The eight thousand dollars that was left went at a surprisingly rapid rate, for, with a love for polished detail, Wallingford had ordered large quantities of shipping cases, stamps to burn the company's device upon them, japanned steel signs in half a dozen colors to go with each shipment, and many other expensive incidentals, besides the experimental work. There were patent applications and a host of other accumulating bills that gave Lamb more worry and perplexity than he had known in all his fifteen years of service with the Dorman Company. The next replenishment was harder. To get the remaining ten thousand dollars in the treasury, the already committed stockholders scraped around among their friends to the remotest acquaintance, and placed scrip no longer in blocks of five thousand, but of ten shares, of five shares, even in driblets of one and two hundred dollars, until they had absorbed all the extra treasury stock; and in that time Wallingford, by appointing a St. Louis agent, had managed to dispose of twenty thousand dollars' worth of his own holdings. He was still "cleaning up," and he brought in his transfer certificates with as much nonchalance as if he were turning in orders for tacks. Rapid as he now was, however, he did not work quite fast enough. He had still some fifteen thousand dollars' worth of personal stock when, early one morning, a businesslike gentleman stepped into the office where Lamb sat alone at work, and presented his card. It told nothing beyond the mere fact that he was an attorney. "Well, Mr. Rook, what can I do for you?" asked Lamb pleasantly, though not without apprehension. He wondered what J. Rufus had been doing. "Are you an officer of the Universal Covered Tack Company?" inquired Mr. Rook. "The secretary; Edward Lamb." "Quite so. Mr. Lamb, I represent the Invisible Carpet Tack Company, and I bring you their formal notification to cease using their device;" whereupon he delivered to Edward a document. "The company assumes that you are not thoroughly posted as to its article of manufacture, nor as to its patents covering it," he resumed. "They have been on the market three years with this product." From his pocket he took a fancifully embellished package, and, opening it, he poured two or three tacks into Edward's hand. With dismay the secretary examined one of them. It was an ordinary carpet tack, such as they were about to make, but with a crimson-covered top. Dazed, scarcely knowing what he was doing, he mechanically took his knife from his pocket and cut the cloth from it. The head was roughened for gluing precisely as had been planned for their own!