me when you was talkin' to me the other night," he says,
"that if there was one man in New York who could see Calder and make
him realize the merits of my invention, you were that man! Will you
try it?"

"I'll _do_ it!" answers Alex. "Gimme the model and you'll hear from me
in a few days. Do you wish to sell the neckbands themselves, or just
the patent on your idea?"

"I don't care who makes the neckbands," says Simmons, "as long as I get
paid for my invention! Of course, I don't expect you to help me for
nothing, either."

"Ha! ha!" I butts in. "That bird wouldn't tell you the time for
nothing You'll be lucky if you ever even see that invention any more!"

"Don't mind my cousin," Alex tells him. "Outside of a tendency to the
measles, he's the worst thing we got in our family! We'll take up the
financial end of this later."

Bright and early the next mornin', or eleven o'clock to be exact, Alex
invites me to go with him so's I can watch how he would go about seein'
the president of the Brown-Calder Company and sellin' him the Simmons
patent collar button. As they is always a chance that Alex will fall
down, I went along. We had no trouble at all landin' outside the
president's office, but once we got there it was different.

"Is Mister Calder in?" says Alex to a blond stenographer, which looks
like them movie queens would like to.

She puts four stray hairs back of her left ear and arises.

"Have you got an appointment?" she inquires.

"No," grins Alex, "my nose got that way from bein' hit with a baseball."

She had lovely teeth and showed 'em to us.

"Cards?" she says next, lookin' from one of us to the other.

"I'll play these!" says Alex. "Listen! I wanna go in Mister Calder's
office without bein' announced. I ain't seen him for years and he'll
be tickled silly when we meet. I wanna sneak in and just be there the
first time he looks around. I'm a surprise--see?"

She looks kinda doubtful.

"W-e-ll, I don't know," she says. "I've only been here since
yesterday, but my orders is to let nobody past this gate without first
findin' out their business and so forth. Still and all, I don't wanna
be harsh with none of the boss's old college chums or nothin' like
that. If you can guarantee I won't lose my job, I'll let you get away
with it."

"If you lose your job," says Alex, openin' the gate and pullin' me in
after him, "I'll hire you for five dollars more than you're gettin'
here. All ri