MR. WALLINGFORD OFFERS UNLIMITED FINANCIAL BACKING TO A NEW ENTERPRISE
The hotel at which Mr. Wallingford had elected to stop was only four
blocks from the depot, but he rode there in a cab, and, having grandly
emerged after a soul-warming handshake with Mr. Klug, paid liberally to
have his friend the inventor taken to his destination. His next step,
after being shown to one of the best suites in the house, was to
telephone for a certain lawyer whose address he carried in his notebook,
and the next to make himself richly comfortable after the manner of his
kind. When the lawyer arrived, he found Wallingford, in lounging jacket
and slippers and in fresh linen, enjoying an appetizer of Roquefort and
champagne by way of resting from the fatigue of his journey. He was a
brisk young man, was the lawyer, with his keen eyes set so close
together that one praised Nature's care in having inserted such a hard,
sharp wedge of nose to keep them apart. He cast a somewhat lingering
glance at the champagne as he sat down, but he steadfastly refused Mr.
Wallingford's proffer of a share in it.
"Not in business hours," he said, with over-disdain of such weak
indulgence. "In the evening some time, possibly," and he bowed his head
with a thin-lipped smile to complete the sentence.
"All right," acquiesced J. Rufus; "maybe you will smoke then," and he
pointed to cigars.
One of them Mr. Maylie took, and Wallingford was silent until he had lit
it.
"How is this town?" he then asked. "Is the treasury full, or are the
smart people in power?"
The young man laughed, and, with a complete change of manner, drew his
chair up to the table with a jerk.
"Say; you're all right!" he admiringly exclaimed, and--shoved forward
the extra glass. "They're in debt here up to their ears."
"Then they'd rather have the bail than the man," Wallingford guessed, as
he performed the part of host with a practiced hand.
"Which would you rather have?" asked Maylie, pausing with the glass
drawn half way toward him.
"The man."
"Then everybody's satisfied," announced the lawyer. "If the authorities
once get hold of that five thousand dollars cash bail and the man leaves
town, they'll post police at every train to warn him away if he ever
comes back."
"That's what I thought when I looked at the streets. You can even get
the bond reduced."
"I don't know," replied the other, shaking his head doubtfully. "I've
tried it."
"But you didn't go to them with the cash in your hand," Wallingford
smilingly reminded him, and from an envelope in his inside vest pocket
he produced a bundle of large bills. "This is a purchase, understand,
and it's worth while to do a little dickering. Hurry, and bring the
goods back with you."
"Watch me," said Mr. Maylie, taking the money with alacrity, but before
he went out he hastily swallowed another glass of wine.
He was gone about an hour, during which his distinguished client was
absorbed in drawing sketch after sketch upon nice, clean sheets of hotel
stationery; and every sketch bore a strong resemblance to some part of
Mr. Klug's pneumatic sales recording device. Mr. Wallingford was very
busy indeed over the problem of selling Mr. Klug's patent.
"Come in," he called heartily in answer to a knock at the door.
It opened and the voice of Mr. Maylie announced: "Here's the goods, all
right." And he ushered in a tall, woe-begone gentleman, who, except for
the untidiness of black mustache and hair, and the startlingly wrinkled
and rusty condition of the black frock suit, bore strong resemblance to
a certain expert collector and disseminator of foolish money--one
"Blackie" Daw!
Mr. Wallingford, who, in his creative enthusiasm, had shed his lounging
coat and waistcoat, and had even rolled up his shirt sleeves, lay back
in his chair and laughed until he shook like a bowl of jelly. Mr. Daw,
erstwhile the dapper Mr. Daw, had gloomily advanced to shake hands, but
now suddenly burst forth in a volley of language so fervid that Mr.
Maylie hastily closed the door. His large friend, with the tears
streaming down his face, thereupon laughed all the more, but he managed
to call attention to a frost-covered silver pail which awaited this
moment, and while Mr. Daw pounced upon that solace, Mr. Maylie, smiling
unobtrusively as one who must enjoy a joke from the outside, proceeded
to business.
"I got him for four thousand," he informed Mr. Wallingford and laid down
a five-hundred-dollar bill. The remainder, in hundreds, he counted off
one at a time, more slowly with each one, and when there were but two
left in his hand Mr. Wallingford picked up the others and stuffed them
in his pocket.
"That will about square us, I guess," he observed.
"Certainly; and thank you. Now, if there's anything else--"
"Not a thing--just now."
"Very well, sir," said Mr. Maylie with a glance at the enticing
hollow-stemmed glasses; but it was quite evident that this was a private
bottle, and he edged himself out of the door, disappearing with much the
effect of a sharp knife blade being closed back into its handle.
Mr. Daw had tossed three bumpers of the champagne down his throat
without stopping to taste them, and without setting down the bottle. Now
he poured one for Mr. Wallingford.
"Laugh, confound you; laugh!" he snarled. "Maybe I look like the
original comic supplement, but I don't feel like a joke. Think of it, J.
Rufus! Four days in an infernal cement tomb, with exactly seventeen
iron bars in front of me! I counted them twenty hours a day, and I know.
Seven-teen!"
He glanced down over his creased and wrinkled and rusty clothing with a
shudder, and suddenly began to tear them off, not stopping until he had
divested himself of coat, vest and trousers, which he flung upon a
chair. Then he rushed to the telephone, ridiculously gaunt in his
unsheathed state, and ordered a valet and a barber.
"Give me one of those hundreds, Jim, quick! I want it in my hand. Maybe
I'll believe it's real money after a while."
Mr. Wallingford chuckled again as he passed over one of the crisp bills.
"Cheer up, Blackie," he admonished his friend. "See how calm I am. Have
a smoke."
Mr. Daw seized eagerly upon one of the cigars that were proffered him;
but he was still too much perturbed to sit down, and stalked violently
about the room like a huge pair of white tongs.
"I notice you turn every seven feet," observed Wallingford with a grin.
"That must have been the size of your cell. Well, you never know your
luck. Why, out here, Blackie, your occupation is called swindling, and
it's a wonder they didn't hang you. You see, in these harvest festival
towns there's not a yap over twenty-five who hasn't been fanged on a
fake gold mine or something of the sort, and when twelve of these born
boobs get a happy chance at a vaselined gold brick artist like you,
nothing will suit them but a verdict of murder in the first degree."
Mr. Daw merely swore. The events of the past four days had dampened him
so that he was utterly incapable of defense. There was a knock at the
door. In view of his _deshabille_ the lank one retreated to the other
room, but when the caller proved to be only the valet, he came prancing
out with his clothes upon his arm. "I want these back in half an hour,"
he demanded, "and have this bill changed into money I can understand. I
feel better already," he added when the valet had gone. "I've ordered
somebody to do something, and he stood for it."
Wallingford brought from his closet a bath-robe in which Mr. Daw could
wrap himself two or three times, and continued his lecture.
"It's too bad you don't understand your profession," he went on, still
amused. "Sometimes I think I'll buy you another acre of Arizona sand and
start a new mining company with you, just to show you how the stock can
be sold safely and legally."
For the first time Mr. Daw was able to grin.
"Who's that clattering down the street?" he exclaimed with fine dramatic
effect. "Why, it's _me_! Notice how my coat tails snap as I top yon
distant hill. See how pale my face as I turn to see if I am still
pursued. Oh, no, J. Rufus. We've been friends too long. I'd hate to
think of us losing sleep every night, trying to figure how to give each
other the double cross."
"I got you at a bargain just now, and I ought to be able to sell you
cheap," retorted the other. "By the way, it's a mighty lucky thing for
you that Fanny had some money soaked away from that insurance deal of
mine. I had to all but use a club to get it, too. She don't think very
much of you. She thinks you might lead me astray some time."
"_Can_ limburger smell worse?" growled Mr. Daw, but there he stopped.
Four days in jail had taken a lot of his gift of repartee away. When
barber and bootblack and valet had restored him to his well-groomed
ministerial aspect, however, his saturnine sense of humor came back and
he was able to enjoy the elaborate midday luncheon which his host had
served in the room.
"Amuse yourself, Blackie," invited Wallingford after luncheon. "Get
_orey-eyed_ if you want to, and don't mind me, for I'm laying the wires
to locate here."
"Don't!" advised his friend. "This is a poison town. Every dollar has a
tag on it, and if you touch one they examine the thumb marks and pinch
you."
"Not me! My legitimate methods will excite both awe and admiration." And
he set to work again.
Not caring to show himself in daylight, Mr. Daw read papers and took
naps and drank and smoked until his midnight train; but, no matter what
he did, Mr. Wallingford sat steadily at the little desk, sketching,
sketching, sketching. Along about closing time he went down to make
friends with the bartender, and before he went to bed he had secured an
unused sales recording machine which was kept on hand for use during
conventions, and this he had taken up to his rooms for leisurely study
and comparison. In the morning he drove out to Carl Klug's clean little
model making shop in the outskirts of the town, and here he found an
interested group gathered about the pneumatic device that he had seen
the day before. On a bench lay the patent--a real United States
Government patent with a seal and a ribbon on it!
"Different from all the four hundred and twelve patents, every place!"
Mr. Klug had just a shade pompously reiterated before Wallingford came.
"So-o-o-o!" commented big Otto Schmitt, the market gardener, as he
pushed down the dollar key and then the forty-five-cent key with a huge,
earth-brown finger that spread out on the end like a flat club. "And how
much does it cost to make it?"
"Not twenty-five dollars apiece," claimed Carl; "and the United Sales
Recording Machine Company sells them for two and three hundred dollars.
We can sell these for one hundred, and when we get a good business they
must buy us out or we take all their trade away from them. That's the
way to sell a patent. Because they don't do this way is why inventors
never get rich."
"Sure!" agreed Henry Vogel, the lean, rawboned carpenter. "When they buy
us out, that's where we make our money."
"Sure!" echoed Carl, and the three of them laughed. It was such a
pleasant idea that they would be able to wrest some of its hoarded
thousands from a big monopoly.
"It is a good business," went on Carl. "When I showed this machine to
this Mr. Wallingford I told you about, he said right away he would come
in. He is one of these Eastern money fellows, and they are all smart
men."
Over in the corner sat Jens Jensen, with a hundred shrewd wrinkles in
his face and a fringe of wiry beard around his chin from ear to ear. Up
to now he had not said a word. He was a next door neighbor to Carl, and
he had seen the great patent over and over.
"It is foolishness," declared Jens. "He is a skinner, maybe; and,
anyhow, if there's money to be made we should keep it at home."
Big Otto Schmitt pushed down the two-dollar key. The dollar ticket and
the forty-five-cent ticket disappeared, the two-dollar ticket came up
with a click, the drawer popped open and a little bell rang. It was
wonderful.
"I say it too," agreed Otto. His face was broad and hard as granite, his
cheekbones were enormous and the skin over them was purple.
The four men were near the front windows of the shop, and it was at this
moment that Wallingford's cab whirled up to the door. It was a new
looking cab, its woodwork polished like a piano, the glass in it
beveled plate. The driver sprang down and opened the door. Out of that
small opening stepped the huge promoter, resplendent in a new suit of
brown checks, and wearing a brown Derby, brown shoes and brown silk
hose, all of the exact shade to match, while from his coat pocket peeped
the fingers of brown gloves.
"That's him," said Carl.
"I knew it," announced Jens Jensen. "He is a skinner."
Nothing could exceed the affability of Mr. Wallingford. He shook hands
with Mr. Klug, with Mr. Schmitt, with Mr. Vogel, with Mr. Jensen; he
smiled upon them in turns; he made each one of them feel that never in
all his life had he been afforded a keener delight than in this meeting.
"You have a fine little shop, Mr. Klug," he said, looking about him with
an air of pleased surprise. "There is room right here to manufacture
enough machines to scare the United Sales Recording Machine Company into
fits. Gentlemen, if no one else cares for a share in Mr. Klug's splendid
invention, I am quite willing to back him myself with all the capital he
needs."
This was an exceptionally generous offer on Mr. Wallingford's part,
particularly as the six hundred dollars he had in his pocket was all the
capital he controlled in the world. In justice to him, however, it must
be said that he expected to have more money--shortly. The prospects
seemed good. They looked him over. Twenty-five thousand, fifty thousand,
a hundred thousand dollars; it was easy to see that the gentleman could
supply any or all of these sums at a moment's notice.
"No!" said Jens Jensen, voicing the suddenly eager sentiment of all.
"We're all going in it, and another man."
"Two other men," corrected Carl. "Doctor Feldmeyer and Emil Kessler."
Otto Schmitt shook his head dubiously.
"Emil owes on his building loan," he observed.
"Emil's coming in," firmly repeated Carl Klug. "He is a friend of mine.
I will lend him the money and he pays me when we sell out."
Mr. Wallingford glanced out of the window at the shining cab and smiled.
With business people like these he felt that he could get on.
"When, then, do we form the partnership?" he asked.
"To-morrow!" Jens promptly informed him. "We all put in what money we
want to, and we take out according to what we put in."
Jens, who had condemned Mr. Wallingford at sight as a "skinner," now
kept as close to him as possible, and beamed up at him all the time; one
cordial handshake from the man of millions had won him over.
"Carl," he suggested, "you must take Mr. Wallingford over to the
cellar."
"Oh, we all go there," said big Otto Schmitt, and they all laughed, Carl
more than any of them.
"Come on," he said.
Right at the side of the shop stood Mr. Klug's brick house, in the midst
of a big garden that was painfully orderly. Every tree was whitewashed
to exactly the same height, and everything else that could be
whitewashed glared like new-fallen snow. The walks were scrubbed until
they were as red as bricks could be made, and all in between was
velvet-green grass. There were flowers everywhere, and climbing vines
were matted upon the porch trellises and against the entire front of the
house. In the rear garden could be seen all sorts of kitchen vegetables
in neat rows and beds. Down into the front basement the five men
crowded and sat on rough wooden benches. Jens Jensen hastened to spread
a clean newspaper on the bench where Mr. Wallingford was to sit. Carl
disappeared into another part of the cellar and presently came out again
with a big jug and five glasses, all of different shapes and sizes. Out
of the jug he poured his best home-made wine, and they settled down for
a jovial half hour, in which they admitted the guest of honor to full
fellowship.
"You must come over to church to-night," Jens Jensen insisted as they
came away. "We have a raffle and Doctor Feldmeyer will be there. He is a
swell. He will be glad to know you. There will be plenty to eat and
drink. Look; you can see the church from here," and he pointed out its
tall spire.
Mr. Wallingford shook hands with Mr. Jensen impulsively.
"I'll be _there_!" he declared with enthusiasm.
When he had gone, Carl Klug asked:
"Well, what do you think of him?"
"He is a swell," said Jens, and no voice dissented.