“Which is exactly what we’re going to do. Your son and I have patented a few of these things in your name. You seem to have a most ingenious mind, Mr. Atkins. If you had nothing else to bother you, there is no doubt you could whittle out a number of very useful and salable things.” “What d’you think of _that_?” says Mr. Atkins. “In short, you are a very valuable man to a business such as I have in mind, and I want to make you a proposition.” “Make her,” says Mr. Atkins. “I have had one of my best salesmen show this table and game to the trade. This seems somewhat incredible, but in ten days’ time he had taken enough definite orders for them from wholesale houses to keep a fair-sized factory busy. When we really work the trade we can keep busy a mighty large-sized factory.” “I swan to man!” says Mr. Atkins. “I have called in novelty experts and woodenware manufacturers and I have found what these tables can be made for. They will cost about a dollar twenty to make. They sell at retail for three and a half. A factory could make a profit of at least a dollar on each table—and, Mr. Atkins, we have signed orders for more than five hundred dozens right now.” “For six thousand of them tables!” “Yes, sir. And more orders for hundreds of those games. At the rate of business, I believe we can sell five or six thousand dozen tables and possibly five thousand games a year, to speak never a word of the other devices. It will be a very considerable business, and I want to propose that we go into it together.” “I’m willin’,” says Mr. Atkins. “I will build the factory, and have been looking around for a site. There seems to be a good one here—with some houses already built to accommodate the hands. There is timber handy.... Now, then, I guess we can locate here without difficulty. Do you approve of that?” “We wouldn’t move anywheres else,” says Catty. “Very well, then. I will arrange for the money to build and equip the mill, and to do business on. I will give you one quarter of the stock for the right to use all the devices you invent while our agreement lasts, and, besides, I will, or our company will, pay you a royalty on each article sold. For instance, we will pay you, say, fifteen cents for each table, which, in case we sell fifty thousand of them, would be seventy-five hundred dollars a year. How is that? We would want you to have a workshop in the plant and do nothing but invent novelties all day—” “I think up things while I’m fishin’,” says Mr. Atkins. “Then we’ll furnish you with the best fishing outfit in the country, and you can fish all you like.... Of course, you’ll want some salary for a while till the thing gets to going and your royalties come in ... so we can offer you five thousand dollars for the first year—after that your royalties.” “Sufferin’ mackerel!” says Mr. Atkins. “You mean it? Honest Injun—no jokin’?”