"Much obliged," says Swifty, eyin' the thin silver case with the gold linin'. "Gee! what a swell box!"
"Do you fancy it?" says Alvin. "Then it is yours, with my best compliments."
"Ah-r-r-r chee, no!" protests Swifty.
"Please, as a favor to me," insists Alvin, pushin' the case into his hand. "One finds so few ways of giving pleasure. In return I shall remember gratefully the direct sincerity of your manner. Charming!"
And, say, I expect it's the first time in his whole career that anybody ever discovered any good points about Swifty Joe Gallagher on first sight. He backs out with his mouth open and his face tinted up like an old maid's that's been kissed in the dark.
But that little play only makes it all the harder for me to shoo him out. The fact is, though, it's gettin' almost time for a directors' meetin' that's to be pulled off in my front office. Sounds imposin', don't it? Didn't know I was on a board, eh? Well, I am, and up to date it's been one of the richest luxuries I ever blew myself to. I'd been roped, that's all.
Young Blair Woodbury, one of my downtown reg'lars, had opened the cellar door for me. Thinks he's a great promoter, Blair does. And somewhere he'd dug up this nutty inventor with his milk container scheme. Oh, it listens good, the way he put it. Just a two-ounce, woodpulp, mailin' cartridge lined with oiled paper, that could be turned out for a dollar a thousand, pint and quart sizes, indestructible, absolutely sanitary, air tight, germ proof, and so on.
Simple little thing; but it was goin' to put the Milk Trust out of business inside of six months, set back the high cost of livin' a full notch, give every dairy farmer an automobile, and land the Universal Container Company's stockholders at No. 1 Easy-st. For, instead of payin' two prices for an imitation blend doctored up with formaldehyde, you got the real, creamy stuff straight from the farm at five a quart, and passed in at the front door with your morning mail. Didn't the parcel post bring your drygoods? Why not your milk? And when it got to be common the P.O. Department would put on carts for a six a.m. delivery. There you are!
So I'd subscribed for a thousand shares, payin' fifty per cent. down for development expenses, the rest on call. Yes, I know. But you should have heard Blair Woodbury pull the prospectus stuff, and describe how the dividends would come rollin' in!
That was six or eight months ago, and we'd stood for two assessments. Then it turned out there was something wrong with the pulp compressor dingus that was to have shot out containers at the rate of two hundred a minute. Some of us went over to Jersey to see it work; but all it produced while we was there was a groanin' sound and a smell of sour dough. I could have bought out the holdin's of the entire bunch for my return ticket. But the ticket looked above par to me.