"Is this a sermon, Nat?" "Call it what you like: it goes, just the same. ... That's what I've found out this year." Kellogg let his chair fall forward and rose, imprisoning Nat's shoulders with two heavy but kindly hands. "And you're right!" he cried heartily. "I'm glad you had the backbone to back out, Nat. It was a low-down trick and I'm ashamed of myself for proposing it. I did it, I presume, simply because I'm a schemer at heart, and I knew it would work. It did work, but it's worked a finer way than I dreamed of: it's made a man of you, Nat, and I'm mightly glad and proud of you!" Nat swayed with amazement. "What's changed you all of a sudden?" he demanded blankly. Releasing him, Kellogg resumed his seat, laughing. "Well, a number of things. Among others, I've talked with Graham and I've met his daughter." "Oh-h!" "And that reminds me," Kellogg changed the subject briskly; "I understood from you that Graham was sole owner of that patent burner." "So he is." "He says not. I had a proposition to make him from the Mutual people, and he referred me to you, saying that you controlled the matter." "I've not the slightest interest in it!" Nat protested. "I know you haven't, but Graham insisted you owned the whole thing. I pressed him for an explanation, and he finally furnished one in his rambling, inconsequent, fine old way. He admitted that there wasn't any sort of an existing contract or agreement of any sort, even oral, between you, but just the same you'd been so good to him and his girl that he'd made up his mind--some time ago, I gather--to make you a present of the burner; but naturally he forgot to tell you about an insignificant detail like that." "Of course that's nonsense; I wouldn't and shant accept." "Of course you won't. I did you the honour to discount that. But he wouldn't say a word about the offer--yes or no--just left it all up to you. He says you're a business man, and that he's often thought what a help you must have been to me before you left New York." Nat laughed outright. "Can you beat that? ... But what is the offer?" "Fifty thousand cash and ten thousand shares of preferred stock--hundred dollars par." "What's that worth?" "At the market rate when I left town, seventy-eight." Kellogg waited a moment. "Well, what do you say?" "Say? Great Caesar's Ghost! What is there to say? Wire 'em an acceptance before they get their second wind.... You don't know how good this makes me feel, Harry; I can't thank you enough for what you've done. This'll square me with Graham to some extent, and I can clear out----" "No, you can't, Mr. Smarty! You ain't been 'cute enough." Both men, startled by the interruption, wheeled round to discover Roland Barnette dancing with excitement in the doorway, the while he beckoned frantically to an invisible party without. "Come on!" he shouted. "Here he is!" "What's eating you, Roly-Poly?" inquired Nat, too happy for the money to cherish animosity even toward his one-time rival.