It was not exactly a veiled threat, but it was a hint that checked certain remarks that the Cap"n was about to address to the eavesdropper.
Mr. Bodge took advantage of the truce, and seated himself on the edge of the porch, his peg-leg sticking straight out in forlorn nakedness.
"Investments is resky things in these days, Cap"n Sproul.
Gold-mines--why, you can"t see through "em, nor the ones that run "em. And mark what has been done to you when you invested in the forest primeval! I knowed I was comin" here at just the right time. I"ve got a wonderful power for knowin" them things. So I came. I"m here.
You need a good investment to square yourself for a poor one. Here it is!" He pulled off his dented derby and patted his bald head.
"Skatin"-rink?" inquired the Cap"n, sarcastically.
"Brains!" boomed Mr. Bodge, solemnly. "But in these days brains have to be backed with capital. I"ve tried to fight it out, gents, on my own hook. I said to myself right along, "Brains has got to win in the end, Bodge. Keep on!" But have they? No! Five hundred partunts, gents, locked up in the brains of Eleazar Bodge! Strugglin" to get out! And capital pooled against me! Ignoramuses foolin" the world with makeshifts because they"ve got capital behind "em to boost them and keep others down--and Bodge with five hundred partunts right here waitin"." Again he patted the shiny sphere shoved above the riot of hair and whiskers.
The Cap"n scrutinized the surface with sullen interest.
"They"d better stay inside, whatever they are you"re talkin" about,"
he growled. "They couldn"t pick up no kind of a livin" on the outside."
"Gents, do you know what"s the most solemn sound in all nature?" Mr.
Bodge went on. "I heard it as I came away from my house. It was my woman with the flour-barrel ended up and poundin" on the bottom with the rollin"-pin to get out enough for the last batch of biscuit. The long roll beside the graves of departed heroes ain"t so sad as that sound. I see my oldest boy in the dooryard with the toes of his boots yawed open like sculpins" mouths. My daughter has outgrown her dress till she has to wear two sets of wristers to keep her arms warm--and she looks like dressed poultry. And as for me, I don"t dare to set down enough to get real rested, because my pants are so thin I"m afraid I can"t coax "em along through next winter. I"ve come to the place, gents, where I"ve give up. I can"t fight the trusts any longer without some backin". I"ve got to have somebody take holt of me and get what"s in me out. I reelize it now. It"s in me. Once out it will make me and all them round me rich like a--a--"
When Mr. Bodge halted for a simile Hiram grunted under his breath: "Like a compost heap."
"I was born the way I am--with something about me that the common run of men don"t have. How is it my brains gallop when other brains creep? It"s that mysterious force in me. Seein" is believin". Proof is better than talkin". Cap"n Sproul, you just take hold of one of my whiskers and yank it out. Take any one, so long"s it"s a good lengthy one."
His tone was that of a sleight-of-hand man offering a pack of cards for a draw.
The Cap"n obeyed after Mr. Bodge had repeated his request several times, shoving his mat of beard out invitingly.
Mr. Bodge took the whisker from the Cap"n"s hand, pinched its b.u.t.t firmly between thumb and forefinger and elevated it in front of his face. It stuck straight up. Then it began to bend until its tip almost touched his lips. A moment thus and it bent in the other direction.
"There!" cried Mr. Bodge, triumphantly. "Thomas A. Edison himself couldn"t do that with one of his whiskers."
"You"re right," returned Hiram, gravely. "He"d have to borrow one."
"A man that didn"t understand electricity and the forces of nature, and that real brains of a genius are a regular dynamo, might think that I done that with my breath. But there is a strange power about me. All it needs is capital to develop it. You"ve got the capital, you gents. This ain"t any far-away investment. It"s right here at home. I"m all business when it comes to business." He stuck up a grimy finger. "You"ve got to concede the mysterious power because you"ve seen it for yourselves. Now you come over to my house with me and I"ll show you a few inventions that I"ve been able to put into shape in spite of the d.a.m.nable combination of the trusts."
He slid off the porch and started away, beckoning them after him with the battered derby.
"I"ve heard "em buzz in my time, too," sneered Hiram, pushing back his plug hat, "but that hummin" is about the busiest yet. He could hold a lighted taller candle in his hand and jump off"m a roof and think he was a comet."
But the Cap"n did not seem to be disposed to echo this scorn.
"This here I"ve got may be only a notion, and it prob"ly is," he said, knotting his gray brows, "and it don"t seem sensible. First sight of him you wouldn"t think he could be used. But when I laid eyes on old Dot-and-carry-one there, and when he grabbed into this thing the way he did just as I was thinkin" hard of what Colonel Gid Ward has done to me, it came over me that I was goin" to find a use for him."
"How?" persisted the utilitarian Hiram.
"Don"t have the least idea," confessed the Cap"n. "It"s like pickin"
up a stockin" full of wet mud and walkin" along hopin" that you"ll meet the man you want to swat with it. I"m goin" to pick him up."
He stumped off the piazza and followed Mr. Bodge. And Hiram, stopping to relight his cigar, went along, too, reflecting that when a man has plenty of time on his hands he can afford to spend a little of it on the gratification of curiosity.
The first exhibits in the domain of Bodge were not cheering or suggestive of value. For instance, from among the litter in a tumble-down shop Mr. Bodge produced something in the shape of a five-pointed star that he called his "Anti-stagger Shoe."
"I saw old Ike Bradley go past here with a hard-cider jag that looped over till its aidges dragged on the ground," he explained. "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-gla.s.s 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 wra.s.slin" 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."
They followed him into a scraggly orchard, and he broke a crotched limb from a tree. With a "leg" of this twig clutched firmly in either hand he stumped about on the sward until the crotch suddenly turned downward.
"There"s runnin" water there," announced the wizard, stabbing the soil with his peg-leg. "I can locate a well anywhere, any place. When I use willer for a wand it will twist in my hands till the bark peels off. You see, I"m full of it--whatever it is. I showed you that much with the whisker. I started in easy with you. It makes me dizzy sometimes to foller myself. I have to be careful and let out a link at a time, or I"d take folks right off"m their feet. Now you come with me and keep cool--or as cool as you can, because I"m goin" to tell you something that will give you sort of a mind-colic if you ain"t careful how you take it in."
He pegged ahead of them, led the way around behind a barn that was skeow-wowed in the last stages of dilapidation, and faced them with excitement vibrating his streaming whiskers.
"This, now," he declared, "is just as though I took you into a national bank, throwed open the safe door, and said: "Gents, help yourselves!""
He drew a curious object out of the breast pocket of his faded jumper.
It was the tip of a cow"s horn securely plugged. Into this plug were inserted two strips of whalebone, and these he grasped, as he had clutched the "legs" of the apple-tree wand.
"One of you lay some gold and silver down on the ground," he requested.
"I"d do it, but I ain"t got a cent in my pocket."
Hiram obeyed, his expression plainly showing his curiosity.
When Mr. Bodge advanced and stood astride over the money, the cow"s horn turned downward and the whalebone strips twisted.
"It"s a divinin"-rod to find buried treasure," said Mr. Bodge; "and it"s the only one in the world like it, because I made it myself, and I wouldn"t tell an angel the secret of the stuff I"ve plugged in there. You see for yourself what it will do when it comes near gold or silver."
Hiram turned a cold stare on his wistful eagerness.
"I don"t know what you"ve got in there, nor why it acts that way,"
said the showman, "but from what I know about money, the most of it"s well taken care of by the men that own it; and just what good it"s goin" to do to play pointer-dog with that thing there, and go round and flush loose change and savin"s-banks, is more than I can figger."
Mr. Bodge merely smiled a mysterious and superior smile.
"Cap"n Sproul," said he, "in your seafarin" days didn"t you used to hear the sailormen sing this?" and he piped in weak falsetto: