“Thanks,” acknowledged Bruce.  “I hadn’t contemplated enlarging the factory, but I see I shall need to.”

“Johnny isn’t kidding, Bruce,” Val shrewdly warned him.

“Neither am I,” maintained Bruce stoutly.  “I’ll have that comb on the market so quickly that you can almost afford to wait for it.  Royalty, Johnny?”

“No,” denied Johnny promptly.  “I’ll sell it to you outright for ten thousand dollars, me to sign any sort of papers you need and you to pay the patent lawyer.”

“I’d be robbing you,” protested Bruce.  “I should think you’d want to retain an interest in the manufacture, or at least a royalty.  There’d be a lot more money in it for you.”

“Wait just a minute,” directed Loring, sitting down at his typewriting machine from which the neat operator had fled at the very beginning of the social invasion.

For the next two or three minutes the rapidfire click of the keys under Loring’s practiced fingers drowned all other sound, and then he jerked off a paper.

“Now, Johnny, you sign this,” he ordered.  “It is a rather legal transfer, in line with your other dubious operations of the day, of all your rights in the Johnny Gamble comb to one Bruce Townley, here present.  Bruce, give Johnny your check for the ten thousand dollars.”

“All right, if you fellows are bound to have it that way,” agreed Bruce.  “I haven’t a check-book with me, Johnny, but I’ll send it up to you from the office to-morrow.”

“But, Bruce, that won’t do!” hastily urged Constance.  “He must have the check right now.  Don’t you see he only has a million and ten thousand dollars?  He owes Polly five thousand and me fifteen thousand, and if you give him ten thousand dollars for his invention he’ll have a million and how much?  I’m all mixed up!  But I do know this:  that he’ll have his million dollars left exactly to the cent!”

“I—­I see,” stuttered Bruce in a fever of anxiety to help Johnny achieve his million in the specified time.  “I—­I’m sorry I haven’t my check-book,” and he looked about him hopelessly.

Just in front of his chest was suspended a check, already made out in favor of Johnny Gamble, in the amount of ten thousand dollars, properly dated and lacking only Bruce’s signature.  It was smiling Sammy Chirp who had been quietly thoughtful enough to remember that he and Bruce did business at the same bank.

“The nation is saved!” cheered Val Russel as Bruce dropped down at Loring’s desk.  Johnny was already busy writing.

“Do hurry!” urged Constance.  “It’s two minutes of four!”

Johnny jumped up with two checks on the First National Bank and passed one to Constance and one to Polly.

“Tough luck!” suddenly commented Val Russel.  “It just occurs to me that our friend Johnny will have to break into his million to pay for his blow-out.”

“I’m glad of it,” snapped Morton Washer.  “He took an eighth of that million out of my pocket.  He can afford to give a dinner, with salted almonds and real imported champagne at every plate.”