During the following weeks, millions were made through the sale of Chipfellow's thought to the gullible. Great commercial activity began in the area surrounding the estate as arrangements were made to accommodate the hundreds of thousands who were heading in that direction.
A line began forming immediately at the gate to Chipfellow's Folly and a brisk market got under way in positions therein. The going figure of the first hundred positions was in the neighborhood of ten thousand dollars. A man three thousand thoughts away was offered a thousand dollars two days before the week was up, and on the last day, the woman at the head of the line sold her position for eighteen thousand dollars.
There were many learned roundtables and discussions as to the nature of Chipfellow's thought. The majority leaned to the belief that it would be scientific in nature because Chipfellow was the world's greatest scientist.
This appeared to give scientifically trained brains the edge and those fortunate in this respect spent long hours learning what they could of Chipfellow's life, trying to divine his performance in the realm of thought.
So intense was the interest created that scarcely anyone paid attention to the activities of Chipfellow's closer relatives. They sued to break the will but met with defeat. The verdict was rendered speedily, after which the judge who made the ruling declared a recess and bought the eleven thousandth position in line for five hundred dollars.
On the morning of the appointed day, the gates were opened and the line moved toward the vault. The first man took his seat on the bench. A stopwatch clicked. A great silence settled over the watchers. This lasted for thirty seconds after which the watch clicked again. The man got up from the bench eighteen thousand dollars poorer.
The vault had not opened.
Nor did it open the next day, the next, nor the next. A week passed, a month, six months. And at the end of that time it was estimated that more than twenty-five thousand people had tried their luck and failed.
Each failure was greeted with a public sigh of relief—relief from both those who were waiting for a turn and those who were getting rich from the commercial enterprises abutting upon the Chipfellow estate.
There was a motel, a hotel, a few night clubs, a lot of restaurants, a hastily constructed bus terminal, an airport and several turned into parking lots at a dollar a head.