y.

"That can only be communicated to you after your signature."

Macnooder was wary, but Macnooder was inquisitive. He rubbed his chin
thoughtfully and considered.

"Is Dink Stover in this, or the Tennessee Shad?" he asked cautiously.

"Not a soul besides us two has the slightest suspicion."

"All right then--I'll sign."

"Skippy, you tell--" said Snorky Green generously, "the glory is yours."

"It's an invention that's got to do with a bathtub, with all bathtubs,"
said Skippy, with a sudden faintness of confidence before the
professional agnosticism which Macnooder, the man of affairs, now
assumed by crossing his legs and donning a large horn-rimmed pair of
spectacles.

"The word is _bathtub_," said Macnooder, who not to appear too eager dug
a knife from his pocket and carefully whittled at the end of his pencil.

"It's a foot regulator!"

"Aha!" said Macnooder, who didn't understand at all.

"You see, Doc, what's the matter with all the bathtubs of to-day," said
Skippy, picking up courage, "your head's at one end and the faucets are
at the other--and, that's an awful distance!"

"Good point!" said Macnooder, nodding.

"Now when you want to let in the cold water you've got to sit up, reach
down and turn it on and that's cold and chilly and drafty as the
mischief, isn't it?"

"That's a very strong point," said Macnooder, who began to see.

"Now, if you could only turn the faucets with your toes, you could lie
quietly under the hot water, couldn't you? . . . But you can't--but you
could if you had foot regulators. And isn't it the simplest thing in
the world to have foot regulators? Only no one has ever thought of it
before?"

"Think what it would do to the bathtub industry, Doc," said Snorky, who
felt the preceding explanation had failed properly to illuminate the
epochal quality of the invention. "Why, Doc, we'd have 'em by the
throat. We'd put every bathtub out of existence. The whole dinged system
is fossilized and we'd show 'em up with the first exhibit. Do you see
it, Doc? Do you get the possibilities?"

"At first sound," said Macnooder, who kept his glance on the end of his
pencil, not to reveal how much his imagination had been stirred, "at
first sound, it interests me strangely. Skippy,--Mr. Bedelle, your hand,
and my congratulations."

"Oh, I say, Doc," said Skippy, with a lump in his throat, "you really do
believe in it, don't you?"

"My boy, there are gold mines in it," said Macnooder