"It's too bad you don't understand your profession," he went on, still amused. "Sometimes I think I'll buy you another acre of Arizona sand and start a new mining company with you, just to show you how the stock can be sold safely and legally." For the first time Mr. Daw was able to grin. "Who's that clattering down the street?" he exclaimed with fine dramatic effect. "Why, it's _me_! Notice how my coat tails snap as I top yon distant hill. See how pale my face as I turn to see if I am still pursued. Oh, no, J. Rufus. We've been friends too long. I'd hate to think of us losing sleep every night, trying to figure how to give each other the double cross." "I got you at a bargain just now, and I ought to be able to sell you cheap," retorted the other. "By the way, it's a mighty lucky thing for you that Fanny had some money soaked away from that insurance deal of mine. I had to all but use a club to get it, too. She don't think very much of you. She thinks you might lead me astray some time." "_Can_ limburger smell worse?" growled Mr. Daw, but there he stopped. Four days in jail had taken a lot of his gift of repartee away. When barber and bootblack and valet had restored him to his well-groomed ministerial aspect, however, his saturnine sense of humor came back and he was able to enjoy the elaborate midday luncheon which his host had served in the room. "Amuse yourself, Blackie," invited Wallingford after luncheon. "Get _orey-eyed_ if you want to, and don't mind me, for I'm laying the wires to locate here." "Don't!" advised his friend. "This is a poison town. Every dollar has a tag on it, and if you touch one they examine the thumb marks and pinch you." "Not me! My legitimate methods will excite both awe and admiration." And he set to work again. Not caring to show himself in daylight, Mr. Daw read papers and took naps and drank and smoked until his midnight train; but, no matter what he did, Mr. Wallingford sat steadily at the little desk, sketching, sketching, sketching. Along about closing time he went down to make friends with the bartender, and before he went to bed he had secured an unused sales recording machine which was kept on hand for use during conventions, and this he had taken up to his rooms for leisurely study and comparison. In the morning he drove out to Carl Klug's clean little model making shop in the outskirts of the town, and here he found an interested group gathered about the pneumatic device that he had seen the day before. On a bench lay the patent--a real United States Government patent with a seal and a ribbon on it! "Different from all the four hundred and twelve patents, every place!" Mr. Klug had just a shade pompously reiterated before Wallingford came. "So-o-o-o!" commented big Otto Schmitt, the market gardener, as he pushed down the dollar key and then the forty-five-cent key with a huge, earth-brown finger that spread out on the end like a flat club. "And how much does it cost to make it?"