Hector?" says Alex. "Where would _you_ like to go, Mister
Sells?"

Hector gets up and fumbles with his hat.

"Say!" he says. "Let's all go out and see the ball game, heh?"

CHAPTER IV

DON'T GIVE UP THE TIP!

Listen! If you ever wake up some mornin' with an idea for something
new--whether it's a soup, a vaudeville act or a religion--and you
expect to cash on it, go to the nearest hardware store and ask the guy
behind the counter how much he'll take for all the locks in the joint.
Take 'em at any price and fasten 'em on the door of the safe where you
keep the idea--the same bein' your mouth--and then throw the keys in
any good, deep river!

If the inventors of stud poker, movin' pictures, the alligator pear,
pneumonia and so forth had gone around talkin' about them things before
they got 'em patented they never would of took in a nickel on their
idea, but their _friends_ would be draggin' down the royalties yet!
The minute you tip another guy to your stunt it's yours and his both.
He mightn't _mean_ to steal your stuff, but he can't help himself. The
more he thinks about it, the better he likes it, and it ain't long
before he gets believin' it was _his_ idea anyways and where do you get
off by claimin' you thought of it?

I admit freely that you can't cash on your scheme unless you get it
before the world, but the thing is to wait till you got it covered with
so many copyrights and patents that not even the James Boys could steal
it and then _tell 'em all at once_!

If Edgar Simmons had of did that, he'd be a rich millionaire to-day
instead of havin' to cut his winnin's with Alex. Edgar had an idea,
and he didn't know what to do with it.

Alex did!

The wife and I is sittin' down to the evenin' meal one night, when the
telephone rings. Only one of us got up.

"Hello!" I says.

"Hello!" is the answer. "This is Alex. What would you say to me
runnin' up there to supper to-night?"

"Nothin'," I answers. "I see where they was a guy got pinched only
last week for swearin' over the phone!"

"Look here!" he says, kinda peeved. "Do you want me to come up there
to-night or don't you?"

"Don't you!" I says.

"They's plenty of places where they would be glad to have me to
dinner," he snarls. "Places that is just as good as yours!"

"How do _you_ know how good they are?" I says. "You ain't never tried
no dinners nowheres else but up here."

"They ain't no man can keep me from seein' my cous