“News you little expect,” snarled Mr. Hunt to himself, his wolfish smile growing more pronounced. The envelope he had slipped to the lad contained the message he himself had scribbled after he had seen the real dispatch. Paul’s face blanched as he read the brief, short message, which appeared to be genuine enough. At least, he, of course, had no grounds for doubting its authenticity.
“Can do nothing more in regard to ice motor,” he read, with a sense of bitter shock. “Government declines to use it. Sorry, but negotiations are definitely closed. Merrill.”
“Not bad news I hope?” inquired Mr. Hunt solicitously. Paul raised a troubled face. He was a lad utterly unused to guile or deception, and he therefore blurted out his trouble. He even read off the contents of the message, which was hardly necessary, as Hunt himself had written it.
“Too bad; too bad,” said Mr. Hunt, wagging his head slowly and assuming a sympathetic leer. “But, Paul, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. If the government doesn’t know a good thing when it sees it, I do. My offer is still open. I’ll go five hundred dollars higher, in fact. What do you say to fifteen hundred dollars for the rights to the machine?”
“I—I hardly know what to say,” stuttered the confused lad. The sudden dashing of his hopes at Washington led him to be willing to accept almost anything. To people in the circumstances of the widow Perkins and her son, fifteen hundred dollars looked an immense sum.
Hunt noted the boy’s hesitation, and he hastened to strike while the iron was hot. He produced a fountain pen and a check book, with a wizard-like flourish.
“Come,” he said, persuasively, “say the word and I’ll write you a check now. You give me a receipt saying that you accept the money in consideration of all rights in the machine, and the thing is done.”
“I suppose I’d better,” hesitated Paul, miserably, “come inside, Mr. Hunt, and I’ll fix up the paper you want.”
“Good for you, Stonington, my boy!” chuckled the rascal to himself, as he turned to follow the boy into the house, “I guess this is where I get even on those brats who interfered the other day, and make a nice little sum besides.”
But as they had their feet on the lower step leading to the side door there came a hail from the street.