was too big for me. Now this
feller Simmons, I'll betcha, is simply sufferin' from a case of too
much imagination. He must have _somethin'_ in his head or he couldn't
even keep books. It takes brains to balance accounts, the same as it
takes money to pay 'em. Am I right?"
"What d'ye say, if we go to the movies?" I says.
Alex gets up in disgust.
"Is that all the interest I'm gettin' here?" he asks.
"This ain't no bank!" I tells him.
"Be still!" says the wife. "I heard every word you said, Alex dear. I
think you're horribly interestin'. But I still claim Simmons is a
fat-head whose butcher bill gives him trouble every month! He never
takes that poor wife of his nowheres, but a walk past the Fifth Avenue
Library, and she don't know if they have dancin' or swimmin' in
cabarets. He's always drawin' things on pieces of paper, and he sits
up half the night inventin' what-nots that would be all right, if they
wasn't useless."
"Yes," says Alex, "and some day he'll hit on somethin' that'll prob'ly
make him famous!"
"I wanna see Beryldine Nearer in 'The Vaccinated Vampire'," I says,
reachin' for my hat. "I seen her last week in 'Almost A Fiend' and she
was a knockout!"
"Shut up!" says the wife. "What was you sayin', again, Alex?"
"I says it's the dreamer which has made the world what it is to-day,"
he goes on, strikin' a pose. "He _thinks_ of somethin' and the
practical feller comes along and makes money out of it. Take--"
"They ain't no man can keep me from the movies!" I butts in. "I ain't
gonna be late and only see half of this picture. I done that too
often! You and Alice can fight it out amongst yourselves if--"
"All right!" says the wife. "Come on, we'll all go. I admit freely
I'm crazy to see Beryldine Nearer again, myself. I seen a gown on her
in the last picture which I think I can duplicate in time for Mrs.
Martin's card party. We'll ask Mr. and Mrs. Simmons to go with us too.
The poor dear, it'll be a treat for her."
"It'll be a treat for her husband, too!" I says. "I ain't gonna take
the whole neighborhood to the movies. You must think I'm the Liberty
Loan, don't you?"
The wife comes over and kisses me.
"Now, dear," she says. "Don't be so close across the chest. Won't you
take 'em for me?"
Well, when all Broadway used to roll over and play dead when she pulled
that smile, what chance have _I_ got?
"I'd take carbolic for you!" I answers, givin' her a squeeze. "Go
ahead, honey, invite the first two pagefuls outa the phone book if you
want and I'll take 'em all!"
"There you go," she says. "No wonder we're not wealthy! If it wasn't
for me holdin' you down, we wouldn't have a nickel. I'll call down and
tell Mrs. Simmons to get ready--they may have an engagement themselves!"
"I doubt if I'm lucky enough for that to happen!" I says.
Well, I missed out again. They come up all right, and Mrs. Simmons is
tickled to death. When set for the street, she was a pretty good
looker herself, but Simmons ain't even got a hat with him.
"Mister Simmons prefers to stay at home," says his wife, causin' my
heart to leap with joy. "He has some important work to do, haven't
you, dear?"
Simmons flushes all up.
"Why--eh--yes--quite so--much obliged--excuse me," he stutters, backin'
away like he thought I'd wallop him for not goin'.
Alex is lookin' at him strangely.
"Pardon me," he says. "We just been talkin' over some of the wonderful
ideas you been workin' on. I have a inventive twist in my brains
myself and that lock you put together interests me very much. Could I
see it?"
Simmons brightens up in a flash and commences to grin.
"I'd be very glad indeed to show it to you," he says. "Very glad! Its
a--"
Alex goes over and puts his arm on his shoulder.
"You folks run along to the movies," he tells us. "Mr. Simmons and me
is got a little conference on--eh, Simmons?" He prods him in the ribs
and giggles.
Simmons wags his head. A guy with two glass eyes could see he was
tickled silly.
I dragged the rest of 'em out.
Well, we come in from the movie around eleven o'clock and stopped in
the Simmons flat. They had dragged me into a delicatessen parlor on
the way back and put the bee on me for a cold lunch. We was to eat it
in Mrs. Simmons's flat. All she furnished was the idea. Alex and
Simmons is sittin' in the dinin' room and they're so interested in each
other they don't even look up when we come in. The table is full of
drawin's and blue prints and scraps of paper all covered over with
figures. Simmons is pointin' out somethin' to Alex on a piece of
paper, and I'll lay the world four to one Alex ain't got the slightest
idea what the other guy's talkin' about, but he's listenin' like he's
hearin' the secret of makin' gold outa mud.
"I'll bet you have gone to work and bored Mister Hanley half to death!"
says his wife. "How often have I told you that strangers is not
interested in them fool ideas of yours?"
"Not at all!" says Alex. "I fail to recall when I spent such a
enjoyable night. Mister Simmons is a genius, if they ever was one, and
I predict a great future for his automatic cocktail shaker. Then, if
he gets his keyless lock workin' right, why--"
"Let's eat in the kitchen, it's cosier," interrupts Mrs. Simmons. "Do
you folks mind?"
They was no bloodshed over it, and we all went in. Simmons claims he
would like to change his collar, and invites me back to look over the
flat, a treat the wife has already had. Once we get in his boudoir, he
finds they is everything in the world in it with the exception of a
clean collar, and he calls Mrs. Simmons to the rescue.
"Here!" she says, handin' him the laundry. "Hurry up, so's we can eat.
He's always losin' somethin'!" she remarks.
I got a comical answer on the tip of my tongue, when Simmons drops his
collar button on the floor, and, the same as all the other collar
buttons in the world, they picked out the furtherest corners of the
room to roll into. The poor boob gets as red as a four-alarm fire and
goes crawlin' around the room tryin' to run them collar buttons down.
"It's too bad them buttons wasn't made of rubber," I says, thinkin' to
pass the thing off. "They would of bounced right back in your hand,
hey?"
He straightens up like he had stepped on a egg and runs his hands
through his hair.
"A rubber collar button!" he mutters. "A rubber collar button!
No--no--not _rubber_, but--"
"My Gawd!" cuts in Mrs. Simmons. "Will he _ever_ stop it? Sit down
and eat, folks, he's ravin' again! Here, Edgar, try some of this cold
ham. It set our friends back a dollar and it ought to be good!"
"I'm--I'm sorry!" pipes Edgar, movin' away with that little, nervous
step of his. "I couldn't eat a thing. I got a headache, I
guess--I--excuse me, but I'll see you all again."
With that he blows.
"Ain't he the limit?" inquires Mrs. Simmons, grabbin' the choicest bits
of that ham and goin' south with it.
"Mine's worse!" remarks the wife. "What would them men ever do without
us?"
"Save money!" I says. "Slip me some of that cold chicken, will you?--I
got a stomach, too!"
Well, we didn't see Edgar Simmons no more that night. In fact it was
all of two weeks before he appeared again, and then it was by way of
the phone. He asked me if I would tell my Cousin Alex to come down at
once, he had somethin' very important to tell him. I waited till
supper had come and gone that night, and then I got hold of Alex. The
wife and Mrs. Simmons went to the theatre together and I arranged the
conference for my flat. The minute Alex arrived I phoned Simmons and
he come right up. He's all excited over somethin' and he's got a
parcel under his arm.
"I have followed your advice," he tells Alex, "and at last I've
invented something practical. There's millions in it!"
"What?" I says. "The mint?"
Alex kicks me in the shins under the table so hard that I moaned aloud.
"What is it?" he asks.
Simmons unwraps the parcel and pulls out a piece of cloth. It's the
neckband of a shirt and the same as the ordinary neckband in every
way--except it's got collar buttons _built right into it_!
"What's the idea?" I asks.
"Heavens, man, can't you grasp it?" says Simmons, slammin' the table
with his fist. "Here we have the only collar button in the world _that
can't be lost_! You never have to look for it, because it's always
attached to the shirt. You can't lose the button unless you lose the
shirt! It's made right with it! It--"
"Wait!" butts in Alex, leapin' to his feet. "Simmons--you have got
somethin'! Is it patented?"
"Yes," says Simmons.
"Have you felt out the shirt people on it?" asks Alex next.
"That's what I wanted to see _you_ about," says Simmons. "I can't get
them to look at it! I get shifted from one subordinate to another and
they seem to think I'm some sort of a crank. If I could only get it
before Philip Calder, the president of the Brown-Calder Shirt Company,
I'd be made!"
"Hmm!" grunts Alex. "Well, what d'ye want _me_ to do?"
Simmons coughs and fidgets with the button.
"It struck me when you was talkin' to me the other night," he says,
"that if there was one man in New York who could see Calder and make
him realize the merits of my invention, you were that man! Will you
try it?"
"I'll _do_ it!" answers Alex. "Gimme the model and you'll hear from me
in a few days. Do you wish to sell the neckbands themselves, or just
the patent on your idea?"
"I don't care who makes the neckbands," says Simmons, "as long as I get
paid for my invention! Of course, I don't expect you to help me for
nothing, either."
"Ha! ha!" I butts in. "That bird wouldn't tell you the time for
nothing You'll be lucky if you ever even see that invention any more!"
"Don't mind my cousin," Alex tells him. "Outside of a tendency to the
measles, he's the worst thing we got in our family! We'll take up the
financial end of this later."
Bright and early the next mornin', or eleven o'clock to be exact, Alex
invites me to go with him so's I can watch how he would go about seein'
the president of the Brown-Calder Company and sellin' him the Simmons
patent collar button. As they is always a chance that Alex will fall
down, I went along. We had no trouble at all landin' outside the
president's office, but once we got there it was different.
"Is Mister Calder in?" says Alex to a blond stenographer, which looks
like them movie queens would like to.
She puts four stray hairs back of her left ear and arises.
"Have you got an appointment?" she inquires.
"No," grins Alex, "my nose got that way from bein' hit with a baseball."
She had lovely teeth and showed 'em to us.
"Cards?" she says next, lookin' from one of us to the other.
"I'll play these!" says Alex. "Listen! I wanna go in Mister Calder's
office without bein' announced. I ain't seen him for years and he'll
be tickled silly when we meet. I wanna sneak in and just be there the
first time he looks around. I'm a surprise--see?"
She looks kinda doubtful.
"W-e-ll, I don't know," she says. "I've only been here since
yesterday, but my orders is to let nobody past this gate without first
findin' out their business and so forth. Still and all, I don't wanna
be harsh with none of the boss's old college chums or nothin' like
that. If you can guarantee I won't lose my job, I'll let you get away
with it."
"If you lose your job," says Alex, openin' the gate and pullin' me in
after him, "I'll hire you for five dollars more than you're gettin'
here. All right?"
"I only trust you're man enough to keep your word," she says. "The
boss's office is the first one to the left."
"Thanks," says Alex. "Them eyes of yours is alone worth the trip!"
This guy Calder's door is open and he's sittin' at a big desk writin'
away on somethin' like everything depended on speed. He's a great, big
fat bird, with one of them trick Chaplin mustaches and he's smokin' a
cigar as big as he is. His head is playin' it's hairless day. All in
all, he looked like big business, and my knees is knockin' together
till I'm afraid he'll hear 'em and turn around. Alex gumshoes up to
the desk and without sayin' a word, he lays the neckband right down
beside Calder, who immediately swings around with a snort.
"What's all this--how did you get in here?" he bellers.
"We took the subway down from Ninety-sixth Street," says Alex. "That
thing you got in your hand is the neckband of a shirt."
"Well?" growls Calder, tappin' the desk with a lead pencil.
"It contains two collar buttons--one front and one back," says Alex.
"As you may have noticed, they are built right into the cloth and are
meant to come _attached to the shirt_. This does away forever with the
necessity of buying a collar button. It cannot be broken, lost or
mislaid. Any shirt manufacturer making shirts with this neckband
attached will naturally have the bulge on his rivals. I can turn out
the neckband for practically nothing. I hold the patent."
Calder sneers.
"Ha!" he says. "There's a million cranks come in my office every day.
I suppose you want to sell me this, eh?"
"No, sir!" says Alex, with a pleasant grin.
I liked to fell through the floor at that!
"_No_, sir?" repeats Calder, droppin' the pencil.
"No, sir!" answers Alex.
"Well, what the--what _do_ you want then?" roars Calder. "Come now,
speak up. I'll give you five minutes, that's all!"
"That's three minutes more than I got to spare!" chirps Alex, pullin'
over a chair. "I don't want you to _buy_ this neckband, Mister Calder.
What I want is this--I know that _you_ are the greatest authority on
shirts and everything connected with the business, in the United States
if not in the world! I think I have a big thing here, a thing that
will revolutionize one end of that business. I say I _think_ so,
because I don't know. Now--the concern I represent wants your opinion
of it. We're willing to pay to have you, the world's greatest
authority, go on record as to the merits of this invention. If you say
it's no good, I'll throw it away and forget about it; if you say it's
good, I'll have no trouble placing it anywhere in the world!"
Well, say! That old guy brightens all up when Alex calls him the
champion shirtmaker of the world, and pickin' up the band, he turns it
over in his hands a few times. You could see that the old salve Alex
handed him had gone big!
"Hmph!" he says, finally. "How much would these things cost me?"
"Roughly speakin', about three cents each," says Alex.
"How long will they stand up under laundering?" is the next question
Calder fires at him.
"They're the only thing that won't come out in the wash!" answers Alex,
without battin' an eye.
The old guy smiles and presses a button. In comes a clerk.
"Send in Mister Lacy, no matter what he's doing, at once!" barks
Calder. He turns to Alex as the clerk flees from the room. "Have you
been anywhere else with this?" he asks.
Alex looks pained.
"Why, Mister Calder!" he says, "certainly not! Before I went any
further I wanted the opinion of the greatest--"
This Lacy guy comes in.
"Mister Lacy is superintendent of our manufacturing department," says
Calder. "I'm going to talk with him for three minutes about the effect
of the war on the onion crop in Beloochistan. I'll send for you at the
expiration of that time. Ah--you can leave the--ah--neckband here!"
"Pardon me!" says Alex, "I have got to be up at the office of the
Evers-Raine Shirt Company at three and I can just about make it."
"What the devil are you going to another shirt company for?" roars
Calder.
"I have an old friend in the--ah--manufacturing department," says Alex,
lookin' straight at him, "who I'm very anxious to see."
Well, they stare at each other for a minute without sayin' a word.
They're both playin' poker, and it's Calder who lays his down first!
"Look here!" he grunts. "I'm going to take an option on this infernal
thing for a week. How much is that worth to you?"
"Ten thousand dollars," answers Alex, pleasantly.
"I'll pay seven and give you a check right now!" says Calder, slammin'
the desk with his fist. "Here, Lacy!" he says to the other guy. "This
is what we'll put on our shirts hereafter, unless I'm very much
mistaken! What do you think of it?"
Lacy picks up the neckband and looks at it.
"And to think," he mutters in an awed voice. "And to think nobody ever
thought of this before!"
"Hmm!" says Calder, takin' the band back. "That's all settled then!
Young man," he says to Alex, "the cashier will give you a check. Come
back at the end of the week and I'll either give you back your
neckband, or a contract for five hundred thousand of them a year for
twenty years!"
"Thanks!" says Alex. "Will you have that check certified?"
Well, Simmons like to went insane with joy when we sprung the news on
him and Alex insists on him takin' that seven thousand dollar check
whole. He didn't ask for a nickel, which had me puzzled. Mrs. Simmons
goes out shoppin' for furs, diamonds and automobiles, and the wife asks
me why I don't invent somethin', but outside of that they was nothin'
more doin' till the end of the week. Then, Alex comes up and breaks
the news to Simmons that the Brown-Calder Shirt Company will take all
the neckbands that Simmons can supply, as long as people wear shirts.
"We have got to deliver 50,000 in a month," says Alex, "at the rate of
two and a half cents apiece. Can you do it?"
Simmons falls back on the sofa in a dead faint!
Well, they was great excitement and the wife finally brings him to life
with smellin' salts.
"It was prob'ly the sudden mention of so much money, eh?" I says.
"I'm ruined!" hollers Simmons, leapin' up and dancin' around. "Why, it
took me two weeks to make that one miserable model I gave you!" he
yells at Alex. "I couldn't make fifty thousand of them things in a
lifetime!"
Alexis eyes glitters.
"Here!" he says, slappin' Simmons on the back. "Pull yourself
together, man! You've got to think of somethin'. How did you make
that one?"
"By hand!" wails Simmons.
"Well, they must be some way of makin' a machine that can turn out so
many thousand an hour!" says Alex, walkin' back and forth. "Why--"
"I don't care who makes 'em!" says Simmons. "All I want is to get paid
for my idea. I--"
"Listen to me!" interrupts Alex, shakin' him. "Can't you invent some
kind of a machine for turnin' them neckbands out?"
"Oh, I had a little something figured out the other night," says
Simmons, "but what's the use of me botherin' with that? Why, a machine
of that kind would cost at least twenty thousand dollars to make!
Where can I get that much money?"
"Look here!" Alex tells him. "You got seven and I'll loan you the
balance. You get busy on that machine right away--there's no time to
lose!" He grabs his hat. "Come with me and I'll get you the money and
then we'll go to my lawyer and draw up a--that is, I'll take your
receipt."
That's the last I seen of either of them for a month. At the end of
that time, the wife tells me one day that Mr. and Mrs. Simmons is
givin' a big dinner that night and that Alex will be there. They'll
never notice us no more, if we don't come. Besides, they're goin' for
a trip around the country in a few days and this here's a farewell
party.
Well, it's a soup and fish affair, and naturally it takes the wife half
the night to get dressed up for it. Fin'ly, however, she's dressed to
thrill and we blowed in. The minute we did, Simmons pulls me over in a
corner where Alex is sittin', smilin' like his name was George Q.
Goodhumor.
"Well, sir!" says Simmons, no longer shy and retirin', "I just about
cleaned up. My machine is turnin' out three thousand bands an hour,
and I get a cent for each and every one!"
"You fin'ly doped out a machine then, heh?" I says.
"Oh, yes!" he tells me. "But unfortunately I don't control it. I have
to pay the owner for each band turned out, although it's my invention.
But I'm satisfied! I got a bonus of twenty-five thousand dollars from
the Brown-Calder people for selling them the exclusive rights to use
the neckband, and then we have the foreign rights to--"
"Wait!" I cuts in, turnin' to Alex. All this big money talk was makin'
me dizzy. "Where do _you_ get off?" I asks him.
"Well, I put the neckband over, didn't I?" he says.
"Yes," I admits, "but Simmons invented it and he gets the royalty. How
much cash did he give you?"
"Nothing!" grins Alex.
I looked at Simmons.
"Perfectly correct!" he says, outgrinnin' Alex.
"You--did all that for _nothin'_ I hollers, not believin' my ears.
"Well, hardly that," says Alex, lightin' a half-dollar cigar. "You see
I loaned Mister Simmons thirteen thousand dollars, if you remember, so
that he could make his machine."
"Yeh, yeh!" I says, gettin' impatient. "And--"
"Well, as it stands now," says Alex, "every time the machine turns out
a neckband, he gets a cent out of the two and a half cents profit."
"Sure--he told me that!" I says. "But where do _you_ get off?"
Alex grins some more.
"I own the machine!" he says. "Have a cigar, cousin?"