"What you are asking of me is unjust—and absurd," whined Wallingford.
"Write that check!" Neil almost screamed. "We know you're slick enough to keep your tricks within legal bounds, and that's why these men are here."
The brow of Wallingford contracted and he tried to look angry, but his breath was coming short and there was a curious palloraround the edge of his lips and around his eyes.
"This is coercion!" he charged with dry mouth.
"Put it that way if you want to," agreed Neil hotly.
"We'll break your infernal neck, that's what we'll do!" put in a spokesman back toward the door, and there was a general pressing forward. Neil had lashed them into fury, and one rawboned fellow, a blacksmith, wedged through them with purple face and upraised fist. So heavily that he knocked the breath out of Clover with his chair back, Wallingford plumped down at the desk and whipped out his check book.
"I ask one thing of you," he said, as he picked up the pen with a curious trembling grimace that was almost like a smile, but was not. "You must leave me at least a thousand dollars to get away from here."
There was a moment of silence.
"That's reasonable," granted Neil, after careful consideration. "Give us the check for forty-four thousand."
Wallingford wrote it and then he put it in his pocket.
"I have the check ready, gentlemen," heannounced, "but I'll give it to you at the entrance of my home—to a committee consisting of Neil and any two others you may select. If I hand it to you before I pass out at that door, some of you are liable to—to lose your heads."
He was positively craven in appearance when he said this, and with an expression of contempt Neil agreed to it. Wallingford's car was still waiting on the street below, and into it piled the four. Before the rich building where J. Rufus had his apartments, Neil and one of the other men got out first; but if they had anticipated any attempt at escape on Wallingford's part they were mistaken. Without a word he handed the check to Neil and waited while they inspected it to see that it was correctly drawn and signed.
"Now, Mr. Slippery Eel," said Neil exultantly as he put the check in his pocket, "it won't do any good to try to stop this check, for if I can't draw it you can't. I shall be there in the morning when the bank opens. I secured an injunction this afternoon that will tie up your account," and his voice swelled with triumph.
Wallingford laughed. With his hand upon the knob he held the vestibule door open, andhe felt safe from violence, which was all he feared.
"Well," said he philosophically, "I see I'm beaten, and there's no use crying over spilled milk."
Neil looked after him dubiously, as he swaggered into the hall.
"I didn't expect it would be so easy," he said to the men. "I knew the fellow was a physical coward, but I didn't know he was such a big one. My lawyer told me he could even beat us on that injunction."
Mr. Wallingford did not go directly to his apartments. He went into the booth downstairs, instead, and telephoned his wife. Then he went out. He was gone for about half an hour, and, when he came back, Mrs. Wallingford, wastefully leaving a number of expensive accumulations that were too big to be carried as hand luggage, and abandoning the rich furniture to be claimed by the deluded dealers, had four suit cases packed.
It was not until their train had passed beyond the last suburb that Wallingford, ensconced in the sleeper drawing room, was able to resume his accustomed cheerfulness.
"Sure you have that bundle of American passports all right, Fanny?" he inquired.
"They're perfectly safe, but I'm glad to be rid of them," she answered listlessly, and opening her hand bag she emptied it of its contents, then, with a small penknife, loosened the false bottom in it. From underneath this she drew a flat package of thousand-dollar bills and handed them to him.
"Forty of them!" gloated Wallingford, counting them over. Then he pounded upon his knees and laughed. "I can see Starvation Neil when he has to tell his jay delegates that I drew out every cent the day after I lost my bank book. I'd been missing too many things that never turned up again. I fixed themto-night, too. Although I didn't need to do it to be on the law's safe side, I hustled out before we started and swore to a notary that I signed that check under coercion; and they'll get that affidavit before the check and the injunction!"
Mrs. Wallingford did not join him in the shoulder-heaving laugh which followed.
"I don't like it, Jim," she urged. "You're growing worse all the time, and some day you'll overstep the bounds. And have you noticed another thing? Our money never does us any good."
"You'll wake up when we get settled down some place to enjoy ourselves. I don't believe you know how well you like fine dresses and diamonds, and to live on the fat of the land. You know what this little bundle of comfort means? That we're the salt of the earth while it lasts; that for a solid year we may have not only all the luxuries in the world, but everybody we meet will try to make life pleasant for us."
To that end Wallingford secured a suite of rooms at two hundred dollars per week the moment they landed in New York, and began to live at a corresponding rate. He gave himself no regret for yesterday and no care for to-morrow, but let each extravagant momenttake care of itself. It was such intervals as this, between her husband's more than doubtful "business" operations, that reconciled Mrs. Wallingford to their mode of life, or, rather, that numbed the moral sensibilities which lie dormant in every woman. While they were merely spending money she was content to play thegrande dame, to dress herself in exquisite toilettes and bedeck herself with brilliant gems, to go among other birds of fine feathers that congregated at the more exclusive public places, though she made no friends among them, to be surrounded by every luxury that money could purchase, to have her every whim gratified by the mere pressing of a button. As for Wallingford, to be a prince of spenders, to find new and gaudy methods of display, to have people turn as he passed by and ask who he might be; these things made existence worth while.
Only one thing—his restless spirit—kept him from pursuing this uneventful path until all of his forty thousand dollars was gone. After two months of slothful ease, something more exciting became imperative, and just then the racing season began and supplied that need. Every afternoon they drove out to the track, and there Wallingford bet thousands asanother man might bet fives. There could be but one end to this, but he did not care. What did it matter whether he spent his money a trifle more or less quickly? There was plenty of it within his broad hunting grounds, and when what he had was gone he had only to go capture more; so it was no shock one morning to count over his resources and find that he had but a fragment left of what he had laughingly termed his "insurance fund." Upon that same morning an urgent telegram was delivered to him from "Blackie" Daw. He read it with a whistle of surprise and passed it over to his wife without comment.
"You're not going?" she asked with much concern, passing the message back to him.
"Of course I am," he promptly told her. "Blackie's the only man I could depend upon to get me out of a similar scrape."
"But, Jim," she protested; "you just now said that you have barely over six thousand left."
"That's all right," he assured her. "I'd have to get out and hustle in less than a month anyhow, at the rate we're going. I'll just take Blackie's five thousand, and a couple of hundred over for expenses. You keep the balance of the money and we'll get out of theseapartments at once. I'll get you nice accommodations at about twenty a week, and before I come back I'll have something stirred up."
Secretly, he was rather pleased with the turn affairs had taken. Inaction was beginning to pall upon him, and this message that called urgently upon him to take an immediate trip out of town was entirely to his liking. Within an hour he had transferred his wife into comfortable quarters and was on his way to the train. He had very little margin of time, but, slight as it was, the grinning Fate which presided over his destinies had opportunity to arrange a meeting for him. Even as he pointed out his luggage to a running porter, a fussy little German in very new-looking clothes which fitted almost like tailor-made, had rushed back to the gates of the train shed where the conductor stood with his eyes fixed intently on his watch, his left hand poised ready to raise.
"I left my umbrella," spluttered the passenger.
"No time," declared the autocrat, not gruffly or unkindly, but in a tone of virtuous devotion to duty.
The little German's eyes glared through his spectacles, his face puffed red, his gray mustache bristled.
"But it's my wife's umbrella!" he urged, as if that might make a difference.
The brass-buttoned slave to duty did not even smile. He raised his hand, and in a moment more the potent wave of his wrist would have sent Number Eighteen plunging on her westward way. In that moment, however, the Pullman conductor, waiting with him, clutched the blue arm of authority.
"Hold her a second," he advised, and with his thumb pointed far up the platform. "Here comes from a dollar up for everybody. He's rode with me before."
The captain of Eighteen gave a swift glance and was satisfied.
"Sure. I know him," he said of the newcomer; then he turned to the still desperately hopeful passenger and relented. "Run!" he directed briefly.
Wallingford, who had secured for Carl Klug this boon, merely by an opportune arrival, was not hurrying. He was too large a man to hurry, so a depot porter was doing it for him. The porter plunged on in advance, springing heavily from one bent leg to the other, weighted down with a hat box in one hand, a huge Gladstone bag in the other and a suit case under each arm. The perspiration was streamingdown his face, but he was quite content. Behind him stalked J. Rufus, carrying only a cane and gloves; but more, for him, would have seemed absurd, for when he moved the background seemed to advance with him, he was so broad of shoulder and of chest and of girth. Dignity radiated from his frame and carriage, good humor from his big face, wealth from every line and crease of his garments; and it was no matter for wonder that even the rigid schedule of Number Eighteen was glad to extend to this master of circumstances its small fraction of elasticity.
One of the Pullman porters from up the train caught a glimpse of his approach and came running back to snatch up two of the pieces of luggage. It did not matter to him whether the impressive gentleman was riding in his coach or not; he was anxious to help on mere general principles, and was even more so when the depot porter, dropping the luggage inside the gate, broke into glorious sunrise over the crinkling green certificate of merit that was handed him. The Pullman conductor only asked to what city the man was bound, then he too snatched up a suit case and a bag and raced with the porter to take them on board, calling out as he ran the car into whichthe luggage must go. To Wallingford their activity gave profound satisfaction, and he paused to hand the conductor a counterpart to the huge black cigar he was then smoking. It had no band of any sort upon it, but the conductor judged the cigar by the man. It was not less than three for a dollar, he was sure.
"Pretty close figuring, old man," observed Wallingford cordially.
The conductor's smile, while gracious enough, was only fleeting, for this thing of being responsible for Eighteen was an anxious business, the gravity of which the traveling public should be taught to appreciate more.
"We're nearly a minute off now," he said, "and I've let myself in to wait for a Dutchman I let run out when I saw you coming. There he is. Third car up for you, sir," and he ran up to the steps of the second car himself.
The missing passenger came tearing through the gates just as Wallingford went up the car steps. The conductor held his hand aloft, and the engineer, looking back, impatiently clanged his bell. The porter picked up his stepping-box and jumped on after his tip, but he looked out to watch the little German racing with all hismight up the platform, and did not withdraw his head until the belated one, all legs and arms, scrambled upon the train. Instantly the wheels began to revolve, both vestibule doors were closed with a slam, and a moment later Carl Klug, puffing and panting, dropped upon a seat in the smoking compartment, opposite to the calm J. Rufus Wallingford, without breath—and without his umbrella.
"Schrecklich!" he exploded when he could talk. "They are all thieves here. I leave my umbrella in the waiting-room five minutes, I go back and it is gone. Gone! And it was my wife's umbrella!"
Under ordinary circumstances Mr. Klug, whose thirty years of residence in America had not altogether destroyed certain old-country notions of caste, would not have ventured to address this lordly-looking stranger, but at present he was angry and simply must open the vials of his wrath to some one. He met with no repulse. Mr. Wallingford was not one to repulse strangers of even modest competence. He only laughed. A score of jovial wrinkles sprang about his half-closed eyes, and his pink face grew pinker.
"Right you are," he agreed. "When I'm in this town I keep everything I've got rightin front of me, and if I want to look the other way I edge around on the other side of my grips."
Mr. Klug digested this idea for a moment, and then he, too, laughed, though not with the abandon of Mr. Wallingford. He could not so soon forget his wife's umbrella.
"It is so," he admitted. "I have been here three days, and every man I had any business with ought to be injail!"
A sudden thought as he came to this last word made Mr. Klug lay almost shrieking emphasis upon it, and smack both fists upon his knees. He craned his head forward, his eyes glared through his spectacles, his cheeks puffed out and his mustache bristled. Wallingford surveyed him with careful appraisement. The clothing was ready made, but it was a very good quality of its kind. The man's face was an intelligent one and told of careful, concentrated effort. His hands were lean and rough, the fingers were supple and the outer joints bent back, particularly those of the thumb, which described almost a half circle. The insides of the fingers were seamed and crossed with countless little black lines. From all this the man was a mechanic, and a skilled one. Those fingers dealt deftly with small parts, andyears of grimy oil had blackened those innumerable cuts and scratches.
"Did they sting you?" Wallingford inquired with a dawning interest that was more than courteous sympathy.
"I guessnot!" snapped Mr. Klug triumphantly, and the other made quick note of the fact that the man was familiar with current slang. "I was too smart for them." Then, after a reflective pause, he added: "Maybe. They might steal my patent some way."
Patent! Mr. Wallingford's small, thick ears suddenly twitched forward.
"Been trying to sell one?" he asked, pausing with his cigar half way to his mouth and waiting for the answer.
"Three hundred dollars they offer me!" exploded Mr. Klug, again smiting both fists on his knees. "Six years I worked on it in my little shop of nights to get up a machine that was different from all the rest and that would work right, and when I get it done and get my patent and take it to them, they already had a copy of my patent and showed it to me. They bought it from the Government for five cents, and called me the same as a thief and offered me three hundred dollars!"
Wallingford pondered seriously.
"You must have a good machine," he finally announced.
Mr. Klug thought that he was "being made fun of."
"Itisa good machine. It's as good a machine as any they have got. There is no joke about it!"
"I'm not joking," Wallingford insisted. "Who are the people?"
Mr. Klug considered for a suspicious moment, but the appearance of this gentleman, the very embodiment of sterling worth, was most reassuring. Beneath that broad chest and behind that diamond scarf pin there could rest no duplicity. Moreover, Mr. Klug was still angry, and anger and discretion do not dwell together.
"The United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey," he stated, rolling out the name with a roundness which betrayed how much in respect and even awe he held it.
Wallingford was now genuinely interested.
"Then youhavea good patent," he repeated. "If they offered you three hundred dollars it is worth thousands, otherwise they would not buy it at any price. They have hundreds of patents now, and you have something that they have not covered."
"Four hundred and twelve patents they own," corrected Mr. Klug. "I have been over every one in the last six years, every little wire and bar and spring in them, and mine is a whole new machine, like nothing they have got. They have got one man that does nothing else but look after these patents. You know what he said? 'Yes, you have worked six years for a chance to hold us up. But we're used to it. It happens to us every day. If you think you can manufacture your machine and make any money, go at it.' He told me that!"
Wallingford nodded comprehendingly.
"Of course," he agreed. "They have either fought out or bought out everybody who ever poked their nose into the business. They had to. I know all about them. If you have a clean invention you were foolish to go to them with it in the first place. They'd only offer you the cost of the first lawsuit they're bound to bring against you. That's no way to sell a patent. Inventors all die poor for that very reason. The thing for you to do is to start manufacturing, and make them come to you. Throw a scare into them."
Mr. Klug was frightened by the very suggestion.
"Jiminy, no!" he protested, shaking his headvigorously. "I got no big money like that. I'd lose every cent and all my little property."
"It don't take so much money, if you use it right," insisted Wallingford. "Use as little capital as you can for manufacturing, and save the most of it for litigation. I'll bet I could sell your patent for you." He pondered a while with slowly kindling eyes, and smiled out of the window at the rushing landscape. "I tell you what you do. Get up a company and I'll buy some stock in it myself."
"Humbug with that stock business!" Mr. Klug exclaimed with explosive violence, his mustache bristling now until it stuck straight out. "I would not get up any such a business with stock in it. I had all the stock I want, and I never buy nor sell any any more. I got some I'll give away."
Wallingford smiled introspectively.
"Oh, well, form a partnership, then. You have four or five friends who could put up five thousand apiece, haven't you?"
Mr. Klug was quite certain of that.
"I am president of the Germania Building Loan Association," he announced with pardonable pride.
"Then, of course, you can control money," agreed the other in a tone which conveyed athoroughly proper appreciation of Mr. Klug's standing. "I'll invest as much as anybody else, and you put in your patent for a half interest. We'll start manufacturing right away, and if your machine's right, as it must be if they offer to buy the patent at all, I'll make the United people kneel down and coax us to take their money. There are ways to do it."
"The machine is all right," declared Mr. Klug. "Wait; I'll show it to you."
He hurried out to his seat, where reposed a huge box like a typewriter case, but larger. He lugged this back toward the smoker, into which other passengers were now lounging, but on the way Wallingford met him.
"Let's go in here, instead," said the latter, and opened the door into the drawing room.
It was the first time Mr. Klug had ever been in one of these compartments, and the sense of exclusiveness it aroused fairly reeked of money. The dreams of wealth that had been so rudely shattered sprang once more into life as the inventor opened the case and explained his device to this luxury-affording stranger, who, as a display of their tickets had brought out, was bound for his own city. It was a pneumatic machine, each key actuating a piston which flashed the numbered tickets noiselessly intoview. It was perfect in every particular, and Wallingford examined it with an intelligent scrutiny which raised him still further in Mr. Klug's estimation; but as he compared patent drawings and machine, intent apparently only upon the mechanism, his busy mind was ranging far and wide over many other matters, bringing tangled threads of planning together here and there, and knotting them firmly.
"Good," said he at last. "As I said, I'll buy into your company. Get your friends together right away and manufacture this machine. I'll guarantee to get a proper price for your patent."
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 somewhatlingering 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 indeedover 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 cementtomb, 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 awonder 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 hisdéshabilléthe 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 companywith 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'sme! 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."
"Canlimburger 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 elaboratemidday luncheon which his host had served in the room.
"Amuse yourself, Blackie," invited Wallingford after luncheon. "Getorey-eyedif 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 pneumaticdevice 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 theywould 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 polishedlike 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 onMr. 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 fivemen 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 bethere!" 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.
At a total cost of twenty-five dollars, Mr. Wallingford made himself a Prince of the Blood at the church raffle that night, throwing down bills and refusing all change, winning prizes and turning them back to be raffled over again, treating all the youngsters to endless grabs in the "fish pond"; and Jens Jensen proudly introduced him to everybody, beginning with the minister and Emil Kessler—the latter a thin, white-faced man with a high brow, who looked like a university professor and was a shoe-maker—and ending with Doctor Feldmeyer, who came late. Wallingford's eyes brightened when he saw this gentleman. He was more or less of a dandy, was the doctor, and had great polish and suavity of manner. He had not been with Mr. Wallingford five minutes until he was talking of Europe. Mr. Wallingford had also been to Europe. The doctor was very keen on books, on music, on art, on all therefinements of life, also he was very much of a ladies' man, he delicately insinuated, and not one expression of his face was lost upon the Eastern capitalist. It transpired that the doctor was living at Mr. Wallingford's hotel, and they went home together that night, leaving behind them the ineffaceable impression that the rich Mr. Wallingford was an invaluable acquisition to Mr. Klug and his friends, to the community, to the city, to any portion of the globe which he might grace with his presence. But when the invaluable acquisition was left alone in his rooms he penned a long letter to his wife.
"My dear Fanny," he wrote, "come right away. I have in sight the biggest stake I have made yet, in a clean, legitimate deal; and I need your smiling countenance in my business."
He meant more by that than he would have dared to tell her, but he laughed and mused on Doctor Feldmeyer as he sealed the letter; then he sent it out to be mailed and turned his earnest attention to the inside of his sales recorder. This time he found the one little point for which he had been looking: the thing that he knew must be there, and the next morning, bright and early, he drove out to Mr. Klug's shop.
"Mr. Klug, you are in bad," he said with portentous gravity. "Look here." And he pointed out the long, spring-actuated bar which kept all the tickets from dropping back when they sprang up, and released them as others were shot into place. "This is an infringement of the United Sales Recording Machine Company's machine," he declared.
"Nothing like it!" indignantly denied the inventor, bristling and reddening and puffing his cheeks.
"The identical device is in every machine they manufacture," insisted Wallingford; "and I would bet you all you expect to make that before you're on the market two days they will have an injunction out against you on that very point. Now let me show you how we can get around it."
Mr. Klug reluctantly and protestingly followed his mechanical idea, a logical application of the pneumatic principle, as he made it plain by sketches and demonstration on the machine.
"Another thing," went on Mr. Wallingford. "It occurs to me that all these little pistons multiply the chances of throwing your machine out of order. Why don't you make one compressible air chamber to actuate all theticket pistons and to be actuated by all the keys, the keys also opening valves in the ticket pistons? It would save at least five dollars on each machine, make it simpler and much more practical. Of course, I'll have to patent this improvement, but I'll turn it over to you at practically no cost to the company."
Mr. Klug merely blinked. Six long years he had worked on this invention, following the one idea doggedly and persistently, and he had thought that he had it perfect. He had all the United Company's patents marked in his copies of the patent record, and now he went through the more basic ones one after the other.
"It is not there," he said in triumph, after an hour's search, during which Wallingford patiently waited. One book he had held aside, and now he put his finger quietly upon a drawing in it.
"No," he admitted, "not in the form that you have used it; but here is the trick that covers the principle, and this patent still has four years to run."
Carl examined it silently. In form the device was radically different from his own, but when he came to analyze it he saw that Wallingford was probably right; the principle had been covered, at least nearly enough toleave a loophole for litigation, and it worried him beyond measure.
"Don't look at it that way," comforted Wallingford. "Only be glad that we found it out in time. I'll apply for this patent right away and assign it to you. All I'll want for it will be a slight credit on the books of the company; say fifteen hundred."
Again Carl Klug blinked.
"I'll let you know this afternoon."
He needed time to figure out this tangled proposition; also he wanted, in simple honor, to talk it over with his friends.
"All right," said Wallingford cheerfully. "By the way, we don't want to form such a big partnership in a lawyer's office, where people are running in and out all the time. I'll provide a room at my hotel. That will be better, don't you think?"
"Sure," slowly agreed Mr. Klug. He was glad to decide upon something about which a decision was easy.
"Can you get word to the others?" asked the promoter. "If not I'll go around and notify them."
"Oh, they're going to meet here. They all live up this way except Doctor Feldmeyer. You see him. I'll bring the lawyer along."
"All right," said Wallingford, quite convinced that a lawyer other than Maylie would be secured, and after he had driven from sight he took out his pocketbook and counted again his available cash.
He had a trifle over six hundred dollars, and in the afternoon he would be expected to pay over the difference between five thousand dollars and the fifteen hundred he was certain would be allowed for his patent. Thirty-five hundred dollars! At the present moment there was no place on earth that he could raise that amount, but nevertheless he smiled complacently as he put up his pocketbook. So long as other people had money, the intricacies of finance were only a pleasant recreation to him, and it was with entire ease of mind that he set the stage for his little drama at the hotel. He had Doctor Feldmeyer to await Carl Klug and his friends in the lobby and conduct them up to a private dining room, where the man of specious ideas, at the head of a long table and strictly in his element, received them with broad hospitality. In his bigness and richness of apparel and his general air of belonging to splendid things, he was particularly at home in this high, beam-ceilinged apartment, with its dark woodwork, its rich tapestry, its stained-glasswindows, its thick carpet, its glittering buffet. Around the snowy clothed table were chairs for eight, and at each plate stood a generous goblet. As the first of the visitors filed in, Wallingford touched a button, and almost by the time they were seated a waiter appeared with huge glass pitchers of beer. The coming of this beverage necessarily put them all in a good humor, and there was much refilling and laughing and talking of a purely informal character until Doctor Feldmeyer arose to his feet and tapped with his knuckles upon the table, when deep gravity sat instantly upon the assemblage.
"Since our host is already seated at the head of the table," said the doctor with easy pleasantry, "I move that he be made temporary chairman."
The doctor had lunched with Mr. Wallingford at noon, and now knew him to be a thoroughbred in every respect; abon vivantwho knew good food and good wine and good fellowship; a gentleman of vast financial resources, who did not care how he spent his money just so he got what he wanted when he wanted it; and he was quite willing to vouch for Mr. Wallingford, in every way, upon a gentleman's basis! The election of Mr.Wallingford as temporary chairman and of Doctor Feldmeyer as temporary secretary were most cordial and pleasant things to behold. The lawyer, a dry little gentleman who never ventured an opinion unless asked for it, and always put the answer in his bill, thereupon read the articles of agreement which were to bind these friends in a common partnership, whereby it was understood that Mr. Klug, in virtue of his patents, was to have one half interest in the company, no matter to what size it might be increased, and that the other gentlemen were to put in such money as was needed to carry on the business, each one to share in the profits in exact proportion to the amount of his investment. It appeared to be the unsmiling consensus of the meeting that this agreement was precisely what they wanted, and after it had been read again, very slowly and distinctly, the simply honorable gentlemen interested solemnly signed it. While this little formality was being looked after, with much individual spelling out of the document, word by word, under broad forefingers, the waiter filled the glasses again and Wallingford turned to Mr. Klug.
"By the way," he asked, in a voice low enough to be taken as confidential but loudenough to be heard by those nearest, "have you told the gentlemen about the new patent?"
Jens Jensen, seated next to Mr. Klug, took it upon himself to answer.
"That is all right," he said, nodding his head emphatically. "We know all about that," and a glance at the nodding heads about the table disposed of that question. It was quite understood that Mr. Wallingford was to have a fifteen-hundred-dollar credit for the invaluable addition and correction he had made to their principal asset, the wonderful sales recorder patent.
"Very well, then," said Mr. Wallingford, with a secret relief which he carefully kept out of his voice, "as temporary chairman I would instruct the secretary now to take the list of subscriptions."
A sigh went around the table. This was serious business, the letting go of toil-won money, but nevertheless they would go sturdily through with it. It appeared upon a canvass that Mr. Schmitt and Mr. Jensen and Doctor Feldmeyer and Mr. Wallingford were each prepared immediately to invest five thousand dollars, while Mr. Vogel and Mr. Kessler were each ready to invest two thousand.
"Twenty-four thousand dollars," announcedthe doctor roundly, whereupon Mr. Wallingford arose.
"Gentlemen," said he, "there is no use to have idle capital. This is more money than we shall need for some time to come, and that is not good business. I therefore propose that the total assessment from any one member at this time be restricted to two thousand dollars. That will allow Mr. Schmitt and Mr. Jensen, Doctor Feldmeyer and myself each to keep three thousand dollars of our money in our savings banks, building associations and other places where it is earning good interest, until the company needs it, which may perhaps be a matter of six months. I would like to have a vote upon this proposition."
There could be but one answer to this. Interest! The savings of all these men throughout their lives had been increased at three, four and scarcely to exceed five per cent. rates, and they had grown to reverence interest almost more than capital. He was a smart man, this Wallingford, to think of the interest!
Money was already appearing from deep pockets when the crabby little lawyer, as if it gave him pain to volunteer information, wrenched from himself the fact that beforeany money could be paid in some one must be appointed to receive it. Thereupon, though not a corporate association, they held an election, and, naturally, Mr. Klug was made president. Mr. Wallingford firmly declined the vice presidency and also the secretaryship. He might even have had the post of treasurer, but he was too modest, also too busy, to hold office. No, he kindly stated, he would be a mere investor, ready to aid them with what little advice and experience he could give them, and ready to back them to any extent if the time should ever arise when their own finances would prove insufficient to carry the Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company on to the undoubted success which awaited it! Thereupon the treasurership was voted to Jens Jensen, and Emil Kessler proposed that they pay in their respective assessments and adjourn. He had two thousand dollars of Carl Klug's money in his pocket, and it made him a trifle uncomfortable.
"I forbid anybody to leave this room," laughingly announced Mr. Wallingford, and gave a nod to the waiter, who disappeared. "We'll pay in our money, but we have some other very important business."
Doctor Feldmeyer also became jolly, to showthat he was in the secret. He drew a fountain pen and a check book from his pocket.
"Mr. Wallingford wants us to eat, drink and make merry on the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey," he told them as he wrote.
The joke was thoroughly appreciated. It was a commendable and a holy thing to conspire to get the money of a monopoly away from it, as every newspaper proved to them. In pleasant pursuance of this idea, the United Company, by methods that should proceed in comfort and ease and entire absence of worry, such as was foreshadowed by this luxurious dining room and by the personal grandeur of Mr. Wallingford, was to be brought suppliantly to its knees; so, with the utmost cheerfulness, each of these men paid over his subscription. Doctor Feldmeyer was the only man among them who paid by check. The rest was in cash, but the host, busy with his hospitable duties, held back his payment until the waiters brought in a luncheon which was a revelation in the way of "cold snacks." It was during this appetite-whetting, gayety-promoting confusion that Wallingford quietly paid over his five hundred dollars—this, with the fifteen hundred dollars' credit on the coming patent,making his contribution total to two thousand, the same amount as that put in by every other member of the company except Carl Klug. This done, the clever gentleman surreptitiously wiped his brow and sighed a little sigh all to himself. It had taken him three days to figure how to fasten upon Mr. Klug's patent and prospects with as little money as five hundred dollars!
It was a happy crowd that dispersed an hour later—a crowd upon which Fortune already beamed; but the last of them had scarcely left the room when their princely entertainer telephoned for his own lawyer.
"I want you," said Wallingford to Mr. Maylie, when he arrived, "to find out all you can for me about the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey. I want to know the outcome of every suit they have brought against infringers of their patents, and the present addresses of the people with whom they fought; also all about the companies they have been forced to buy out. Got that?"
"I'll get it," replied Mr. Maylie confidently, and helped himself to a glass of champagne. He looked longingly at the bottle as he finished his first glass, but as Mr. Wallingford did not invite him to have a second he went out.
The arrival of Mrs. Wallingford set upon a much higher plane her husband's already well-established reputation as a capitalist of illimitable resources, and had any one of his partners paused to reflect that Mr. Wallingford had secured an active interest in the concern for five hundred dollars, Doctor Feldmeyer's report of the capitalist's charming lady was enough to make that trifling incident forgotten. To Carl Klug and Jens Jensen at Carl's shop, the doctor, without knowing it, did the missionary work that Wallingford had planned for him to do.
"She is a stunner," he declared, with the faintest suggestion of a smirk, "and carries herself like a queen. She wears a fur coat that cost not less than six or seven hundred dollars, and not a woman in this town has such diamonds. We all went to the theater last night, and there were more opera glassesturned on our box than on the stage. I tell you, our friend Wallingford has the best there is, in women, as well as in wine, and as for wealth, he could buy and sell us all."
"I believe it," said Jens Jensen. "But why should such a rich man go into a little business?"
"Because," said Doctor Feldmeyer, with profound wisdom, "a rich man never overlooks a thousand per cent. like this. That's why they are rich. Why, this man's daily expenses would keep every one of us. He had fine apartments at the hotel himself, but when his wife came he got the best in the house—four fine, big rooms. Last night after the theater he took me to his own dining room, and we had a supper that cost not less than thirty or forty dollars!"
Such gossip would go far to establishing any man's reputation for wealth, especially among such simple natured people as these, and it was quite certain that Otto Schmitt and Henry Vogel and Emil Kessler would hear every scrap of it. Had Doctor Feldmeyer heard the conversation that took place after he left the Wallingford suite the night before, his report might have been slightly different.
"Well, Jim," Mrs. Wallingford had asked with a trace of anxiety, "what are you doing this time?"
"The United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey," he replied with a laugh. "You remember how they turned me down a long time ago when I tried to sell them a patent?" She nodded. "You made me go right to them and try what you called 'straight business,' and I got what was coming to a mollycoddle. I'm going to sell them a patent this time, but in the right way, and for a good, big round chunk."
"Whose patent?" she inquired.
"What's the difference?" he queried, and laughed again. "It serves him right for being an inventor."
She did not laugh with him, however. She sat in frowning disquiet, and he watched her curiously.
"What's the matter with you?" he presently complained. "It used to be enough for you that I could not be jailed for having a few dollars."
"We're nearly middle-aged, Jim," she replied, turning to him soberly. "What will we be like when we are old?"
"Cheer up, Fanny, and I will tell you theworst!" he declaimed. "You'll be gray and I'll be bald!"
She was compelled to laugh herself, and gave up the idea of serious conversation with him, for that time at least.
Doctor Feldmeyer, encouraged by Wallingford, became an unofficial attaché of the family in the following weeks. Vain, susceptible, and considering himself very much of a ladies' man, he exerted himself to be agreeable, and J. Rufus helped him to opportunities. If he had any ulterior purpose in this he did not confide it to his wife, or even let her suspect it. It would not have been safe. In the meantime the affairs of the Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company moved speedily onward. One entire end of his shop Carl Klug devoted to its affairs, putting in special machinery and hiring as many men as he could use, and here Wallingford reported every day, his suggestions being nearly always sound and inspiring Mr. Klug's respect. He held his standing with the rest of them in a different way. When they called at the shop they found Wallingford's cab always standing outside, and it was soon noised about that this cab was hired by the day! "Blackie" Daw, levying his dubious contributions on agullible public, was paying for this and wiping out his debt.
But little more than two months had elapsed when Carl had his first lot of recorders ready for the market, and the treasury was depleted. Now it became necessary to have money for marketing, and that meant the remaining three thousand dollars of J. Rufus Wallingford's subscription or an evasion of it. Prepared for this, he took the floor as soon as the matter was mentioned at the meeting which was called to levy this assessment.
"What is the use?" he demanded to know. "Why use our own money? I understand that Mr. Schmitt must get his three thousand from the building loan association, to which he must pay six per cent. I understand that Mr. Jensen has his now out at five per cent. Let me show you how to finance this concern. I will put in ten thousand at once, and take the company's note. This note I can then discount, and put the money right back into my business, and in that way my ten thousand dollars is doing twenty thousand dollars' worth of work—a bank carrying the burden of both operations."
It was a financial argument entirely new to these men, unused to tricks of moneymanipulation, and it took them some little time to grasp it. When they did, however, they were as pleased as a boy with his first watch, and Wallingford was a dazzling hero, as, with a nonchalant air, after glancing at the clock to make sure that it was after banking hours, he wrote them a check on "his bank in Boston" for ten thousand, and took their note, signed by the Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company and indorsed jointly by all its members.
That night Wallingford drove up in hot haste to Jens Jensen's house.
"Let me see that check I gave you this afternoon," he demanded, with an air of suspecting a good joke on himself. Jens, wondering, produced it from a little tin box. "That's what I thought," said Wallingford as he glanced at it. Then, smiling, he handed it back. "I have made it out on the Fifth National of Boston. They'd probably honor it, but it's the wrong bank. I have a balance there, but am not sure that it is sufficient to cover this check. Just hold that, and I'll wire them in the morning. If my balance isn't large enough I'll give you a check on the First, with which I do most of my business."
"Sure," said Jens, and put back into the tinbox the worthless paper which called for ten thousand dollars.
The next morning Wallingford called at one of the local banks and had no difficulty whatever in discounting the quite acceptable note. He gained a full day by forwarding the proceeds, special delivery, to the Fifth National Bank of Boston, where his balance at that moment was considerably less than a hundred dollars; then he told Jensen to deposit the check: that his balance in the Fifth National was all right.
It was financial jugglery of a shrewd order, and the juggler prided himself upon it. He was not yet through, however. Having loaned the company ten thousand dollars of its own money at six per cent. interest, he was now confronted by the necessity of securing money for his own enormous personal expenses. For replenishment, however, he had long planned, and now he went to his new source of income—Doctor Feldmeyer. The time was ripe, for, though Mrs. Wallingford had given him no more encouragement than the ordinary courteous graciousness which is so often misinterpreted by male coquettes, the doctor was aflame with foolish imaginings, and, within the past week or so, had felt guilty upon everymeeting with Mr. Wallingford, betraying it as Wallingford had planned that he should, growing nervous at a sharp glance, a sudden movement, an obscure remark. He was as uncomfortable as guilty conscience ever made a coward, and when the big man, on the plea of sudden business and personal needs, went to him almost peremptorily for a loan of rather staggering proportions, the doctor was an easy victim. Thus provided and at ease, Wallingford "consented" to become the salesman for the first output of Pneumatic Sales Recorders, going directly to a list of cities supplied to him by Maylie; and in those cities he went to see certain gentlemen whose names came to him from the same source! Incidentally, he sold a number of sales recorders with a celerity that was most gratifying to the delighted members of the company. Why, even if the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey did not care to buy them out, a fortune was in sight through the legitimate manufacture and sale of this device! Before the salesman returned from his trip, however, a blow, entirely unexpected by Klug and his friends, fell on them from a clear sky. An injunction and a notice of suit was served, not only upon the company, but upon every purchaser oftheir contrivance. The injunction restrained the buyers from using and the company from manufacturing or selling any further machines, and the suit was for infringement of patent. The device by which the drawer flew open after the keys had been pressed, the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey claimed to be modeled upon their own. The news was wired to Wallingford. He had been waiting for it, and he came home at once, where he found that Maylie had been appointed the local legal representative of the big New Jersey concern; but as this had been a matter of Wallingford's own contriving, he was not nearly so much surprised over it as he might have been. He also found direst consternation in the company's ranks, and himself shook his head sadly when questioned, though he spoke bravely.
"What we have to do," he declared, "is to keep a stiff upper lip and fight it."
They did so. Within a couple of months they had the suit decided in their favor, and Carl Klug was vindicated in the eyes of his friends. Again they were jubilant, again they prepared for an era of commercial triumph; but on the very next day another injunction and suit were brought, and from the very start ofthis proceeding delays were encountered. The weakest case had been brought first, the stubborn one being held back for a longer and more discouraging fight. When that was over there would be a third suit and a fourth. With their millions of capital and their knowledge of such matters, gleaned from vital struggles with others who had demanded either their money or their business life, they could continue such a fight indefinitely, or until the Pneumatic Sales Recorder Company should be choked out of existence.
There never was a more discouraged lot of men than those who met in Carl Klug's shop upon the day after notice of this second suit was brought. Wallingford was the most inconsolable of all. Of course, if the others felt like putting in any more money to fight this company with its millions they could do so; in fact, they ought to do so, but his own business affairs were in such shape that, at the present moment, he could not spare a dollar. He said this in such a hesitant way, with a five-hundred-dollar diamond gleaming from his finger and another from his scarf, that they felt sure he had plenty of capital, but would not risk it further in such a losing fight; and it helped them to realize that all the capital they couldcommand would be but as a wisp of straw to be brushed aside by this formidable giant, which not only could crush them, but had the disposition to do so.