“Churn trust don’t know how it works, nor how to make it, nor what it looks like, nor anything, does it?”
“Certainly not. Didn’t I tell you—”
“If the churn trust don’t know anything about it, how do they know it’s such a good churn that it will put them out of business?” says Catty, and Mr. Wade almost fell out of his chair.
“I swan to man!” he says, and swallowed three or four times, and rubbed his neck in the back and almost nickered like a horse. “I swan to man! How does it know? I never thought of that. That is funny. That certainly is funny.”
“It would be funnier if you knew this Mr. Matthew Binger didn’t have anything to do with a churn trust at all, but was a personal friend of Kinderhook’s that he had telegraphed to come, wouldn’t it?”
“It would be so funny that somebody would laugh out of the wrong side of his mouth,” says Mr. Wade.
Then Catty told him about the telegram Mr. Kinderhook had sent to Mr. Binger to come, and all about that, and then all about how Mr. Atkins remembered how Kinderhook had another name once and used to run one of those cheat medicine shows. But by that time Mr. Wade was beginning to steady down and think. He began to look mad and then he began to laugh.
“So it took a couple of boys to figure out that scheme!” says he. “If that don’t beat anything! It’s equal to Napoleon at his best. Yes, sir, it’s better than Napoleon at his best. Napoleon would have been proud to see through a scheme like you’ve done.... And now we’ve got to warn everybody.”
“No,” says Catty, “remember, you promised not to tell.”
“But—”