"There's a handsome fortune in it," he declared. "It is one of those little things of which there are enormous quantities used and thrown away each day. If you want to organize a company to put it on the market, Johnny, I'll take any amount of stock you think proper—not only for the investment, but for the pure philanthropy of it."
"Also for the pure selfishness of it," laughed Joe Close. "Courtney wants to be sure to find a private comb in every public wash room."
"When you get your factory going I wish you'd send a salesman to my head supply man," requested Mort Washer. "I'll buy them by the ton, and every guest who comes into one of my hotels will find a fresh comb in an aseptic wrapper by the side of his individual soap."
"That will be up to Bruce," Johnny informed him. "Bruce intends to manufacture this device at his papier-mache factory."
"Thanks," acknowledged Bruce. "I hadn't contemplated enlarging the factory, but I see I shall need to."
"Johnny isn't kidding, Bruce," Val shrewdly warned him.
"Neither am I," maintained Bruce stoutly. "I'll have that comb on the market so quickly that you can almost afford to wait for it. Royalty, Johnny?"
"No," denied Johnny promptly. "I'll sell it to you outright for ten thousand dollars, me to sign any sort of papers you need and you to pay the patent lawyer."
"I'd be robbing you," protested Bruce. "I should think you'd want to retain an interest in the manufacture, or at least a royalty. There'd be a lot more money in it for you."
"Wait just a minute," directed Loring, sitting down at his typewriting machine from which the neat operator had fled at the very beginning of the social invasion.