-I'm sorry!" pipes Edgar, movin' away with that little, nervous
step of his. "I couldn't eat a thing. I got a headache, I
guess--I--excuse me, but I'll see you all again."

With that he blows.

"Ain't he the limit?" inquires Mrs. Simmons, grabbin' the choicest bits
of that ham and goin' south with it.

"Mine's worse!" remarks the wife. "What would them men ever do without
us?"

"Save money!" I says. "Slip me some of that cold chicken, will you?--I
got a stomach, too!"

Well, we didn't see Edgar Simmons no more that night. In fact it was
all of two weeks before he appeared again, and then it was by way of
the phone. He asked me if I would tell my Cousin Alex to come down at
once, he had somethin' very important to tell him. I waited till
supper had come and gone that night, and then I got hold of Alex. The
wife and Mrs. Simmons went to the theatre together and I arranged the
conference for my flat. The minute Alex arrived I phoned Simmons and
he come right up. He's all excited over somethin' and he's got a
parcel under his arm.

"I have followed your advice," he tells Alex, "and at last I've
invented something practical. There's millions in it!"

"What?" I says. "The mint?"

Alex kicks me in the shins under the table so hard that I moaned aloud.

"What is it?" he asks.

Simmons unwraps the parcel and pulls out a piece of cloth. It's the
neckband of a shirt and the same as the ordinary neckband in every
way--except it's got collar buttons _built right into it_!

"What's the idea?" I asks.

"Heavens, man, can't you grasp it?" says Simmons, slammin' the table
with his fist. "Here we have the only collar button in the world _that
can't be lost_! You never have to look for it, because it's always
attached to the shirt. You can't lose the button unless you lose the
shirt! It's made right with it! It--"

"Wait!" butts in Alex, leapin' to his feet. "Simmons--you have got
somethin'! Is it patented?"

"Yes," says Simmons.

"Have you felt out the shirt people on it?" asks Alex next.

"That's what I wanted to see _you_ about," says Simmons. "I can't get
them to look at it! I get shifted from one subordinate to another and
they seem to think I'm some sort of a crank. If I could only get it
before Philip Calder, the president of the Brown-Calder Shirt Company,
I'd be made!"

"Hmm!" grunts Alex. "Well, what d'ye want _me_ to do?"

Simmons coughs and fidgets with the button.

"It struck