“Before the sign’s completed? Why, that isn’t my way of doing business, sir.”
“It’s mine—in some cases,” says Mr. Atkins. “One hunderd dollars—in advance. No hunderd—no sign.”
“Don’t you trust me—me? I tell you I am Arthur Peabody Kinderhook.”
“Heard you say so. Tell you how it is: ’Tain’t that I mistrust you exact—and ’tain’t that I trust you. I dunno nothin’ about you. If I was to build that sign and spend money for lumber and paint, and put a lot of work onto it, I might worry about whether I was a-goin’ to git paid—if I hadn’t got paid in advance. Worryin’ upsets my stummick and puts me off’n my meals. That’s the idee, mister.”
Mr. Kinderhook laughed again, and with a pompous kind of gesture took out his pocket-book and threw five twenty-dollar bills onto the counter. “There you are,” he says, in a grand kind of way. “That shows you I’ve got the money.”
“What it shows,” says Mr. Atkins, “is that I got the money. That’s what int’rests me.... Afternoon, mister.”
Catty was staring at his father and so was I. The whole business wasn’t like Mr. Atkins at all. There was something shrewd about it that didn’t seem like Catty’s father. And he seemed like he was interested in getting money—which gen’ally he wasn’t. It sort of showed what he could be like if he wanted to—the kind of a man folks wouldn’t smouge very often.
“What ails you, Dad?” says Catty. “I never seen you act so before.”
“Um!... Keep your eye peeled, Catty, and maybe you’ll see me act like it ag’in. Somethin’ about that feller that don’t set right, somehow. There’s somethin’ about that feller—somethin’ about that feller—” He scratched his head and bit his thumb and rapped his knuckles on the counter. “Now did I ever see that feller before, or didn’t I?... And if I did, where did I?... And if I didn’t, what makes me think I did?... Um!... If ever I seen him it was some place and doin’ somethin’ that kind of set me ag’in’ him.... Kind of funny. Set my teeth on edge, that feller did.”
“But he’s a millionaire, Dad. Maybe we kin make lots of money out of him.”