“Is Paul in?” he asked, after he had introduced himself and expressed his intense gratification at meeting such a charming lady.
Poor Mrs. Perkins, all in a flutter, invited her glittering guest into the front parlor, drew up the shades, which were rarely raised, and rejoined that Paul was still at school, but would be home shortly.
“Perhaps it is just as well,” smiled Mr. Hunt, displaying a row of white, gleaming teeth. “He is but a lad, and I have come to talk over something which, perhaps, a woman of the world, an intelligent woman like yourself, is more competent to discuss than a mere boy.”
“Paul is a mighty bright boy,” remarked Mrs. Perkins, bridling somewhat in defense of Paul, but coloring and simpering with pleasure at the compliment paid to her.
“Exactly,” agreed Mr. Hunt amiably; “a very bright boy. A credit to the town, madam. But Paul has been hiding his light under a bushel, so to speak. He has not been radiating the effulgence of inventive genius as he should; he has been—in short,” concluded Mr. Hunt, “Paul needs bringing out.”
“Bringing out?” gasped Mrs. Perkins, to whom much of this had been so much Greek.
“Just so, my dear Mrs. Perkins, and I—Stonington Hunt—am the man to do it. Why, I understand that at this very moment he has in your stables a remarkable—I may say, a wonderful invention.”
Mrs. Perkins had never heard the wagon house referred to as “stables” before, and, quite carried away by this glittering gentleman’s kindly interest and his magnificent manner, she rejoined that Paul had got “something of some sort” out there.
“Something, my dear madam,” glowed Mr. Hunt; “it is more than a something. It is an achievement. My boy Freeman—a dear friend of your son’s—told me about it—there’s no objection to my seeing it, I hope. I called on purpose.”
“Why, I—really, sir, I don’t know if Paul would like it,” palpitated Mrs. Perkins. “You see, he—he is very particular about letting anybody see the invention. He’s trying for a patent on it at Washington now.”
“Ah, then it is not yet patented?” There was an eager catch in Mr. Hunt’s voice. For an instant his composed manner seemed to lose its icy calm. But in a moment he was himself again. “He should certainly get it patented at once, madam,” he went on, in his usual oily tones—“which brings us at once to the point. I am here to offer him a price for his invention if it seems at all practicable.”