"Skippy, you tell—" said Snorky Green generously, "the glory is yours."
"It's an invention that's got to do with a bathtub, with all bathtubs," said Skippy, with a sudden faintness of confidence before the professional agnosticism which Macnooder, the man of affairs, now assumed by crossing his legs and donning a large horn-rimmed pair of spectacles.
"The word is bathtub," said Macnooder, who not to appear too eager dug a knife from his pocket and carefully whittled at the end of his pencil.
"It's a foot regulator!"
"Aha!" said Macnooder, who didn't understand at all.
"You see, Doc, what's the matter with all the bathtubs of to-day," said Skippy, picking up courage, "your head's at one end and the faucets are at the other—and, that's an awful distance!"
"Good point!" said Macnooder, nodding.
"Now when you want to let in the cold water you've got to sit up, reach down and turn it on and that's cold and chilly and drafty as the mischief, isn't it?"
"That's a very strong point," said Macnooder, who began to see.
"Now, if you could only turn the faucets with your toes, you could lie quietly under the hot water, couldn't you?. . . But you can't—but you could if you had foot regulators. And isn't it the simplest thing in the world to have foot regulators? Only no one has ever thought of it before?"