The joke was thoroughly appreciated. It was a commendable and a holy thing to conspire to get the money of a monopoly away from it, as every newspaper proved to them. In pleasant pursuance of this idea, the United Company, by methods that should proceed in comfort and ease and entire absence of worry, such as was foreshadowed by this luxurious dining room and by the personal grandeur of Mr. Wallingford, was to be brought suppliantly to its knees; so, with the utmost cheerfulness, each of these men paid over his subscription. Doctor Feldmeyer was the only man among them who paid by check. The rest was in cash, but the host, busy with his hospitable duties, held back his payment until the waiters brought in a luncheon which was a revelation in the way of "cold snacks." It was during this appetite-whetting, gayety-promoting confusion that Wallingford quietly paid over his five hundred dollars--this, with the fifteen hundred dollars' credit on the coming patent, making his contribution total to two thousand, the same amount as that put in by every other member of the company except Carl Klug. This done, the clever gentleman surreptitiously wiped his brow and sighed a little sigh all to himself. It had taken him three days to figure how to fasten upon Mr. Klug's patent and prospects with as little money as five hundred dollars! It was a happy crowd that dispersed an hour later--a crowd upon which Fortune already beamed; but the last of them had scarcely left the room when their princely entertainer telephoned for his own lawyer. "I want you," said Wallingford to Mr. Maylie, when he arrived, "to find out all you can for me about the United Sales Recording Machine Company of New Jersey. I want to know the outcome of every suit they have brought against infringers of their patents, and the present addresses of the people with whom they fought; also all about the companies they have been forced to buy out. Got that?" "I'll get it," replied Mr. Maylie confidently, and helped himself to a glass of champagne. He looked longingly at the bottle as he finished his first glass, but as Mr. Wallingford did not invite him to have a second he went out. CHAPTER XV WALLINGFORD GENEROUSLY LOANS THE PNEUMATIC COMPANY SOME OF ITS OWN MONEY The arrival of Mrs. Wallingford set upon a much higher plane her husband's already well-established reputation as a capitalist of illimitable resources, and had any one of his partners paused to reflect that Mr. Wallingford had secured an active interest in the concern for five hundred dollars, Doctor Feldmeyer's report of the capitalist's charming lady was enough to make that trifling incident forgotten. To Carl Klug and Jens Jensen at Carl's shop, the doctor, without knowing it, did the missionary work that Wallingford had planned for him to do.