The Early Bird Part 14

"No," he replied.

"How much would?"

"Well, fifty thousand would do it."

"Say, pop--"

"Yes."

Another long interval.

"I wish you'd buy fifty thousand for me in place of twenty-five."

"Humph," grunted Mr. Westlake, and after one sharp glance at her he looked down at his big fat thumbs and twirled them for a long, long time. "Well," said he, "Sam Turner is a fine young man. I've known him in a business way for five or six years, and I never saw a flaw in him of any sort. All right. You give Billy your sugar stock and I'll buy you this fifty thousand."

Miss Westlake reached over and kissed her father impulsively.

"Thanks, pop," she said. "Now there's another thing I want you to do."

"What, more?" he demanded.

"Yes, more," and this time the color deepened in her cheeks. "I want you to hunt up Mr. Turner and tell him that you're going to take that much."

Mr. Westlake with a smile reached up and pinched his daughter's cheek.

"Very well, Hallie, I'll do it," said he.

She patted him affectionately on the bald spot.

"Good for you," she said. "Be sure you see him this morning, though, and before half-past nine."

"You're particular about that, eh?"

"Yes, it's rather important," she admitted, and blushed furiously.

Westlake patted his daughter on the shoulder.

"Hallie," said He, "if Billy only had your common-sense business instinct, I wouldn't ask for anything else in this world; but Billy is a saphead."

Mr. Westlake, thinking that he understood the matter very thoroughly, though in reality overunderstanding it--nice word, that--took it upon himself with considerable seriousness to hunt up Sam Turner; but it was fully nine-thirty before he found that energetic young man. Sam was just going down the driveway in a neat little trap behind a team of spirited grays.

"Wait a minute, Sam, wait a minute," hailed Westlake, puffing laboriously across the closely cropped lawn.

Sam held up his horses abruptly, and they stood swinging their heads and champing at their bits, while Sam, with a trace of a frown, looked at his watch.

"What's your rush?" asked Westlake. "I've been hunting for you everywhere. I want to talk about some important features of that Marsh Pulp Company of yours."

"All right," said Sam. "I'm open for conversation. I'll see you right after lunch."

"No. I must see you now," insisted Westlake. "I've--I've got to decide on some things right this morning. I--I've got to know how to portion out my investments."

Sam looked at his watch and was genuinely distressed.

"I'm sorry," said he, "but I have an engagement over at Hollis Creek at exactly ten o'clock, and I've scant time to make it."

"Business?" demanded Westlake.

"No," confessed Sam slowly.

"Oh, social then. Well, social engagements in America always play second fiddle to business ones, and don't you forget it. I'll talk about this matter this morning or I won't talk about it at all."

Sam stopped nonplussed. Westlake was an important factor in the prospective Marsh Pulp Company.

"Tell you what you do," said he, after some quick thought. "Why can't you get in the trap and drive over to Hollis Creek with me? We can talk on the way and you can visit with your friends over there until time for luncheon; then I'll bring you back and we can talk on the way home, too."

Miss Hallie and Princeman and young Tilloughby came cantering down the drive and waved hands at the two men.

"All right," said Westlake decisively, looking after his daughter and answering her glance with a nod. "Wait until I get my hat," and he wheeled abruptly away.

Sam fumed and fretted and jerked his watch back and forth from his pocket, while Westlake wasted fifteen precious minutes in waddling up to the house and hunting for his hat and returning with it, and two minutes more in bungling his awkward way into the buggy; then Sam started the grays at such a terrific pace that, until they came to the steep hill midway of the course, there was no chance for conversation.

While the horses pulled up this steep hill, however, Westlake had his opportunity.

"I suppose you know," he said, "that you're not going to be allowed over two thousand shares of common stock for your patents."

"I'm beginning to give up the hope of having more," admitted Sam.

"However, I'm going to stick it out to the last ditch."

"It won't be permitted, so you might as well give up that idea. How much stock do you think of buying?"

"About five thousand dollars' worth of the preferred," said Sam.

"Which will give you fifty bonus shares of the common. I suppose of course you figure on eventually securing control in some way or other."

"Not being an infant, I do," returned Sam, flicking his whip at a weed and gathering his lines up quickly as the mettled horses jumped.

"I don't know of any one person who's going to buy enough stock to help you out in that plan; unless I should do it myself," suggested Westlake, and waited.

Sam surveyed the other man long and silently. Westlake, as the largest minority shareholder, had done some very strange things to corporations in his time.

"Neither do I," said Sam non-committally.

There was another long silence.

"If you carry through this Marsh Pulp Company to a successful termination, you will be fairly well fixed for a young man, won't you?"

the older man ventured by and by.

"Well," hesitated Sam, "I'll have a start anyhow."

"I should say you would," Westlake a.s.sured him, placing his hands in his favorite position for contemplative discussion. "You'll have a good enough start to enable you to settle down."