“Sufferin’ mackerel!” says Mr. Atkins. “You mean it? Honest Injun—no jokin’?”
“We mean it. We will call the concern the Atkins Novelty Mills, and if things go as they ought to, you ought to be a very comfortably wealthy man in a few years. We shall incorporate for two hundred thousand dollars, so your stock alone, if we have any sort of luck, will be worth forty thousand.”
“Don’t seem possible,” says Mr. Atkins, so flabbergasted he could hardly speak.
“And, using your name in the company, you will be its vice-president. How’s that, Catty? Sound all right?”
“Sounds good and respectable,” says Catty, who was so tickled and excited he could hardly wiggle. “My goodness! Dad ’ll be makin’ more money than any man in town, won’t he?”
“A lot more.”
“More than Captain Winton?”
“I should say so.”
Catty waggled his head. “Respectable at last,” says he.
It would surprise you how quick that factory was built and in running order, and I guess it surprised even Mr. Sommers how quick it got to making money. Why, they couldn’t commence to manufacture things as quick as folks ordered them all over the United States, and before the first factory was finished they were building additions on to it and starting to make new things. It was a go. Mr. Sommers said it was a gold-mine—and a fifth of it all belonged to Mr. Atkins, besides his royalties and salary. Why, he was rich right off ... and respectable!