It seemed like the town got more and more excited every day about Arthur Peabody Kinderhook and his factory. Nobody talked about much of anything else, and every afternoon you could see a dozen men out walking around the field where the factory was to be, pacing off distances and fooling themselves into thinking they knew just where the buildings were to be, and how big they would look and everything. And Mr. Atkins was on strike.

Yes, sir, since the day he sold the sign to Mr. Kinderhook he hadn’t done a tap of work, but had just sat around thinking and thinking and thinking, laying to remember when he had seen the man before and where he had seen him.

Then the news got around that Kinderhook had agreed to sell Captain Winton some stock in his factory, and folks were almost crazy. They thought it meant that maybe they could get some, and if they did get some they would get rich and never have to work any more, but just sit around and draw dividends and travel and smoke five-cent cigars. But Kinderhook wouldn’t sell to anybody else.

And then, one morning, I went down to the store and Mr. Atkins was at work again. I knew right off he had thought where he had seen Mr. Kinderhook, because he was the kind of man who kept his word, and he had said he wouldn’t work till he remembered.

“Mornin’!” says I. “I see you’ve found out about the Kinderhook feller.”

“Uh!...” says Mr. Atkins, and Catty grinned.

“Dad’s remembered,” says he, “but he’s a-thinkin’ it over. He won’t tell us till he’s got it figgered out to suit himself. I don’t care so long as he sticks at work and keeps on tryin’ to be respectable. I got him now so he kin eat pie with a fork. It was a chore to teach him, but it’s done. Next he’ll be eatin’ soup without makin’ a noise like a horse runnin’ through a mud-puddle.”

Catty said all this as sober as a judge. He wasn’t poking fun at his father nor being impudent. He was just saying what was so in the best way he knew how.

All of a sudden Mr. Atkins spoke up.

“Wee-wee,” says he, “what’s your notions about medicine-shows?”

“Medicine-shows?” says I. “What about ’em?”

“Regard ’em as proper and respectable?” says he.

“They’re lots of fun,” says I, “especially when they pull folks’s teeth free and have real Injuns doin’ war-dances and things.”

“You like ’em, then?”

“Sure,” says I.

“But s’posin’ the feller sells medicine for a dollar a bottle that he guarantees to cure up rheumatics and cramps in the stummick and chills and warts and corns and freckles and backache and earache—and supposin’ that medicine hain’t worth the speck on a toad’s ear to cure anythin’? How about that?”

“Did the doctor know it?” says I.

“Yes,” says he.

“Then he was a cheat,” says I.

“To be sure,” says he. “A cheat. I calc’late that’s what he was—and maybe worse. How’d you look at sich a feller—as bein’ what Catty calls respectable, or not?”

“Not,” says I.

“Um!... My way of thinkin’, too. If you seen sich a feller runnin’ some other business and aimin’ to get aholt of folks’s money, what would your notions be about how he was goin’ to treat ’em?”

“I’d guess,” says I, “that he was goin’ to cheat ’em, too.”

“My idee,” says Mr. Atkins, and he went into the back room and stirred around for half an hour without saying another word. Catty and I talked about lots of things and told what we was going to do when we got rich and grown up and all that. Catty was going to own some kind of a business that was the most respectable business there was in the world. He hadn’t picked out what the business would be yet, because he couldn’t figure what was the most respectable. I told him being a minister looked awful respectable to me, but he says that wasn’t a business, but only marrying folks on week-days and talking on Sundays, and that there wasn’t any money in it, anyhow, so far as he could see. He thought some about being a judge or a Senator. I didn’t care for either of those ways of earning a living, myself. My leaning was toward something better than either of them. I aimed to be a clown in a circus or else a cowboy and discover a gold-mine and all that. I’d changed my mind some. Once I was going to be a circus performer—one of the trapeze kind—and I set some angleworms to stewing on top of the barn. Everybody knows circus fellers git so supple by rubbing angleworm oil onto themselves. But when my worms was stewed out and I went anywheres near them I made up my mind I didn’t care about trapeze-performing if I had to butter myself with that kind of perfume.

Just when we were arguing hardest Mr. Atkins came back and says, sudden as a thunderclap:

“This here Kinderhook man used to run one of them snide medicine-shows. Wore a silk hat and pulled teeth and had tame Injuns and all.”

You could have knocked me down with a puff-ball. Why, this Kinderhook man looked as if he’d never owned anything less than a national bank, and he was the kind of a fellow that you would pick to be the boss deacon of a church and all that. And him pulling teeth and selling snide medicine!

Catty slid down off the counter. “Then,” says he, “he aims to cheat the folks of this town out of their money.”

“And serve ’em right,” says Mr. Atkins.

“That hain’t no way to talk, Dad, and you’d know it if you was respectable. But you’re gettin’ respectabler every day. It ’ll come if you jest have patience.”

“Don’t want it to come too hard,” says Mr. Atkins.

“We got to stop it,” says Catty.

“Codfish!” says Mr. Atkins. “Wouldn’t lift my hand for folks that’s acted like these.”

“Dunno’s I care so much about the folks,” says Catty, “but the idea of anybody gettin’ cheated sort of riles me. I’m goin’ to tell folks who Kinderhook is.”

“Think they’ll b’lieve you?” says Mr. Atkins. “Not much. Who be you? You’re a young tramp that folks wants to run out of town, and I’m an old tramp that they’re tryin’ to put out of business. If we was to step in and interfere, what you s’pose would happen? They’d put us in jail, most like. They wouldn’t b’lieve our word ag’in’ Kinderhook’s. Better keep your mouth shut, Catty.”

Catty stood and thought a few minutes, and then he shook his head and said he guessed his father was right. “But we know what’s true,” he says, “and it’s our duty as respectable folks to put a stop to it.... And I’m a-goin’ to.”

“How?” says I.

“Hadn’t but one way,” says he, “and that is to git proof that folks ’ll have to believe. We kin do that, Wee-wee, and we’ll go to work and watch Kinderhook, and foller him and nose out jest what he’s up to. It’s our job. We kin do it between-times while I’m helpin’ to run our own business and make Dad respectable. Want to help, Wee-wee?”

“Be reg’lar detectives?” says I.

“Sure,” says he.

“You bet,” says I. “But why not tell folks right out?”

Catty looked at me like he was sorry for anybody that didn’t have any more brains than to ask that.

“Because,” says he, “folks is all het up over this here man Kinderhook. They think he’s the greatest man in the world, and anybody would git in trouble that said a word ag’in’ him. Anybody would, but what would folks do to us? Lemme ask you that. They want to run us out anyhow, but if we was to spread a story about Kinderhook they’d ride us out on a rail.”

“Guess you’re right,” says I, “but how’ll we go about provin’ it? And when we’ve got it proved, what ’ll we do?”

“I dunno,” says Catty. “That ’ll have to come when it comes. Main thing is for us to tend to our business and watch our chance. We kin ketch Kinderhook at it if he’s meanin’ some snide game. He’ll be showin’ it somehow.”

“Whatever you say,” says I.

From that minute I was a heap more interested in Kinderhook than I had been before. As soon as you find out something like that about a man you begin to notice things, and to watch, and to figure out what he means when he says anything. It’s a lot of fun, and I didn’t want to do anything else but just trail ’round after him, but Catty wouldn’t have that. He wouldn’t neglect his regular business, and he wouldn’t let down on learning manners and then teaching his father what he had learned. At the rate Catty was going I figured out he would be the most respectable and the politest man in the world by the time he was old enough to vote. Most folks get manners sort of by accident. They just sop manners up, anyhow, as they go along, and never notice it, but Catty made a businessof it same as he’d make a business of learning to pull teeth or cut off legs like a doctor.

There was quite a lot of talk around town about Jack Phillips coming into business with the Atkinses and about how they managed to find something to do in spite of what the women thought about it. It made the folks that didn’t like Catty and his father more determined than ever to get rid of them, and you could hear women and men talking it over almost any time if you were to listen. More than one woman came to my mother to complain about my going around with Catty so much, and a couple of men spoke to Dad, but they never did it more than once. I heard Dad say to one man:

“Look here, Mr. Withers, my son plays with the Atkins boy because I want him to. I’ve studied that boy, and if he isn’t worth half a dozen of the ordinary kids in this town then I’m willing to pick up and move away. Catty’s got brains and ambition and he’s aboveboard, with nothing sneaking about him. You say you won’t let your boy play with mine if the Atkins boy is around. Well, I’m satisfied. If anything is wrong with Catty Atkins, then I hope Wee-wee catches it.”

I guess Jim Bockers was beginning to get sick of his bargain about this time. I know of a dozen painting or paperhanging jobs that Catty worked up and made a bid on. His bid every time was just a little less than it would actually cost to do the work—and then the folks would go to Jim and Jim would have to live up to his advertisement and do the work for even less. It was rotten business, and Catty said he couldn’t last long.

One day Catty says to me: “I wisht you’d drop in to Jim Bockers’s when you get a chance and sort of find out how he’s gettin’ along. We’re making some money off his rent, but he’s ruined the paperhangin’ business. If it wasn’t for that stock-farm and a few outside jobs that part of our business would be dead. We ought to be makin’ twice what we are, and if anything comes of this Kinderhook boom we ought to almost git rich. Jest kind of sound Jim out.”

So I dropped in that afternoon. Jim had a nice shop with lots of wall-paper in rolls all put away in little square pigeonholes, and shelves of paint and brushes, and a shop full of ladders and things. It was a high-toned place, all right, but Jim didn’t look very happy.

“Howdy, Mr. Bockers?” says I. “How’s business?”

“Lots of business,” says Jim, as gloomy as an undertaker.

“You ought to be grinnin’, then,” says I.

“Hain’t no money into it,” says Jim.

“How’s that?” says I.

“Them Atkins fellers,” says he.

“But you’re gittin’ all the work,” says I.

“The more I git the more I lose,” says he.

“How’s that?”

“Why, my sister-in-law, she got me to open this shop to run them folks out. She says they didn’t have no capital and that I could underbid ’em and bust ’em in a couple of weeks. That looked all right to me, ’cause she lent me some money to put with what I’d saved, and I started in.”

“Sounds good,” says I.

“Sounded too good,” says he. “I figgered they’d bid so as to make money, and that I could underbid ’em down to cost and break even. I could ’a’ stood that—just to break even for a while till they was got rid of, and then I’d have all the business to myself.”

“Didn’t it work?”

“Work nothin’! Them Atkinses done me. They’re sharpers. They cheated me.”

“How?” says I, gettin’ interested.

“They bid too low. They bid below cost themselves, and then I had to take the business for less ’n that. It cost me money every time I done a job. Calc’late I’ve lost a couple hundred dollars since I come, and no outlook for doin’ better.”

“Why don’t you git out?” says I.

“Can’t afford it. Hain’t got the money to move. Got all this stock; besides, my sister-in-law’s so dead set on runnin’ them fellers out of town that I dassen’t quit.”

“Run away,” says I.

“I’d lose my stock,” says he, “and I’ve lost more ’n enough already.”

“Um!...” I says, thinking it over. “What if you could sell your stock?”

“Got a lease on this store, or rather that sister-in-law of mine has. It runs for a year. The rent’s got to be paid.”

“That’s her lookout, hain’t it? She got you into this mess, didn’t she?”

“Calc’late she did.”

“Well?” says I.

“Wee-wee,” says he, after a few minutes, “I wisht I could find somebody that would pay me somethin’ for this stock. I kin lose money on it and still be ahead. I’d sell and scoot if I could git cash money.”

“You stay where you be,” says I, and off I ran to find Catty.

I found him in the store, lecturing his father about clothes and telling him how he ought to buy a good suit, with a dress-up hat for Sundays, and how he had to do it with the first money they could spare. “It means a lot. You go around lookin’ swell, and folks won’t remember how you used to look. First you know you’ll be as respectable as anybody. You’ll be gettin’ elected a director in the bank.”

“Catty,” said I, busting right in on him, “Jim Bookers is ready to quit. He’ll sell out for cash, and scoot.”

“Honest?” says he.

“Honest Injun,” says I. “Come on.”

I looked around Catty’s shop. They didn’t commence to have the stock Jim did. It would be fine if they could get Jim’s and move it in.

Catty and I hustled over to Jim’s.

“Hear you’re willin’ to sell,” says Catty. “For cash,” says Jim.

“And sign an agreement sayin’ you won’t go into business in this town again for ten years?” says Catty.

“You bet. I got all the business here that I want for a hundred years.”

“How much you want for everything?”

“Dunno till I take inventory.”

“Let’s take it,” says Catty, and in a minute we went at it hammer and tongs. It took us till late that night, but when we were through we knew exactly what that stock and stuff of Jim’s had cost.

“Set a price,” says Catty.

Jim did, and Catty just laughed. Right off he told Jim what he would pay, and it was a lot less. “I’m lookin’ for a bargain,” Catty says. “That’s my price, cash. You kin take it or leave it. I’ll give you ten minutes to think it over, and if you don’t take it then the offer is all off and we don’t make a deal.”

“You’re robbin’ me,” says Jim.

“You tried to rob Dad and me,” says Catty. “You’re gittin’ what’s comin’ to you.”

Jim he argued and fussed and hollered and haggled. But Catty just kept looking at the clock. “Time’s up,” he says. “What’s your answer?”

Jim he goggled and strangled, but there wasn’t anything for it. He had to take his medicine.

“All right,” says he. “Cash.”

“Cash,” says Catty, “as soon as the bank opens.”.

Early in the morning Catty and I went to Mr. Wade in his office full of Napoleons, and had him draw up what papers we ought to have, and then we took Mr. Atkins and Jack Phillips to the bank and got the money. Jim Bockers signed the paper that Mr. Wade said was a bill of sale, and hustled for the train. He wanted to get away before his sister-in-law found out.

Catty was tickled. “Now we’re all right,” says he. “I figger we made close to two hunderd dollars on this deal, and we got the paintin’ and paperhangin’ business of this town right by the ear. Anybody that wants some done has got to come to us. I guess maybe this hain’t a move toward gettin’ respectable.”

They set to work and moved Jim’s stock over to their own store and put the ladders and scaffolds and things in the shed. It was the first time they had really been in shape to do business. Even Mr. Atkins acted kind of tickled. He hated to show it, but every once in a while you could see he was really getting interested in the business and that work wasn’t as disagreeable for him as it used to be.

Catty was moving along toward where he wanted to be.