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 a.s.sociation," he announced with pardonable pride.

"Then, of course, you can control money," agreed the other in a tone which conveyed a thoroughly 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 pa.s.sengers 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 into view. 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."

CHAPTER XIII

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 gla.s.s. "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 gla.s.s 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 d.i.c.kering. 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 gla.s.s 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 un.o.btrusively 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 gla.s.ses; 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 b.u.mpers 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 pa.s.sed 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 b.o.o.bs 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,"