It was, in fact, high time for him to return to business, for he could get no wire from Maylie about the forced sale; and this was the strategic point for which he had been planning since the day he met Carl Klug. Three telegrams drew no response, and there was no one else to whom he dared wire in the present condition of affairs. Leaving his wife where she was for the present, he took the first train for the West and, arriving on the day before the sale, drove directly from the train to Carl Klug's, where he found a mournful assembly. "That's him!" exclaimed Jens Jensen, as he came into the shop. "I always said he was a skinner." Klug looked at him with dull eyes. Otto Schmitt arose to his threatening, rawboned height. Henry Vogel put his hand on Otto's arm. "Wait a minute," he cautioned. "You don't know anything for sure about things." "What's the matter?" Wallingford asked, stopped in the midst of his intended cordial greeting by the hostile air of the gathering. "You done it a-purpose," charged Jens, shaking his skinny fist. "You got from us that note, and now it shuts us up in business. You say you back the company for all you're worth. Maybe you ain't worth anything. If you ain't you're a liar. If you are worth something you don't back us up. Then you're a liar again, so that makes you a skinner!" "Gentlemen," said Wallingford sternly, "I am surprised. The question of whether I have or have not money is not worth arguing just now. The point is this: if any one of you had money would you be willing to invest it against the millions of the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey? Would you, Mr. Jensen?" "I don't know," said Jens sullenly. "I think you're a skinner." Wallingford shrugged his shoulders. "Would you, Mr. Schmitt?" "No," said Otto, and unclenched his huge fists. "Would you, Vogel?" Vogel was positive about it, too. It would be throwing good money after bad. "I ask Mr. Klug. Would you, Carl?" "Yes," sturdily asserted Carl, his mustache bristling, his face puffing red. "Every cent. It is a good patent. It is a good machine. There's money in it."