When Skippy moved into an eavesdropping position, the situation was this: Bill Appleby, having carefully closed and locked the cash drawer, was braced with both arms extended against the counter, eyeing Macnooder with a look of steely negation that expressed a settled conviction to doubt instantly any statement whenever or however made. Macnooder's round capuchin body was drawn up in confidence and ease and the smile on his face was bland as he remarked:
"Bill—get my proposition; let it percolate, sift down and settle. But, Bill, make no mistake. The Macnooder Folding Toothbrush is a fact—patented and financed! I'm not asking you to take stock—no, Bill, no." He shook his head and said with friendly regret—"I couldn't, Bill; not in fairness to myself—not in fairness to my family. Why, Bill, if you were to get in on the ground floor, you'd buy a yacht in five years, live on Fifth Avenue and marry Lillian Russell."
"Go slow," said Appleby huskily, for Appleby was a bachelor.
"Well, watch me," said Macnooder with a wave of his hand that played among the rubies and emeralds floating in his imagination. "Bill, I'd like to put you in—I can't—that's flat. I can't! Why, Bill, if you put your hand in your pocket this moment and took out that little green wallet of yours and said: 'Mr. Macnooder, this is your account—it's nothing—I dismiss it, I tear it to pieces—you are my guest from now on; let's start right;—what will you have?' If you should say that—"
"I won't!" said Appleby, shrinking from the hypnotic caress in the financier's manner.
"If you should do that and should take out a nice new one hundred dollar bill—you have one, Bill, right in that old leather wallet—don't shrink, Bill, your alarm pains me—if you, now, here in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, John C. Green Foundation, should produce that one hundred dollar bill—slap it on the counter, shove it into my face, force it into my pocket, beg me to give you a little interest—no! No, Bill, no! I'd refuse—I'd have to refuse. Don't build up any false hopes, Bill, don't."
"I won't," said Appleby, yet already a sense of great personal loss had begun to invade him.
"All I can let you in on are the regional rights—the Lawrenceville rights—for ten years. I might, I don't say it flat—I want to consider—but I might extend them to Princeton. It's a gift, but I might. And do you know why I'm giving you this opportunity of a lifetime?"
"Why, Doc?"
"Because, Bill, I don't want to break you. I don't want to have to run you out of business. That's friendship, but there's more. I can use you," said Macnooder magnanimously. "You have the qualities I shall need in my future operations—I suffer from them now but I appreciate them. You will make an ideal watchdog of the dollar, and when the dollar leaves your hand, Bill, there won't be a rim left to it. Bill, let's do business—it's more than just the toothbrush, it's a whole future's open to you. Bill, the moment is yours. Choose! Fifth Avenue, a yacht, box at the opera—Lillian Russell!"
Appleby fumbled in his pocket and drew out a cigar to break the spell, and the hand that held the match trembled.
"Wall, now," he began cautiously, "to-morrow's to-morrow, and toothbrushes is toothbrushes. And say—gettin' down to tacks—who in Sam Hill ever wanted a folding toothbrush, nohow?"
Macnooder's fist descended on a shivering glass counter as he cried triumphantly:
"Say that again!"
"Wall, who does want a folding toothbrush?" said Appleby, in a more bellicose manner.
"Bill, your hand!" said Macnooder, matching the gesture to the exclamation. "Straight to the point. Keen—Gad, you're devilishly keen! That's you, Bill, no one can beat you at seeing the kernel at once! Who wants a folding toothbrush? No one!" said Macnooder, folding his arms and beaming with delight. "Is there any reason any one should? There is not. Can you imagine anything more unnecessary, idiotic or useless than a folding toothbrush? Don't try—you can't. That's the beauty of it. But, Bill, make no mistake—that's where you get the heterogeneous sucker! Has there ever been a folding toothbrush! Never! That's where they bite! Think of it—no one's ever had one before. How do they know whether they want one until they've tried it? They've had a bicycle or a kodak, but a folding toothbrush, Bill—think what it means! Get the sound of it. Why, Bill, it's sunk into your imagination already! You've got the hankering yourself. You have. I can feel it!"
"Wall, now, I would sorter like a squint at one."
"And you shall," said Macnooder, reaching into his pocket. But at this moment he stopped, perceiving Skippy, who, lost in wonder, was listening, all ears.
"I beg your pardon, Doc, honest, I couldn't help hearing," he said hastily.
"This is a private conversation," said Macnooder severely.
"I say, Doc," said Skippy, gazing at the package which had come forth from an inner pocket, "I say, Doc, can't I just have one look at it?"
"You can not," said Macnooder, whose hand indicated the exit in the classic gesture of melodrama when the cruel father dismisses the penniless lover.
Skippy drew a long breath, hesitated and went slowly out. But what a world had opened before him! It was something to be a benefactor of humanity, but why not tap the wealth of the Incas! If the mere invention of a folding toothbrush could open the sacred precincts of Fifth Avenue, what realms beyond the dreams of avarice were waiting for him who should revolutionize the bathtub!
CHAPTER IV
Loneliness of Great Men
THE course of his meditations suddenly halted before the Jigger Shop. They were all there; the fortunate possessors of dimes and nickels, gluttonously, selfishly gorging themselves with juicy creamy strawberry, coffee, and chocolate jiggers; clinking their glasses, licking their spoons—and he, John C. Bedelle, the future Bathtub King, without a cent in his pockets! The irony of it! If they only knew, what sycophants would fawn upon him! Then an idea came to him—at such moments alone can man read the secret heart of humanity. He would make a test of true friendship.
He passed through the outer rapturous fringe of hungry boyhood and slowly approached the counter where Al, guardian of the jigger, dished out the jiggers and watched the counters with uneasy eye. Not that he had any hope, but it was only fair to give even the most abandoned of mankind a sporting chance.
"Hello, Al!"
"I see you, Skippy."
The tone was not encouraging. Bedelle determined on direct methods. He turned his pockets deliberately inside out.
"You see?"
"Oh yes, I see you."
"Anything doin'?"
"Nothing doin'," said Al, stroking his corn-colored mustache with that languid finality against which there was no appeal. "Nothin' at all."
"He