“Oh, sir!” gasped Mrs. Perkins, quite overcome. “You would buy it?”
“Yes, madam, I, Stonington Hunt, will buy it. I am prepared to offer,” he paused as if in doubt whether to mention the sum in one breath, “one hundred dollars for the exclusive right to manufacture it.”
“A hundred dollars!” exclaimed Mrs. Perkins, who had seen few lump sums of money since her husband had died. “Why, sir, it is only a plaything of the boy’s.”
“If you will let me see it, I will judge of that,” put in Mr. Hunt softly. “Can we not go out to your stable and view it now?”
“Why, I—Paul has the key,” stammered Mrs. Perkins.
“Confound the brat!” muttered Mr. Hunt, and then aloud he purred: “But you have another one, my dear madam, I don’t doubt.”
“Yes,” confessed Mrs. Perkins; “there is one on my dead husband’s key ring. But I don’t know if Paul would like it. You see——”
“My dear madam,” put in Mr. Hunt, in his most impressive manner, “I am a man of the world, you are a woman of the world. Do we not know better than children what is best for them? I ask you, madam, as a woman of experience, do we not?”
“I—I—yes, I suppose so,” trembled Mrs. Perkins, quite carried away by all this. “If you’ll wait a second, sir, I’ll get the key.”
“Oh, dear, I do hope Paul won’t be mad,” she thought, as she hastened upstairs on her errand.
“Easier than I thought,” muttered Mr. Hunt, gazing intently at the pink-eyed china dog with blue spots that stood upon the mantel. “If the machine is what Freeman described it to be, there should be money in it, and where there is money, there you’ll find Stonington Hunt.”
Mrs. Perkins, with a shawl thrown over her head, was soon downstairs again.
“Now, sir,” she said, preparing to lead the way, but as they emerged from the door and started to take the brick path leading to the wagon house, a sudden sound of approaching boyish voices was heard.
“Why, here comes Paul now, with three of his friends,” exclaimed Mrs. Perkins, gazing across the white picket fence and up the street.
“Confound the luck,” ground out Mr. Hunt, with a very unangelic expression on his face, “it will need all my tact to carry this through if the cub proves obstinate.”
“Well, madam,” he said inquiringly, the next minute, as Mrs. Perkins still lingered by the fence.