“The man that’s goin’ to cheat you all out of your money,” says Catty.
“Eh?”
“That’s what we come to say. He aims to get away with a heap of money, and the way he’s goin’ to do it is like this: He lets on he don’t want to sell any stock in his factory, but he come here to do that and nothin’ else. That’s what me and Wee-wee have figgered out. He’ll go on and build a factory and everything, and part of your money will go into that. It’s part of his bait. But he’ll get what he wants because he isn’t paying any money in at all, is he? No, sir, he’s just puttin’ in his patent churn, and when the thing is all over you’ll find he’s sold every dollar of stock to you folks, and got about fifty thousand dollars out of you for that secret churn he dassent patent—and when you come to manufacture it you’ll find out it hain’t no good or somethin’.... That’s the whole idee.”
Mr. Wade he just stared at us and says, “My goodness!” about seventeen times, and then he wants to know how we know what we’re talkin’ about, and Catty has to tell him he doesn’t really know, but just suspects it, and then Mr. Wade looks some happier. But then Catty says, “Did you ever see that churn?”
“No,” says Mr. Wade.
“Who ever saw it?”
“Nobody,” says Mr. Wade. “But you boys are wrong. Why, a representative of the churn trust came and offered Mr. Kinderhook thousands and thousands of dollars if he wouldn’t manufacture it. They said it would put all the other churns off the market if he did.”
“Why don’t he patent it?” says Catty. “Because he is afraid the churn trust or somebody would steal his patent and make churns like his.”
“The churn trust hasn’t seen the churn, has it?”
“No, of course not. That’s the thing Mr. Kinderhook is most afraid of.”