“He better not let me ketch him at it,” says Catty, “not when I’ve got him all improved like he is. I believe he likes it, too, but he jest makes b’lieve he don’t. He hates to let on.” “Got that campaign figgered out?” says I. “Got a start,” says he. “Let’s have her,” says I. “Wa-al,” says he, “what’s the gist and center of Kinderhook’s whole scheme?” “Money,” says I. “That’s the _object_,” says he. “Sounds like grammar,” says I. “What’s the subject and the predicate?” “The subject and the predicate and the adjectives and the whole kit and b’ilin’,” says he, “is _churn_.” “Churn?” says I. “Churn,” says he. “What churn?” says I. “The churn he lets on he’s goin’ to manufacture,” says Catty. “He’s got to let on to manufacture somethin’, and he’s let on it’s a churn. Now, then, who’s _seen_ that churn? Nobody but Kinderhook. Why? Because it’s a secret churn, that’s why, to bamboozle folks with. If the churn’s any good, why, he would go ahead and manufacture it himself and make money. He wouldn’t want to cheat anybody. So we can figger that the churn hain’t no good, or if it is some good, why, there’s somethin’ else crooked about it. He hain’t got no patent. Likely the reason for that is that he can’t git no patent. See? Well, if we can prove to folks that the churn ain’t any good, why then we save the bacon, don’t we?” “Not if Kinderhook’s got their money and disappeared with it,” says I. “He hain’t took any money yet. He’s just been schemin’ to sell stock. We got to prove he’s cheatin’ before he begins to take money—or—” He quit talking, all of a sudden, and I could see some new idea had hit him. “Maybe we can do better than that,” says he, “but the main plan to work on is the churn. I’m goin’ to start by findin’ out all I kin about churns.” “Good idee,” says I. “Then you can start a shop to repair ’em.” “Wee-wee,” says he, “I’m goin’ to see Mr. Wade. He’s sharp. I’m a-goin’ to talk it over with him.” “All right,” says I. “Come on.” So we went to Mr. Wade’s office, and, as usual, Mr. Wade was reading about Napoleon Bonaparte. He told us to come in, and we went in. “We want to talk to you private,” says Catty. “We want to tell you somethin’ that we don’t want to go no farther—and maybe we’ll want some help.” “Let her fly,” says Mr. Wade, with a grin. “It’s about Arthur Peabody Kinderhook,” says Catty. “The man that’s going to make us all rich?” says Mr. Wade. “The man that’s goin’ to cheat you all out of your money,” says Catty. “Eh?”