“Let your eye roam over that, old top! And don’t tell me you’ve let somebody take those things away from you.”
Durland pondered the letter, lifting the business sheet closer to his eyes as he examined Trenton’s small neat signature. He walked to a closet and extracted some papers from the confused mass within.
“Well, daddy, what’s the answer?”
“I got those patents all right; they cover my improvements on my old gas engine Cummings is making. There’s already been a fellow nosing round asking about ’em; from Cummings I guess. I got something now that’s going to interest everybody that’s making motors; something I been working at two or three years. Cummings can’t have ’em. He hasn’t got any right to ’em!”
His eyes flashed as his hatred of Cummings for the moment possessed him. Grace had never taken seriously her father’s hints that Cummings might have got rid of him too soon. She had never before seen him so agitated. He paced the floor, reiterating that his former associate should never profit by his improvements on any of the old Cummings-Durland devices. He paused, picked up an apple and bit into it savagely.
“Now, daddy,” said Grace, “it isn’t at all like you to flare up that way. Mr. Trenton hasn’t a thing to do with Cummings; I happen to know that. But he’s a business adviser and particular friend of Kemp.”
“Kemp!” Durland repeated, lifting his head with a jerk. “You think maybe Kemp’s interested? Kemp could use these patents; there isn’t a thing in these improvements that wouldn’t fit right into Kemp’s motor!”
“That’s perfectly grand! Now that you’ve got your patents, what you want to do is to sit back and wait. There must be something pretty good in your ideas or Mr. Trenton wouldn’t be interested. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the dollars would begin to roll in?”
“I’ve been fooled a lot of times, Grace,” he answered, picking up his hat, staring at it as though it were an unfamiliar thing and clapping it on his head. “I guess you better not say anything about this at home. If it doesn’t come to anything I don’t want your mother disappointed.”
“Of course not; it’s our big secret, daddy. I just love having secrets with you. After the row at home the other night about Mr. Trenton’s niece we’d better never mention him.”