Yes, sir, this demonstration would do it. This, and those to follow. Whatever Judge Monday might say, there would be an appeal, and we’d have to take the thing to the Supreme Court, and how could any judge ignore it if Slim could show the judge himself working on his pet corn the night before? We were about to be what is vulgarly but happily known as “in the bucks.”

What would happen to Swanberg? I remembered how I’d always pictured his wife as unattractive, and all of a sudden it made me feel kind of ashamed. He had certainly shown good taste in his choice of a wife.

Well, pretty quick now I could afford to travel in that kind of company.

I wondered what would happen when Swanberg saw his wife throwing her arms around me on the roller coaster. I guessed maybe he wouldn’t be cold; he’d be jealous. Well, a man with a young and beautiful wife⁠—somehow it kind of got me. I mean that sort of calf-like happiness. He loved her and he felt secure in the knowledge that she loved him, and⁠—well, you know how it is.

Gosh, how I wanted that money. Here it was within our reach⁠—the thing we’d worked so hard for, the reason I’d crawled under pullman cars and gone through the sidewalk and sneaked in to evade the landlord⁠—all so Slim could keep working on the Brain-Finder. He had it now. Slim didn’t know how to duplicate it, but one was all we needed. That one was worth a fortune.

I looked back at the Swanbergs, sitting there so close together. Swanberg hadn’t really been tough with us. In fact, he’d been lenient. Three months was a lot to be behind. No, I guess the only thing I hadn’t really liked about him was the fact that he was always so perfectly dressed and so cool while I had to go through the sidewalk on a hot day in August and then press the sweat out of my clothes with a flatiron.