"Pardon me!" says Alex, "I have got to be up at the office of the Evers-Raine Shirt Company at three and I can just about make it." "What the devil are you going to another shirt company for?" roars Calder. "I have an old friend in the--ah--manufacturing department," says Alex, lookin' straight at him, "who I'm very anxious to see." Well, they stare at each other for a minute without sayin' a word. They're both playin' poker, and it's Calder who lays his down first! "Look here!" he grunts. "I'm going to take an option on this infernal thing for a week. How much is that worth to you?" "Ten thousand dollars," answers Alex, pleasantly. "I'll pay seven and give you a check right now!" says Calder, slammin' the desk with his fist. "Here, Lacy!" he says to the other guy. "This is what we'll put on our shirts hereafter, unless I'm very much mistaken! What do you think of it?" Lacy picks up the neckband and looks at it. "And to think," he mutters in an awed voice. "And to think nobody ever thought of this before!" "Hmm!" says Calder, takin' the band back. "That's all settled then! Young man," he says to Alex, "the cashier will give you a check. Come back at the end of the week and I'll either give you back your neckband, or a contract for five hundred thousand of them a year for twenty years!" "Thanks!" says Alex. "Will you have that check certified?" Well, Simmons like to went insane with joy when we sprung the news on him and Alex insists on him takin' that seven thousand dollar check whole. He didn't ask for a nickel, which had me puzzled. Mrs. Simmons goes out shoppin' for furs, diamonds and automobiles, and the wife asks me why I don't invent somethin', but outside of that they was nothin' more doin' till the end of the week. Then, Alex comes up and breaks the news to Simmons that the Brown-Calder Shirt Company will take all the neckbands that Simmons can supply, as long as people wear shirts. "We have got to deliver 50,000 in a month," says Alex, "at the rate of two and a half cents apiece. Can you do it?" Simmons falls back on the sofa in a dead faint! Well, they was great excitement and the wife finally brings him to life with smellin' salts. "It was prob'ly the sudden mention of so much money, eh?" I says. "I'm ruined!" hollers Simmons, leapin' up and dancin' around. "Why, it took me two weeks to make that one miserable model I gave you!" he yells at Alex. "I couldn't make fifty thousand of them things in a lifetime!" Alexis eyes glitters. "Here!" he says, slappin' Simmons on the back. "Pull yourself together, man! You've got to think of somethin'. How did you make that one?" "By hand!" wails Simmons. "Well, they must be some way of makin' a machine that can turn out so many thousand an hour!" says Alex, walkin' back and forth. "Why--" "I don't care who makes 'em!" says Simmons. "All I want is to get paid for my idea. I--"