We kept going till we got to one of the biggest stores in town. It was a
furniture-store, and it looked big enough to hold furniture enough to
fill every house in the state. Catty turned in.
“What’s the idee?” says I. “Goin’ to buy some respectable furniture,
too?”
“Some day, but not yet. Got to have a house first.”
“You’re goin’ to have a house?”
“Jest wait and see. One of these days Dad an’ me is goin’ to have a
house that ’ll make Captain Winton’s look like a cow-shed. There’s
nothin’ like a fine house to make folks b’lieve you’re respectable. I
dunno why it is, but as soon as a body moves into a big house he gets to
be somebody right off. Jest you get a fine house, and folks takes off
their hats to you.”
“Maybe,” says I; “but what are we comin’ in here for?”
“To see the man that owns it.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see in a minute,” says he.
We took the elevator and asked to be let off at the office, and when we
got there we asked for the man that owned the store. A young man behind
a window with gratings over it sort of grinned and asked what we wanted
to see him for.
“That’s betwixt him and me,” says Catty, squinting at the young man kind
of close.
“He’s busy. He can’t see kids.”
“Better tell him I’m here,” says Catty.
“Run along now, and don’t waste my time,” says the young man.
Catty he sort of squinted at the young man again, and then at the
grating over the window.
“Poor feller,” says he, as sympathetic as a mourner.
“What’s that?” says the young man.
“I was jest feelin’ sorry for you,” says Catty. “First off I didn’t
understand. It is a kind of funny place to keep you, though.”
“What you talking about, kid?”
“Why, at first I didn’t understand you was weak-minded and that’s why
they shut you behind them bars. I didn’t realize you was weak-minded
till you showed it so plain.”
We heard somebody kind of chuckle over to the left, and there was a
fine-looking man with whiskers parted in the middle.
“He kind of had you there, Jones,” says he. “What made you think he was
weak-minded, Son?”
“Why, instead of findin’ out what we wanted, or if it was something the
boss would want to know about, he jest tried to send us off. That hain’t
brains. When you’re in business you don’t want to let no chances slip.
Nobody ever knows what minute there’s goin’ to be a chance to make
money. I always find out what everybody wants that comes in, and if they
don’t want anything, why, I try to make them want something.”
“Hear that, Jones?” says the man with the whiskers. “You might remember
it, too. It’s a good rule.... Now, young man, I’m Mr. Sommers—the boss,
as you call it. What can I do for you?”
“I want to show you something,” says Catty, “and ask you if you don’t
think there’s money in it.”
“Come in,” says Mr. Sommers, and in we marched.
I had noticed that Catty was carrying around a parcel all day, but I
thought it was lunch or something, and hadn’t asked any questions about
it. He put the parcel on a table now and began to open it. In a minute
he took out that little folding-table of his father’s—the one Mr. Atkins
had whittled out just for fun.
“Here it is,” says he, “a new-fangled, patent, foldin’-table. I got it
into my head that it was a rip-snortin’ good table, and that maybe other
folks would think so. Looky here.... It opens like this, and it’s stiddy
on its feet, and you can’t pinch your fingers. I don’t call to mind ever
seein’ a table quite as good as this one.... And so I come to git your
opinion about it.”
Mr. Sommers picked up the little table and examined it close. He opened
and shut it, and looked under it, and then sat back in his chair and
thought.
“Are you manufacturing tables like this?”
“Not yet. I figgered it would be safer to find out if folks would buy
them.”
“They would,” says Mr. Sommers. “There isn’t a table on the market that
can touch this. If you can manufacture it at a decent price you can make
money. Is it patented?”
“Patented? What’s that?”
Mr. Sommers explained about patents and why folks ought to have them.
“I see,” says Catty. “It hain’t patented yet, but you kin bet it’s goin’
to be, right off. How do I go about it?”
“I can send you to a good patent lawyer, if you like.”
“Thankee,” says Catty. “If this table was being made, would you order
some to sell in your store?”
“I would give you an order right now for ten gross.”
“A gross is twelve dozen, hain’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Ten gross would be a thousand and four hundred and forty. Jingoes!
That’s a lot of tables, mister.”
“Did you make this model?”
“No, sir. Dad he jest whittled it out because he pinched his fingers on
a foldin’-table he bought. Done it just to show that there could be a
better table. He’s always doin’ that. He’s whittled out lots of things.
Made a game for us that’s a dandy, and he’s fixed up a step-ladder that
folds into a kitchen chair, and a dingus for hangin’ up brooms, and
about forty other things. He’s always whittlin’.”
“That’s interesting. I’d like to see some of those other things. Patent
any of them?”
“Not a one.”
“Well, you bundle up what you can find and send them to me by express. I
guess you can trust me, can’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” says Catty.
“Thank you. It’s a good thing in business to be willing to trust men,
but it is better to know which ones to trust.”
“I figgered so,” said Catty. “Now if you’ll send me to that patent
lawyer.”
“You’ve got me interested, my boy. I don’t know but I’ll have to run
down to see your father myself. Maybe we can work out some kind of an
arrangement that will suit both of us. That table, for instance, I feel
sure there is money in it.”
“I hope so,” says Catty. “Dad and me needs a lot of money to prove to
folks that we’re respectable.”
“What do you mean by that, Son?”
Then Catty told the whole story, and I never saw anybody act more
interested.
“Young man,” says Mr. Sommers, when Catty was through, “that’s one of
the most remarkable things I ever heard. You just set out to make over
your father—to turn him into a respected citizen instead of a tramp,
eh?”
“That’s it?”
“And you’ve done all you say in just a few months?”
“Yes, sir. You ought to see Dad now.”
“I’m going to,” says Mr. Sommers. “You needn’t send those models to me,
for I’m coming down to see them. Let me see, I can get down in two
weeks. In the mean time, you start the proceedings to get a patent on
this table. Got enough money?”
“I don’t know. Does it cost much?”
“Nevermind. I’ll give you a letter to the lawyer, and he will charge it
to me. You can pay me later.”
“Thankee,” says Catty.
“I’ll be down to see you two weeks from to-day,” says Mr. Sommers.
“Don’t forget.”
“No danger,” says Catty, and we went out to hunt up that lawyer.
We found him in his office, about twenty stories up in the air. It was
the highest up I had ever been. Going up in that elevator was just like
going up in a balloon. It seemed sort of silly to make buildings so high
and to work ’way up there a couple of hundred feet above the street.
There’s so much earth that everybody could have his office or store
right down on it if he wanted to. Catty said it was because that would
take up too much room, and that folks wanted to be near one another so
it would be easier to do business. That was all right, but it did cost a
lot of money. Cities are awful expensive to build, I guess.
When we got to the lawyer’s office we sent Mr. Sommers’s letter in and
the lawyer sent out for us. We told him what we wanted, and he asked for
the little table. He said there would have to be drawings made and lots
of things, but we could just leave it with him and he would tend to the
whole thing. There would be some papers to sign, he said, but he would
mail them to Catty and Catty could mail them back again.
“This is an ingenious thing,” he says, “and you ought to make money out
of it.”
“Maybe,” says Catty, “but it takes money to make money. Factories cost a
lot, don’t they?”
“Different-sized factories cost different prices,” says the lawyer, with
a smile. “You might start with a small one.”
“I want to start with a big one. You make money quicker.” He stopped a
minute and then he says, “You’re a reg’lar lawyer besides getting
patents, hain’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Lawyers are pretty slick, hain’t they? They know all about schemes and
sich things.”
“They’re slick, all right,” says the man, and he smiled broader than
ever. “And if I do say it as shouldn’t, I’m about the slickest of the
whole lot.”
Catty saw that he was joking and sort of grinned himself, but ’most
generally Catty didn’t do a great deal of joking or grinning. He was too
busy and had his mind set too much on being respectable. “I was
wonderin’ if you could see through a scheme Wee-wee and me has been
watching. We can’t make head nor tail to it, but we got it fixed in our
minds that somebody’s goin’ to git cheated. Want to hear about it?”
“Sure. How did you get interested in it? What’s it got to do with you?”
“Nothin’ to do with us, only we don’t want to see folks git smouged.
’Course the folks don’t like Dad and me, but if we was to save ’em a lot
of money, why, they couldn’t help feelin’ much obleeged, could they. You
can’t keep on tryin’ to chase a man out of town if he’s saved you a lot
of money.”
“It wouldn’t seem so. Are they trying to chase you out of town?”
“Yes. But we hain’t a-goin’ to go. We’re goin’ to stick there if we
starve, and before long them folks is goin’ to take off their hats to
us. You watch. I’m a-goin’ to make my Dad the biggest man in that town,
and when folks sees him they’re a-goin’ to point to him and brag about
his livin’ there. They call us tramps now, but you wait. We’ll be so
respectable before I git through that it ’ll make folks dizzy.”
“Good idea.... But what’s this scheme you’ve been watching, and how did
you happen to watch it?”
“Well, a man came to our town that looked like he owned the earth. He
was all dressed up, and had scads of money. He let on he was goin’ to
build a factory and manufacture things.”
“Try to sell stock.”
“No. He wouldn’t let anybody buy. He said it was all for him and he
wanted all the profits.”
“That don’t sound like a cheating scheme, Son.”
“You wait. This man used to run one of them medicine-shows with a
gasolene-torch and Injuns and teeth pulled free, and cheat old wimmin by
sellin’ ’em medicine that wa’n’t no good. That’s how we come to
suspicion him.”
“How do you know that?”
“We know it all right. We _know_!”
“All right. Do the rest of the folks know?”
“Nobody knows but us—And we dassent tell. If we did we’d git into
trouble, because folks is crazy about this man. They jest foller him
around tryin’ to buy stock in his factory.”
“But he won’t sell?”
“Not a smidgin. Well, one day at the depot Wee-wee and me seen this man
send a telegram to another feller, tailin’ him to come right off because
the crop was ripe.... Pretty soon the other man come, but they pretended
they didn’t know each other, and the last feller to come tried to buy
the secret off of the first man.”
“What secret?”
“The secret way of makin’ the churn. It hain’t patented. I didn’t
understand about that before, but I do now. The man says he wouldn’t
patent, but would jest manufacture secret. The second man says the new
churn would put every other churn out of business, and he offered fifty
thousand dollars to the first man if he wouldn’t build any factory at
all. He offered it where folks could hear, and before night everybody in
town was sayin’ jest the secret was worth fifty thousand dollars.”
“Then did the first man sell any stock?”
“Nope.”
“Huh!... Looks queer. He will sell stock, though. You see, young man.
He’s got folks crazy to buy, and pretty soon he’ll sell, and scoot.
That’s the way it looks to me.... No patent, eh? He’s probably got this
secret of his valued high, and when he sells stock the secret’s
included.... Part of the money will have to go to build a factory.” The
lawyer was sort of talking to himself now. “Where the fraud will happen
will be the secret. Most likely you’ll find out he’s sold every bit of
stock in the concern. The folks will be left with a factory and a secret
that isn’t worth a cent. Has anybody seen this churn?”
“Not a soul. It’s awful secret.”
“Um!... He isn’t guaranteeing anything. It doesn’t matter whether his
churn is worth a cent. Folks that are crazy about a thing don’t ask
questions. They just swallow the bait, hook, line, and sinker.”
“But where will this feller make any money?”
“Out of what he calls his secret. Of course, the cost of the mill will
have to be paid. He’s incorporated for enough to cover that, and put in
his secret for a big wad. Let’s say he has stock altogether for a
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It will cost maybe seventy-five to
build the mill. The rest will be to pay for the secret. See?”
“Guess I do,” says Catty. “When he sells all the stock and pays for the
mill, he’ll have left over the seventy-five thousand that he charges for
the secret. Hain’t that it?”
“That’s it.”
“And if the secret hain’t any good, why, the folks have a mill that
hain’t worth anything because the thing they was plannin’ to make in it
hain’t worth makin’?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Hum!... Much obleeged. Kind of hard to prove, hain’t it?”
“Nothing harder—ahead of time. You’d have to find out what his secret
was, and prove to folks that it was no good, and that he intended to
cheat them with it. I don’t see how it can be worked.”
“It’s goin’ to be hard, all right, but, mister, we’re a-goin’ to do it.
We’ll git this feller somehow, and we’ll prove it on him. We’ll do it or
bust.”
“Good for you.... And now, about this patent—I’ll mail you the papers in
a day or two, and you have your father sign them and hurry them right
back.”
“You bet,” says Catty.
We went out and took the train for home. On the way we tried to figure
out about Kinderhook, but it didn’t come. We said we would just have to
watch and grab whatever chance came along.
“And say,” says Catty, “don’t talk to anybody about this patent table
... not even your Dad or mine. I don’t want Dad to know yet. This here
is my secret.”
“What’s the idee?” says I.
“You wait and see,” says he. “So long as nobody but me knows, there
hain’t any danger of anybody else findin’ out.”