“Guess I do,” says Catty. “When he sells all the stock and pays for the mill, he’ll have left over the seventy-five thousand that he charges for the secret. Hain’t that it?”
“That’s it.”
“And if the secret hain’t any good, why, the folks have a mill that hain’t worth anything because the thing they was plannin’ to make in it hain’t worth makin’?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Hum!... Much obleeged. Kind of hard to prove, hain’t it?”
“Nothing harder—ahead of time. You’d have to find out what his secret was, and prove to folks that it was no good, and that he intended to cheat them with it. I don’t see how it can be worked.”
“It’s goin’ to be hard, all right, but, mister, we’re a-goin’ to do it. We’ll git this feller somehow, and we’ll prove it on him. We’ll do it or bust.”
“Good for you.... And now, about this patent—I’ll mail you the papers in a day or two, and you have your father sign them and hurry them right back.”
“You bet,” says Catty.
We went out and took the train for home. On the way we tried to figure out about Kinderhook, but it didn’t come. We said we would just have to watch and grab whatever chance came along.