  One afternoon, not long after the events related in the last chapter, Paul Perkins had a visitor. The caller was Freeman Hunt’s father, a man of past middle age, but flashily dressed notwithstanding the plentiful sprinkling of gray in his hair and carefully trimmed mustache. A diamond ring sparkled on Mr. Hunt’s left hand and a similar stone blazed in his tie. He regarded the wearing of the jewels as advertisements of prosperity, and wore them with the same satisfaction with which he looked upon his new, gaudily furnished house on the hill above the village, and his automobile—also very new—and his numerous other possessions, all of which, like himself, seemed somehow to savor of veneer and to nowhere have the true ring of solid wood. There was, perhaps, a reason for this. Stonington Hunt had not always enjoyed “ease and a competency.” His earlier years, in fact, had been a hard struggle. He had been a messenger boy for a firm of Wall Street brokers, but, by natural sharpness and shrewdness, had worked himself up till he obtained an interest in the business. Then he branched out. His fortune grew by leaps and bounds, till Stonington Hunt was recognized as a wealthy man. The newspapers had shown up several of his financial transactions as being distinctly shady, but somehow he had always been “smart enough,” as he would have expressed it, to keep to windward of the law. “Smartness,” in fact, was his gospel. He preached it morning, noon, and night to his son. Had Freeman had a different sort of father, he might have been a different sort of boy. But his mother having died when he was but a small lad, he had fallen exclusively to his father’s care. Stonington Hunt had brought his son up to believe it was disgraceful to be poor, and doubly disgraceful to fail in anything one set out to do. Principle, the elder Hunt had none, and he had taught his son that a sense of honor was a useless encumbrance. Such was the man who rang Mrs. Perkins’s front door bell and greeted her with overdone effusiveness. “Is Paul in?” he asked, after he had introduced himself and expressed his intense gratification at meeting such a charming lady. Poor Mrs. Perkins, all in a flutter, invited her glittering guest into the front parlor, drew up the shades, which were rarely raised, and rejoined that Paul was still at school, but would be home shortly. “Perhaps it is just as well,” smiled Mr. Hunt, displaying a row of white, gleaming teeth. “He is but a lad, and I have come to talk over something which, perhaps, a woman of the world, an intelligent woman like yourself, is more competent to discuss than a mere boy.” “Paul is a mighty bright boy,” remarked Mrs. Perkins, bridling somewhat in defense of Paul, but coloring and simpering with pleasure at the compliment paid to her. “Exactly,” agreed Mr. Hunt amiably; “a very bright boy. A credit to the town, madam. But Paul has been hiding his light under a bushel, so to speak. He has not been radiating the effulgence of inventive genius as he should; he has been—in short,” concluded Mr. Hunt, “Paul needs bringing out.” “Bringing out?” gasped Mrs. Perkins, to whom much of this had been so much Greek. “Just so, my dear Mrs. Perkins, and I—Stonington Hunt—am the man to do it. Why, I understand that at this very moment he has in your stables a remarkable—I may say, a wonderful invention.” Mrs. Perkins had never heard the wagon house referred to as “stables” before, and, quite carried away by this glittering gentleman’s kindly interest and his magnificent manner, she rejoined that Paul had got “something of some sort” out there. “Something, my dear madam,” glowed Mr. Hunt; “it is more than a something. It is an achievement. My boy Freeman—a dear friend of your son’s—told me about it—there’s no objection to my seeing it, I hope. I called on purpose.” “Why, I—really, sir, I don’t know if Paul would like it,” palpitated Mrs. Perkins. “You see, he—he is very particular about letting anybody see the invention. He’s trying for a patent on it at Washington now.” “Ah, then it is not yet patented?” There was an eager catch in Mr. Hunt’s voice. For an instant his composed manner seemed to lose its icy calm. But in a moment he was himself again. “He should certainly get it patented at once, madam,” he went on, in his usual oily tones—“which brings us at once to the point. I am here to offer him a price for his invention if it seems at all practicable.” “Oh, sir!” gasped Mrs. Perkins, quite overcome. “You would buy it?” “Yes, madam, I, Stonington Hunt, will buy it. I am prepared to offer,” he paused as if in doubt whether to mention the sum in one breath, “one hundred dollars for the exclusive right to manufacture it.” “A hundred dollars!” exclaimed Mrs. Perkins, who had seen few lump sums of money since her husband had died. “Why, sir, it is only a plaything of the boy’s.” “If you will let me see it, I will judge of that,” put in Mr. Hunt softly. “Can we not go out to your stable and view it now?” “Why, I—Paul has the key,” stammered Mrs. Perkins. “Confound the brat!” muttered Mr. Hunt, and then aloud he purred: “But you have another one, my dear madam, I don’t doubt.” “Yes,” confessed Mrs. Perkins; “there is one on my dead husband’s key ring. But I don’t know if Paul would like it. You see——” “My dear madam,” put in Mr. Hunt, in his most impressive manner, “I am a man of the world, you are a woman of the world. Do we not know better than children what is best for them? I ask you, madam, as a woman of experience, do we not?” “I—I—yes, I suppose so,” trembled Mrs. Perkins, quite carried away by all this. “If you’ll wait a second, sir, I’ll get the key.” “Oh, dear, I do hope Paul won’t be mad,” she thought, as she hastened upstairs on her errand. “Easier than I thought,” muttered Mr. Hunt, gazing intently at the pink-eyed china dog with blue spots that stood upon the mantel. “If the machine is what Freeman described it to be, there should be money in it, and where there is money, there you’ll find Stonington Hunt.” Mrs. Perkins, with a shawl thrown over her head, was soon downstairs again. “Now, sir,” she said, preparing to lead the way, but as they emerged from the door and started to take the brick path leading to the wagon house, a sudden sound of approaching boyish voices was heard. “Why, here comes Paul now, with three of his friends,” exclaimed Mrs. Perkins, gazing across the white picket fence and up the street. “Confound the luck,” ground out Mr. Hunt, with a very unangelic expression on his face, “it will need all my tact to carry this through if the cub proves obstinate.” “Well, madam,” he said inquiringly, the next minute, as Mrs. Perkins still lingered by the fence. “Oh, sir, I’ll leave it all to Paul now,” gasped Mrs. Perkins, secretly glad to be relieved of the responsibility. “Let him show his what-you-may-call-um off. He can do it better than I could. He understands it.” With a shrug, Mr. Hunt bowed, and Mrs. Perkins turned to re-enter the house. At that moment Paul, with Rob, Merritt, and Tubby about him, came through the gate. He seemed excited. His checks were flushed. In his hand he held a yellow piece of paper. “Hooray, mother!” he cried. “News from Washington. They gave me this telegram as we passed the office. It just came.” “Is it good news, my boy?” asked Mrs. Perkins solicitously. “The very best!” cried the boy, in a delighted, happy tone. “Mr. Merrill tells me that he has interested the government in my invention in connection with its being used on the South Polar expedition.” “That is good news, indeed, my boy!” cried his mother joyously. “But, Paul, all this time we have been forgetting that there is a gentleman waiting to see you. Mr. Hunt, this is my boy, and these are his friends, Rob Blake, Merritt Crawford, and Tub—I mean Robert Hopkins.” “I have heard of Rob Blake,” said Mr. Hunt, coming forward with a scowl. “I have heard of his friends, too. My business is with your lad, Mrs. Perkins.” “I’m afraid, sir, that it won’t be much good now,” said Mrs. Perkins, vanishing. As soon as she had gone, Mr. Hunt “opened fire.” He had decided in his own mind that a quick, decisive manner would succeed best with the quiet, dreamy Paul, so he called him aside with an imperative gesture. “Come here, boy, I wish to speak with you,” he said, smiling with inward satisfaction as he noted how quickly the inventive lad obeyed the summons. Rob, Tubby, and Merritt, their books under their arms, stood near the gate. “I don’t like the look of the father any more than I do the son,” declared Tubby emphatically. “Wonder what he wants with Paul?” mused Rob, as he watched the former Wall Street luminary link his arm familiarly in the boy’s and walk off with him, talking earnestly. They waited patiently, and presently Paul came hurrying toward them with a wondering face. His eyes were round. “Say, fellows,” he exclaimed, “Mr. Hunt has offered me a thousand dollars for the exclusive rights to the motor-scooter—what do you think of it?” “What can they think of it but that it is a splendid offer,” put in Mr. Hunt, coming up. “Why, I have made it without even seeing the machine.” “But you overheard about the dispatch from Washington,” put in Rob quietly. “Confound this boy. He’s too sharp,” thought Mr. Hunt, whose desire to obtain the rights to the machine had increased greatly since Paul had imprudently announced his news from the capital. “I am willing to give this lad a royalty interest in the sales, supposing the machine is practicable,” he said, in as conciliatory a tone as he could adopt toward what were, in his lofty opinion, “a bunch of green kids.” “What do you think, Rob?” asked Paul, his eyes glowing. “You will excuse us a minute, Mr. Hunt?” said Rob, and then, drawing his excited young friend to one side, he began to talk to him earnestly. The gist of Rob’s advice was that Paul would be very silly to close any sort of a deal in a hurry. His father’s friend in Washington was evidently doing all that lay in his power to further his interests, and if such a shrewd citizen as Mr. Hunt was willing to make such an offer on snap judgment, the machine must, in reality, be worth much more. “Well,” said Mr. Hunt, with a ghastly effort at a pleasant smile, “I trust that David has given good counsel to Jonathan?” “Why, sir,” blurted out Paul. “I don’t believe I care to do anything in the matter to-day.” “What!” exclaimed Mr. Hunt. “You refuse my magnificent offer?” “You see, Paul is very young, sir,” put in Rob, “and he’s not quite sure that it is magnificent.” “I do not recognize you in this matter, boy!” majestically declared Mr. Hunt, who was rapidly losing his temper. What he had thought would be a simple matter was turning out to be far more complex than he had imagined. “At any rate,” he said, conquering his rage with an effort, and turning to Paul with a smile that was meant to be amiable, but which was positively wolfish; “at any rate, you will allow a poor, inquisitive mortal to see this marvelous craft?” “Don’t you do it,” prompted Tubby, in a loud whisper. Hunt overheard, and turned quick as a flash. “I should think that a boy of your brains and ability, Paul, would not allow himself to be led by the nose by a lot of impudent puppies——” “Or scheming promoters,” put in Rob quietly. “How dare you, sir! Do you mean to insinuate——” “I don’t insinuate anything. The insinuation is your own,” was the quiet reply. “Are you going to show me this machine, boy?” shouted Mr. Hunt, his temper now fairly gone. Had Stonington Hunt possessed control of his rage, he might have been many times a millionaire, but his ungovernable temper had lost him many a good chance, as he termed them. “Why—no, I don’t believe I care to,” quavered Paul, rather undecidedly. “You see, it isn’t patented yet, and——” “Shut up!” hissed Tubby anxiously. He did not know that Mr. Hunt was already in possession of this important piece of knowledge. “You brats make me tired,” snarled the former broker viciously. He turned with angry emphasis and flourished his stick, striding toward the gate. Tubby politely held it open for him. The broad grin on his face was unmistakable. It infuriated Hunt to a still greater degree. “Stonington Hunt was never beaten yet,” he snapped, “and when he is, it won’t be by a bunch of half-baked school kids. You, sir”—turning angrily on Tubby—“go to blazes!” “After you,” exclaimed the fat boy, with a low bow, and holding the gate open to its fullest extent. |
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