Читать книгу Skippy Bedelle - Owen Johnson - Страница 17

TEN minutes later Snorky Green was standing in a daze, one hand on an open Bible—taken for the occasion from the room of the Pink Rabbit—and gazing into the flushed countenance of his roommate, who was saying:

"Snorky, are you a Christian?"

"Say, what do you—"

"No matter—you believe in God!"

"Sure I do."

"Then swear!"

"Swear what?"

"Swear never to reveal to man, woman or child what I am about to disclose to you."

"I swear!"

"As I am a Christian and believe in God."

"As I am a Christian and believe in God."

"And if I do may God strike with his afflictions those I love best—"

"Oh, I say—"

"Say it."

Snorky reluctantly subscribed to this terrible oath and five minutes later the Secret was his.

"Great Jehosophat!"

"Do you see it?"

"Do I see it?" Snorky tore from his throat the collar that was stifling him. "My aunt's cat's pants!" he said solemnly. "Skippy, we'll be billionaires!"

"We'll buy a yacht and live on Fifth Avenue," said Skippy, who for sentimental reasons suppressed any reference to Lillian Russell.

"Say this is so big we've got to take every precaution," said Green, whose imagination was on more practical lines. "No one must even suspect until we've got this drawn up and patented."

"That's what worries me."

Snorky Green cautiously opened the door and investigated the hall, then returning drew up his chair and said in a confidential whisper:

"Skippy, when this goes through every bathtub in the country will go in the scrap heap. Think of that!"

"I have thought of that."

"It'll do what the pneumatic tube did to the bicycle."

"What the trolley did to the horse-car!"

"It's revolutionary."

"It is."

"Enormous!"

"Stupendous!"

They shook hands and Skippy, bursting with happiness, said impulsively:

"Old friend, whatever I make—you're down for half."

"No, no. Two-thirds to you—one-third to me," said Snorky, as Cæsar putting from him the proffered crown.

"I won't have it—share and share alike," said Skippy in a rush of emotion.

"But, Skippy, do you realize what even one-third will mean!" said Snorky, in a voice trembling with the vision of the future. He went nervously to the desk and returned with pad and pencil. "Write down these figures."

"Ought we to?"

"We'll destroy it afterward. Put down ninety-two million."

"What's that?"

"The population of the United States."

"I see—ninety-two it is."

"Divide that by—by—well let's be conservative."

"It's better."

"Let's say there's one bathtub to every fifty-five inhabitants."

"I think that's too conservative."

"We mustn't let our imagination run away with us," said Snorky. "One in fifty and then we're safe."

"Well, let's say two million bathtubs," said Skippy, who disliked figures, and felt the first promptings of avarice.

"So be it. Two million bathtubs and on every tub our royalty!"

"What'll we ask?"

"What do you suppose a bathtub averages!"

"Say fifty dollars, at ten per cent—that would be five dollars coming to us."

"Five dollars, but Skippy, isn't that exorbitant?"

"You forget we'll be in a position to dictate."

"Holy Maria!"

Under 2,000,000 he wrote the figure five and slowly noted the colossal result.

"Do you realize what that means?"

"It means ten million dollars!"

"No, it means more than that—it means that if the Bathtub Combine came to us to-day and offered us a million dollars—it would be suicide to accept it!"

Skippy's eyes dilated with excitement. Slowly he tore the sheet of paper in two.

"Burn it—take no chances," said Snorky, who proceeded to light a match.

"And that's only the United States," said Skippy in a whisper.

"There's Canada and the British Empire!"

"But Englishmen carry rubber tubs with them."

"They can be educated."

"The French don't bathe," said Skippy mournfully.

"That'll come."

"Holy cats, Rockefeller won't be in it!" said Skippy, who was suffocating. "Snorky, what I said goes! Money isn't everything. No—sentiment's bigger. Fifty-fifty, I said, and fifty-fifty it stands!"

"Then I'll put money into it," said Snorky, offering his hand. "I'll go to my father. But not now—not a word until we get the patent. If any one gets the idea we're lost!"

Skippy jumped at the sound of Butsy White's elephantine descent of the stairs.

"And Skippy," said Snorky Green, with a sudden realization of a man's frailties, "whatever you do—never tell a woman. You understand?"

Skippy, whose relations with the opposite sex were of the cat-and-dog variety, solemnly raised his hand.

"I swear."

"Now to be practical. I say, Skippy, we do have to invent the regulator, you know."