d. "I tied
cross-pieces onto his feet and he went along all level. Now see how
a quick mind like mine acts? Here's the anti-stagger shoe. To be kept
in all city clubs and et cetry. Let like umbrellas. Five places in
each shoe for a man to shove his foot. Can't miss it. Then he starts
off braced front, sides, and behind."

Hiram sniffed and the Cap'n was pensive, his thoughts apparently
active, but not concerned in any way with the "Anti-stagger Shoe."

The "Patent Cat Identifier and Introducer," exhibited in actual
operation in the Bodge home, attracted more favorable attention from
inspecting capital. Mr. Bodge explained that this device allowed a
hard-working man to sleep after he once got into bed, and saved his
wife from running around nights in her bare feet and getting cold
and incurring disease and doctors' bills. It was an admitted fact
in natural history, he stated, that the uneasy feline is either
yowling to be let out or meowing on the window-sill to be let in.
With quiet pride the inventor pointed to a panel in the door, hinged
at the top. This permitted egress, but not ingress.

"An ordinary, cheap inventor would have had the panel swing both
ways," said Mr. Bodge, "and he would have a kitchen full of strange
cats, with a skunk or two throwed in for luck. You see that I've hinged
a pane of winder-glass and hitched it to a bevelled stick that tips
inward. Cat gets up on the sill outside and meows. Dog runs to the
winder and stands up to see, and puts his paws on the stick because
it's his nature for to do so. Pane tips in. If it's our cat, dog don't
stop her comin' in. If it's a strange cat--br-r-r, wow-wow! Off she
goes!"

Mr. Bodge noted with satisfaction the gleam of interest in capital's
eyes.

"You can reckon that at least a million families in this country own
cats--and the nature of cats and dogs can be depended on to be the
same," said Mr. Bodge. "It's a self-actin' proposition, this
identifier and introducer; that means fortunes for all concerned
just as soon as capital gets behind it. And I've got five hundred
bigger partunts wrasslin' around in my head."

But Cap'n Sproul continued to be absorbed in thought, as though the
solution of a problem still eluded him.

"But if capital takes holt of me," proceeded Mr. Bodge, "I want
capital to have the full layout. There ain't goin' to be no reserves,
the same as there is with most of these cheatin' corporations these
days. You come with me."