"Yes," Graham returned: "the gas arrangement."
"It's a curious idea--quite different from the one I told you about; but I kinda took to it. There might be something to it, and again there mightn't. I've been thinking I might be willing to risk a few dollars on it, if we could come to terms."
"Do you mean it, really?" said old Sam eagerly.
"Not to invest in it, so to speak; I don't think it's chances are strong enough for that. But if you'd care to sell the patent outright and aren't too ambitious, we might make a dicker. What d'you say?"
"Why, yes," said Graham, quivering with anticipation. "Yes, indeed, if--"
"If you really think it's worth anything, sir."
"Well, as I say, there's no telling; but I was thinking about it at dinner, and I sort of concluded I'd like to own that burner, so I made out a little bill of sale, and I says to myself, says I: 'If Graham will take five hundred dollars for that patent, I'll give him spot cash, right in his hand,' says I."
With this Burnham tipped back in his chair, and brought forth a wallet from which he drew a sheet of paper and several bills.
"Five hundred dollars!" repeated Graham, thunderstruck by this munificence.
"Yes, sir: five hundred, cash! To tell you the truth--guess you don't know it--I heard at the bank that they didn't intend to extend the time on that note of yours, and I thought this five hundred would come in handy, and kind of wanted to help you out. Now what do you say?"
He flourished the bills under Graham's nose and waited, entirely at ease as to his answer.
"Well," said the old man, "it is kind of you, sir--very kind. Everybody's been good to me recently--or else I'm dreamin'."
"Why, I hope it won't lose any money for you, Mr. Burnham," Sam hesitated, with his ineradicable sense of fairness and square-dealing. "Making gas from crude oil ought to--"
Duncan never heard the end of that speech. For some moments he had been listening intently, trying to recollect something. The name of Burnham plucked a string on the instrument of his memory; he knew he had heard it, some place, some time in the past; but how, or when, or in respect to what he could not make up his mind. It had required Sam's reference to gas and crude oil to close the circuit. Then he remembered: Kellogg had mentioned a man by the name of Burnham who was "on the track of" an important invention for making gas from crude oil. This must be the man, Burnham, the tracker; and poor old Graham must be the tracked....