The Early Bird Part 16

Control and Westlake were two words which did not make, for him, a cheerful juxtaposition.

"So now you'll have to be very nice indeed to me," went on Miss Westlake banteringly, "or I'm likely to vote with the other crowd."

"I'll be just as nice to you as I know how," offered Sam. "Just state what you want me to do and I'll do it."

Miss Westlake did not state what she wanted him to do. In place of that she whipped up her horse rather smartly, after a thoughtful silence, and joined Tilloughby, the three of them riding abreast. The next shifting, around a deep mud hole which only left room for an Indian file procession, brought Sam alongside Miss Josephine, and here he stuck for the balance of the ride, leaving Princeman to ride part of the time alone between the two couples, and part of the time to be the third rider with each couple in alternation. Miss Josephine was very much concerned about Mr. Turner's accident, very happy to know how lucky he had been to come off without a scratch, except for the tear in his coat, and very solicitous indeed about any further handling of the obstreperous gray team; and, forgiving him readily under the circ.u.mstances, she renewed her engagement to drive with him the next morning!

Sam rode on home at the side of Miss Westlake, after leaving Miss Stevens at Hollis Creek, in a strange and nebulous state of elation, which continued until bedtime. As he was about to retire he was handed a wire from his brother:

"Just received patent papers meet me at Restview morning train."

CHAPTER XIII

A PLEASURE RIDE WITH MISS STEVENS

The morning train was due at ten o'clock. At ten o'clock also Sam was due at Hollis Creek to take his long deferred drive with Miss Stevens.

It was a slight conflict, her engagement, but the solution to that was very easy. As early in the morning as he dared, Sam called up Miss Josephine.

"I've some glorious news," he said hopefully. "My kid brother will arrive at Restview on the ten o'clock train."

"You are to be congratulated," Miss Stevens told him, with an echo of his own delight.

"But you know we've an engagement to go driving at ten o'clock," he reminded her, still hopefully, but trembling in spirit.

There was an instant of hesitation, which ended in a laugh.

"Don't let that interfere," she said. "We can defer our drive until some other time, when fate is not so determined against it."

"But that doesn't suit me at all," he a.s.sured her. "Why can't you be ready at nine in place of ten, let me call for you at that time and drive over to Restview with me to meet Jack?"

"Is that his name?" she asked in blissfully rea.s.suring tones. "You've never spoken of him as anybody but your 'kid brother.' Why of course I'll drive over to Restview with you. I shall be delighted to meet him."

Privately she had her own fears of what Jack Turner might turn out to be like. Sam was always so good in speaking of him, always held him in such tender regard, such profound admiration, that she feared he might prove to be perfect only in Sam's eyes.

"Good," said Sam. "Just for that I'm going to bring you over some choice blooms that I have been having the gardener save back for me,"

and he turned away from the telephone quite happy in the thought that for once he had been able to kill two birds with one stone without ruffling the feathers of either.

Armed with a huge consignment of brilliant blossoms, enough to transform her room into a fairy bower, he sped quite happily to Hollis Creek.

"Oh, gladiolas!" cried Miss Josephine, as he drove up. "How did you ever guess it! That little bird must have been busy again."

"Honestly, it was the little bird this time. I just had an intuition that you must like them because I do so well," upon which nave statement Miss Josephine merely smiled, and calling her father with pretty peremptoriness, she loaded that heavy gentleman down with the flowers and with instructions concerning them, and then stepped brightly into the tonneau with Sam.

It was a pleasant ride they had to Restview, and it was a pleasant surprise which greeted Miss Josephine when the train arrived, for out of it stepped a youth who was unmistakably a Turner. He was as tall as Sam, but slighter, and as clean a looking boy as one would find in a day's journey. There was that, too, in the hand-clasp between the brothers which proclaimed at once their flawless relationship.

Miss Stevens was so relieved to find the younger Turner so presentable that she took him into her friendship at once. He was that kind of chap anyhow, and in the very first greeting she almost found herself calling him Jack. Just behind him, however, was a little, dried-up man with a complexion the color of old parchment, with sandy, stubby hair shot with gray, and a stubby gray beard shot with red. His lips were a wide straight line, as grim as judgment day. He walked with a slight stoop, but with a quick staccato step which betokened great nervous energy, a quality which the alert expression of his beady eyes confirmed with distinct emphasis.

"h.e.l.lo, Creamer!" hailed Sam to this gentleman. "I didn't expect to see you here quite so soon."

"You had every right to expect me," snapped the little man querulously.

"After all the experimenting I have done for you boys, you had every reason to keep me posted on all your movements; and yet I reckon if I hadn't been in your office yesterday evening when Jack said he was coming down here, you would not have notified me until you had your company all formed. Then I suppose you'd have written to tell me how much stock you had a.s.signed to me. I'm going to be in on the formation of this company, and I'm going to have my say about it!"

"Will you never get over that dyspepsia?" chided Sam easily. "There was no intention of leaving you out."

"Just what I told him," declared Jack, turning from Miss Stevens to them. "I have been swearing to him that as soon as we had found out to-day what we were to do I would have wired him at once."

"You were quite right, Jack," approved Sam, opening the door of the car for them, "and as a proof of it, Creamer, when you return to your office you will find there a letter postmarked yesterday, telling you our exact progress here, and warning you to be in readiness to come on telegram."

"All right, then," said Mr. Creamer, somewhat mollified, "but since that letter's there and I'm here, you might as well tell me what you've done."

Sam stopped the proceedings long enough to introduce Creamer to Miss Stevens after he had closed the door upon them and had taken his own seat by the chauffeur.

"All right," he then said to Mr. Creamer, "I'll begin at the beginning."

He began at the beginning. He told Mr. Creamer all the steps in the development of the company. He detailed to him the names of the gentlemen concerned, and their complete commercial histories, pausing to answer many pertinent side questions and observations from his younger brother, who proved to be as keen a student of business puzzles as Sam himself.

"That's all very well," said Mr. Creamer, "and now I'm here. I want to get away to-night: Can't we form that company to-day? At what figure do you propose offering the original stock?"

"The preferred at fifty, with a par value of a hundred," returned Sam promptly.

"Common?" asked Mr. Creamer crisply.

"One share of common with each two shares of preferred."

"Eh! Well, I've twenty-five thousand dollars to put into this marsh pulp business, if I can have any figure in the management. I want on the board."

"It's quite likely you'll be on the board," returned Sam. "We shall have a very small list of subscribers, and the board will not be unwieldy if every investor is a director."

"Voting power in the common stock?"

"In the common stock," repeated Sam.

"Do you intend to buy any preferred?" asked Creamer.

"A hundred shares."

"How much common do you expect to take out for your patents?"

"Two hundred and fifty thousand," Sam answered without an instant's hesitation.

"Never!" exclaimed Mr. Creamer. "The time for that's gone by, young man, no matter how good your proposition is. It's too old a game. You won't handle my money with control in your hands. I have no objection to letting you have two hundred thousand dollars worth of common stock out of the half million, because that will give you an incentive to make the common worth par; but you shan't at any time have or be able to acquire a share over two hundred and forty-nine thousand; not if I know anything about it! Can you call a meeting as soon as we get there?"

"I think so," replied Sam, with a more or less worried air. "I'll try it. Tell you what I'll do. I'll run right on over to get Mr. Stevens, who wants to join the company, and in the meantime Mr. Westlake or Princeman can round up the others."

For the first time in that drive Miss Stevens had something to say, but she said it with a briefness that was like a dash of cold water to the preoccupied Sam.