"You're an honor to your family," he announced. "I didn't suppose there were any more games left, but you've sprung a new one and it's a peach!"
Wallingford strove to look magnificently unaware of what he meant, but the attempt was a failure.
"The scheme is so smooth," went on Mr. Meers with a heartfelt appreciation, "that it strained my eyesight to find the little joker; but now I can tell you all about it. It's in the transfer of the stock, and here's what you do. The consolidation buys my place for, say, five thousand dollars, and gives me five thousand dollars' worth of stock in the consolidation for it. That's what this paper seems to say, but that's not what happens. It's you that buys my place for five thousand dollars and gives me five thousand dollars' worth of stock in the consolidation for it, and you, being then the temporary owner through a fake trusteeship, turn around and sell my business to the consolidation, the management of which is in your flipper through a board of dummy directors, for ten thousand dollars; and you have our iron-clad contract to let you do this, though it don't say so! When you get through you have consolidated a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of business into a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar stock company, and you have a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of stock which didn't cost you a cent! Say! Have this wine on me. I insist! I want to buy you something!"
Slowly Mr. Wallingford's shoulders began to heave and his face to turn red, and presently he broke into a series of chuckles that expanded to a guffaw.
"I don't see how I ever won that five hundred from you this afternoon," he observed, and shook again.
"The pleasure is all mine," said the loser politely. "Now I'm sorry it wasn't a thousand. You're worth the money and I'm glad I came to see you. Count me in on the Retail Cigar Dealers' Consolidation."
"All right, sign the paper," said Wallingford with another chuckle.
"Watch me sign it not," said Meers. "I'm too patriotic. I'm so patriotic that I hate to see all this good money go to a stranger, so I'm going to take sixty-two and one half thousand dollars' worth of that free stock myself. I declare myself in. You hear me?"
By the time Mr. Meers was through talking Wallingford was delighted so far as surface went, though he was already doing some intense figuring.
"I don't know but that it's a good thing you came to see me," he admitted. "However, I hope it don't strike you that I intend to give you half a nice ripe peach without a good reason for it. What do I get for letting you in?"