Part 3

"Rather," said Oberon. "Your original three wishes have been watered until we find in going over our books for the second year that they reach the sum total of three million five hundred and sixty-nine thousand four hundred and thirty-seven, and that you still have an unexpended balance on hand of four hundred and ninety-seven thousand three hundred and seventy-four wishes. The situation is just this," he continued. "Our company has been kept so busy honoring your drafts that we are threatened with a general strike. We didn't mind building you a chateau and furbishing up your old chicken-farm, and setting you up for life, but when you enter into negotiations with old John W. Midas to incorporate yourself into a wish trust we feel that the time has come to call a halt. The fairies are honest, and no obligation of theirs will ever be repudiated, but we think that a man who tries to build up a billion-dollar corporation to deal in wishes on an investment of one poached egg is just a leetle unreasonable. Even Rockernegie had a trifle more than a paper of tacks when he founded the iron trust."

"By ginger, Oberon," said Wilbraham, "you are right! I _have_ rather put it on to you people and I'm sorry. I wouldn't embarrass you good fairies for anything in the world."

"Good!" cried Oberon, overjoyed. "I thought you would feel that way. Just think for one moment what it would mean for us if the Great Wish Syndicate were started as a going concern, with a board of directors made up of men like John W. Midas, Rockernegie, and old Bondifeller running things. Why, there aren't fairies enough in the world to keep up with those men, and the whole business world would come down with a crash. Their wish would elect a whole Congress. If they wished the Senate out of Washington and located on Wall Street, you'd soon find it so, and, by thunder, Wilbraham, every four years they'd wish somebody in the White House with a great capacity for taking orders and not enough spine to fill an umbrella cover, and the public would be powerless."

Wilbraham gazed thoughtfully out of the window. A dazzling prospect of imperial proportions loomed up before his vision, and the temptation was terrible, but in the end common sense came to the rescue.

"It would be a terrible nuisance," he muttered to himself, and then turning to Oberon he asked: "What is your proposition?"

"A compromise," said the fairy. "If you'll give up your right to further wishes on our account we will place you in a position where, for the rest of your natural life, you will always have four dollars more than you need, and in addition to that, as a compliment to Mrs. Wilbraham, she can have everything she wants."

"Ha!" said Wilbraham, dubiously. "I--I don't think I'd like that exactly. She might want something I didn't want her to have."

"Very well, then," said the fairy, with a broad smile. "We'll make you the flat proposition--you give us a quit-claim deed to all your future right, title, and interest in our wishes, and we will guarantee that as long as you live you will, upon every occasion, find in your pocket five dollars more than you need."

"Make it seven and I'll go you!" cried Wilbraham, really enthusiastic over the suggestion.

"Sure!" returned Oberon with a deep sigh of relief.

* * * * *

"Well, dearest," said Wilbraham that night as he sat down at his onyx dinner-table, "I've gone out of the wish business."

His wife's eyes lit up with a glow of happiness.

"You have?" she cried, delightedly.

"Yes," said Wilbraham; and then he told her of Oberon's call, and the new arrangement, and was rejoiced beyond measure to receive her approval of it.

"I am so glad, Richard," she murmured, with a sigh of content. "I have been kept so busy for two years trying to think of new things to wish for that I have had no time to enjoy all the beautiful things we have."

"And it isn't bad to have seven dollars more than you need whenever you need it, is it, dearest?"

"Bad, Richard?" she returned. "Bad? I should say not, my beloved. To have seven dollars more than you need at all times is, to my mind, the height of an ideal prosperity. I need five thousand dollars at this very minute to pay my milliner's bill."

"And here it is," said her husband, taking five crisp one-thousand-dollar bills from his vest pocket and handing them to her. "And here are seven brand-new ones besides. The fairies are true to their bargain."

And they lived affluently forever afterward, although Midas and his confreres did sue Wilbraham for a hundred million dollars for breach of contract, securing judgment for twenty-nine million dollars, the which Wilbraham paid before leaving the court-room, departing therefrom with a balance of one five and two one dollar bills to the good.

And that is why, my dear children, when you see the Wilbraham motor chugging along the highway, if you look closely you will see painted on the door of the car a simple crest, a poached egg _dormant_ upon a piece of toast _couchant_, and underneath it, in golden letters on a scroll, the family motto, _Hic semper septimus_.

III

PUSS, THE PROMOTER

Once upon a time, not many years ago, my children, there was a well-known captain of industry who at his death had no other legacy to leave to his three sons than fourteen bank accounts, all of them overdrawn, a couple of automobiles without any tires on their wheels, and an Angora cat which had taken several prizes at the annual cat show in New York, and upon more than one occasion had had its picture printed in the society columns of the Sunday newspapers.

The eldest son took over the bank accounts, and by the negotiation of several large checks among his friends, each one dated several months ahead, had managed to escape to Venezuela with a comfortable fortune, where, after several revolutions, he found himself in the President's cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury. He further enriched himself in this office by the private sale of national bonds to innocent investors, prior to his departure for Algiers, and became, before his death, a leading spirit in that interesting colony, and an influential member of the Missionary Society of East Africa.

The second son took the automobiles, and with a pot of paint and eight old life-preservers, relics of the palmy days when his father was a famous yachtsman, so furbished them up that he was able to sell them f. o. b. to a couple of farmers in central Connecticut for five thousand dollars, which he invested in Steel Common when it was sulking along between 10 and 12 on a margin of five per cent., and, selling out at 84-7/8, he was soon able to retire to the serene joys and quiet pleasures of the Great White Way, along whose verdured slopes he pranked and played until paresis called him at the ripe age of twenty-seven years. But to the youngest son, poor Jack Dinwiddie, by the terms of his father's will, fell only the residue of the estate after the two brothers had had their shares; in other words, the Angora cat!

It was, indeed, a melancholy situation, for poor Jack, like a great many other sons of men of presumably large wealth, had studied only political economy at college, and of the domestic variety knew nothing. He was an honorary member of the Consumers' League, but of the methods of the Producers' Union he knew little, and here at the age of twenty-two he found himself fatherless, penniless, and without any visible means of support in the line of earning capacity.

"Well, Puss," he said, gloomily, as he gazed at his Angora cat, who was sitting on top of a pile of unpaid bills in Jack's bachelor apartment, washing his face with his right paw, "it looks to me as if we were up against it. The governor has gone to his last account, my allowance has ceased, and you are the only clear and unencumbered asset in my possession, barring this last cigarette and two matches loaned to me by a kind gentleman upon the street to whom I applied recently for a light."

He paused and lit the cigarette, while Puss, unmindful of the pathos of the situation, continued his prinking, giving especial attention to his whiskers, brushing them upward from his lips until he bore a not very remote resemblance to the Kaiser himself.

"I suppose I could sell you, Bill," the young man went on. "Angora cats, with a pedigree dating back to Dick Whittington's time and a bunch of blue ribbons big enough to supply every prohibitionist in the Union with a bowknot for the lapel of his coat, must have some market value, especially in a time like this, when anything resembling beef is worth its weight in radium; but I won't do it, old man. You've been a mighty good cat to me, and as long as there is a drop of chalk and water left in this world you shall have your morning dish of milk."

It was then that a very singular thing happened.

"That's all I wanted to know, Jack," purred the cat, jumping to the floor and rubbing his sleek sides up against his master's leg affectionately. "If we are not to be separated, it is up to me to show myself the worthy descendant of a noble and resourceful ancestry. There is a tradition in our family that no backyard fence has ever been so hard to climb that we couldn't get over it. Do you know who I am?"

"Why, yes," said Jack, rubbing his eyes in astonishment, for he had never heard the cat speak before. "You are Angora Bill, the Champion Chinchilla of fourteen consecutive annual shows, and the neatest little ratter that ever lived."

"I am more than that," replied the cat, proudly. "I am the direct lineal descendant of the original Puss in Boots, and one of the advance agents of prosperity."

Jacked laughed even in his misery.

"Those days have gone, Puss," he said, wearily. "There are no longer any fairies to help poor beggars like me out of a hole, Bill--"

"That's what you think," smiled puss, scratching his left ear with his right hind-paw; "but, my dear boy, my great-great-great-great-grandfather was a back-fence piker alongside of myself, who, all unknown to you, am one of the board of directors of the United States Fairy Company, of 3007 Wall Street, New York. If you will do just what I tell you, my boy, we shall emerge from this little embarrassment of ours with flying colors, and spend our declining years in a little onyx bungalow on the corner of Bond Avenue and Easy Street that will make the Vandergilt palace up on the Plaza look like a particularly cheap and self-effacing owl-wagon."

Jack gazed mournfully at his companion. Surely, he thought, our misfortunes have driven him crazy. Nevertheless he decided to humor the creature.

"What would you have me do, Puss?" he asked.

"Nothing much," replied the cat. "Just pack your suit-case with your few remaining collars and other garments, fill your five trunks with Sunday newspapers and unpaid bills, and move at once into the Waldorf-Astoria, taking a suite of five rooms and a bath."

"On nothing?" demanded the astonished youth.

"You lose less on nothing than you would if you had something to lose," retorted puss, with a wise air. "Do as I say. Lend me a pair of your boots, a derby hat, and your fur-lined ulster, and wait for me in your apartment. Go at once to the hotel, register, and ask if there are any letters or messages for you, and all will be well. You might register as Horace Vanderpoel, of Cincinnati, or St. Louis, or any other old place at a comfortable distance from New York. Let your luggage precede you."

The cat spoke in a masterful tone that inspired confidence. As he delivered his instructions he donned his master's boots and fur-lined overcoat, and then putting the derby hat jauntily upon his head he sauntered forth.

"Good-bye, Jack," he said, as he reached the door. "Follow my instructions to the very last detail, and before long you'll be wearing diamonds that will make the average incandescent electric light look like an eclipse."

Now Jack was a venturesome youth and ready at all times for any kind of an unusual experience; so, deeply impressed by the mere fact of the cat's having spoken at all, he decided to follow out his instructions to the letter. His five trunks, filled to the brim with papers and bills and any other objects of _virtu_ that came handy, were dispatched at once to the Waldorf, and in about three hours he himself followed them, registering in a large, bold hand as Horace Vanderpoel, of Kansas City, in the hotel book.

"I want a suite of five rooms and a bath," said Jack.

"Certainly, Mr. Vanderpoel," said the room-clerk, courteously. "We had already made a reservation for you, sir. We will give you suite number forty-two on the first floor."

"Good!" said Jack. "I wasn't aware that my coming had been heralded--in fact, I have been wanting to have it kept as quiet as possible. Important negotiations, you know."

"We quite understand, Mr. Vanderpoel," said the clerk.

"Have any letters or telephone messages been received for me?" Jack demanded.

"No letters, sir," replied the clerk, "but--Rockernegie's secretary 'phoned us about an hour ago requesting us to ask you to let him know the minute you arrived--fact is, sir, that is how we came to be on the lookout for you."

"Rockernegie, eh?" said Jack, scratching his head with a puzzled air. "Well," he added with a laugh, "I guess he can wait a bit. Have J. W. Midas & Co. rung me up yet?"

"Not yet, sir," said the clerk.

"Well, I'm going down-stairs to be shaved," said Jack. "If Midas does ring me up let me know."

He chuckled as he went down to the barber-shop.

"Bill is a great cat," he muttered to himself. "Rockernegie! Gee! Here's hoping he won't forget Midas and Bondifeller."

He sat down in the barber's chair and was soon richly lathered. The barber was about to apply the razor, when a small boy clad in a perfect rash of buttons entered the shop.

"NUMBER FORTY-TWO, please!" he cried. "Gentleman number FORTY-TWO!"

"Wait a minute, Barber," said Jack. "That's my number. Here, boy, what is it?"

"Wanted on the telephone, sir," said the boy.

"Find out who it is," said Jack, impatiently.

"Yes, sir," said the boy. "I have, sir. They told me to tell you, sir, that Mr. Bondifeller was on the 'phone, sir."

"Oh, is that all?" grinned Jack. "Well, you tell 'em to tell Mr. Bondifeller that I am too busy just at present to see him. You might tell him, too, that I haven't anything to add to what I said in my last letter. If he doesn't like that, the deal is off."

There was a considerable craning of necks in the neighboring chairs, for Jack had not thought to address his remarks to the lad in tones suggestive of a confidential communication. The boy staggered slightly on his feet, but managed to get away without dropping under the weight of such a message, and Jack, lying back in his chair, requested the barber to proceed.

"Bill is a great cat!" he chuckled.

"Beg pardon?" queried the barber.

"I say don't shave me too close," said Jack.

The shave over, Jack retired to his apartment and found in suite number forty-two everything that the heart of man could desire, and throughout the great caravansary the name of Horace Vanderpoel was held in high honor. To be sure they had never heard of him before, but the associate of these brilliant dignitaries of the financial world must indeed be somebody, even in New York! Here he sat, awaiting developments, his amusement as well as his interest in the adventure increasing momentarily. An hour passed and then a card was brought to his door bearing the mystic words:

COLONEL A. N. GORA THE CATSKILL CLUB

"Ask Colonel Gora to come right up," said Jack, with difficulty repressing the guffaw that struggled within him for expression, recognizing the name at once. Five minutes later puss walked in, the perfect picture of a military dandy, largely due no doubt to the cut of his whiskers.

"Well," he said, removing his gloves, and out of sheer force of habit proceeding to wash his face with his right paw, "you seem to be pretty comfortably located."

"In the lap of luxury," grinned Jack.

Puss's face grew solemn.

"For a cat, my dear Jack, or, rather, Horace," he said, "the lap of luxury would be a saucer of milk."

"You shall have a pitcherful, Bill," cried Jack, rushing to the 'phone.

"Not on your life, my dear boy!" meowed puss, excitedly stopping him. "Never! The occupant of an apartment like this ordering a pitcher of milk! Why, my dear fellow, that would queer our game at the very start. Order some tea and I'll drink the cream."

After regaling himself on the refreshment provided by the confiding management, puss, with a graceful readjustment of his whiskers, turned with a smile to the wondering and admiring beneficiary of his resourceful mind.

"Well, what do you think of it, Jack?" he asked.

"It is very nice indeed, Puss," Jack answered, "but--er--I can't help thinking of the possibilities of the day of reckoning. Who's going to pay for all this when the bill comes in?"

"Don' t worry," said puss; "I'll attend to all that. This afternoon I want you to climb aboard the sight-seeing coach that leaves Madison Square at three o'clock. Sit next to the young lady with blue eyes and a Persian lamb ulster, whom you will find occupying the front seat with her father, a large, stout gentleman with a kohinoor sparkling like an electric light in his shirt-front and three more on his little finger. If you happen to see me on the same coach, don't let on that you know me, and, above all, don't deny anything you may hear anybody saying about you. Where did you register from?"

"Kansas City," replied Jack.

"All right," said puss. "Keep a stiff upper lip, my boy, and all will be well. Good-bye. Like most cats, I have a few fences to take care of this afternoon and I must be off. I've found a nice little kitten up the street who is going to manicure my nails."

With these words the amazing creature donned his hat and coat and, resuming his boots, strode out with a magnificent swagger.

At three o'clock in the afternoon Jack, in accordance with his instructions, boarded the sight-seeing coach at Madison Square, and, recognizing the young woman referred to by puss sitting on the front seat of the car, seated himself beside her.

"When do we start, Popper?" asked the girl, with a demure glance at Jack.

"Putty soon, I guess," said the old gentleman, who sat on her other side. "But there ain't never any tellin'. These New York guys does things putty much as they please."

"Humph!" muttered Jack under his breath. "He sounds like real money from Goldfields."

In a few moments the car started, and as they passed around the Flatiron Building Jack was still further amazed to recognize in the voice of the lecturer none other than that of the faithful puss.

"This building," Jack heard him saying boldly, "is the famous Flatiron Building, erected at great expense by the Fuller Company and lately purchased for five million dollars by the famous Missouri financier and capitalist, Mr. Horace Vanderpoel."

"_Gee-rusalem!_" ejaculated Jack.

"To the right is the wonderful tower of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Building--the handsomest tower in the world," continued puss, bellowing his words into Jack's ears playfully through his megaphone; "while off across the square to the north the structure in yellow brick is the famous Madison Square Garden, soon to be torn down to make room for the new Vanderpoel office building, sixty-four stories high, containing theatres, assembly halls, churches, convention halls, restaurants, apartments, and so on, besides offices, costing between ten and twenty millions of dollars."

"Vanderpoel Building, eh?" said the old gentleman. "Any relation to the feller that's bought the Flatiron?"

"Same man, sir. He's the only Vanderpoel," replied puss.

"Must have seven or eight dollars to spare," said the sight-seer.

"Ten or twelve, sir," laughed puss. "It is said that he is trying to buy a controlling interest in the whole city. Negotiating for the Astor estate, they say."

"Great Scott!" gasped the sight-seer. "What's he going to do with it when he gets it?"

"Don't know, sir," replied puss, gayly. "Kind of suspect he's thinking of annexing it to Kansas City, sir."

The car proceeded until the party reached the Plaza.

"On the left is the Plaza Hotel, another property of the Vanderpoel syndicate," said puss; "said to have cost the Kansas City millionaire ten millions, and paid for in cash."

"_Gee!_" gasped the young woman's father, and Jack indorsed the observation unreservedly.

"That's a pretty house, Popper," said the young woman as the car reached the Ninety-sixth Street entrance to the Park, pointing toward Mr. Rockernegie's residence.

"Formerly the residence of Andrew Rockernegie," said puss, "but recently sold to Mr. Vanderpoel for three million dollars."

"It's mighty funny I never heard of this Vanderpoel feller before," said the old man.

"Just come into his fortune, sir," vouchsafed puss. "Very young man just come of age, sir."

The old man leaned forward and, addressing Jack, inquired:

"Did you ever hear of this man Vanderpoel, young man?"

"Well, yes," said Jack, with a modest laugh. "Fact is, _I myself am Horace Vanderpoel_."

The stranger gazed at him in amazement.

"Well, by ginger!" he said. "I--I--I'm dee-lighted to meet you, sir. This is my daughter Amanda, sir. I--I--I'm proud to make your acquaintance."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, sir," said Jack, pleasantly, removing his hat and bowing to the young woman. "You are Mr.--"

"Dobbins, sir," returned the old man, effusively. "Joshua Dobbins. I thought I was going some on the money question, with seven gold mines in Nevada, but I must take off my hat to you, sir. Any man who has the nerve to buy New York--heavens!"

The old fellow took off his hat and mopped his brow, which had begun to perspire freely.

"Oh, I don't take any credit to myself for that," said Jack, modestly. "When a boy has a great-grandfather who dies and leaves forty million dollars to him in trust for fifty years before he was born, and that money accumulates until the unborn beneficiary is twenty-one years old, it means a rather tidy stockingful, I admit, but it isn't as if I'd made the money myself."

"Fuf-forty million accumulating interest for seventy-one years!" gasped Dobbins.

"Compound," said Jack, smiling sweetly at the girl at his side. "That's the deuce of it. I--I've got to do something to keep the income invested, and New York real estate, being the most expensive thing in sight, I've gone in for that as being the easiest way out."

"I--I suppose you are living here now?" asked Mr. Dobbins.

"No," said Jack. "Personally I don't care particularly for New York. I am just in town for a few days, stopping at the Waldorf."

"Why, so are we," interrupted the girl.

"Then," said Jack, gallantly, "the Waldorf possesses even greater attractions than I had supposed."

The girl blushed a rosy red, and the old gentleman fairly beamed.

"Glad to have you take dinner with us, Mr. Vanderpoel," he said.

"Thank you," said Jack. "I shall be charmed to do so if I can. I sort of half promised Mr. Bondifeller to take a snack with him this evening, but"--this with a killing glance at the blushing Miss Dobbins "but I guess he can wait. To tell you the truth, Mr. Dobbins, these New York millionaires bore me to death. At what time shall we foregather?"

"Suppose we say seven?" said the old gentleman.

"My lucky number," said Jack, with a gracious smile, which set the heart of Miss Dobbins all of a-flutter.