The Best Policy Part 25

"But you'll pay it?"

"For my wife I will."

She gave him a quick look and knew that he was not going to be swayed this time by her little cajoleries.

"But, Harry," she protested, "that's so-so soon."

"I have the license in my pocket," he said; "there's a church within two blocks, and I saw a light in the pastor's study as I came by. I guess we've waited long enough. Let's go out for a little stroll."

It was six months later that Harry again met Dave Murray, but Murray remembered him.

"Did you get the prize with your policy?" asked Murray.

"Sure," replied Harry.

"Was it a good prize?"

"Bully!" said Harry. "A little hard to handle just at first, but you can do almost anything with insurance."

"You certainly have made good use of it," laughed Murray.

"You bet I have," answered Harry with some pride. "Why, say! an insurance policy is the greatest thing in the world for family discipline."

"For what!" exclaimed Murray.

"Family discipline. The first time we had a little rumpus she had me going seven ways for Sunday until I thought of the insurance policies.

'Well,' said I, 'if I'm not the head of the house there's no reason why I should be paying insurance premiums, and I'll default on the next one.

The head of the house looks after things of that sort,' I told her, and that settled it. I'm the head of the house, and, if I don't play it too strong, I've got the thing to maintain discipline."

"Don't you want another policy?" laughed Murray.

"Well," returned Harry thoughtfully, "if I could get the same kind of prize with another, and if it wasn't against the law, I rather think I might be tempted to do it. Anyhow, there can't anybody tell me there's nothing in insurance, for I know better."

AN INCIDENTAL SACRIFICE

"I guess it's all up with us," said Sidney Kalin despairingly.

"It looks that way," admitted his brother, Albert Kalin.

The father, Jonas Kalin, sat at his desk with his head half-buried in his hands.

"There is no chance for an extension, of course," he said wearily.

"I should say not," returned Sidney. "Telmer bought up the mortgage for just one purpose, and his only hope of success lies in foreclosing. He wants to get his hands on the invention."

"Will he take an interest in the business?" asked Jonas.

"Why should he, when he can get the only thing he wants without?"

returned Sidney.

"What does Dempsey say?" persisted the senior Kalin.

"It's out of his line," answered Albert, to whom the question was addressed. "If five thousand would straighten the thing out, he might risk it, but he wouldn't put up a cent more than that, and he'd want a twenty-five per cent. interest in the business for that sum."

"And, if we can save it, the thing is worth a fortune," groaned Jonas.

"We've got a start already, and there's almost no limit to the possibilities. It ought to be worth fifty thousand a year inside of three years. He doesn't want much."

"Well, he's out of the question, anyway," said Sidney. "We've got to have twenty-five thousand, and we've got to have it mighty soon."

"My life insurance is more than that," mused Jonas.

"What good does that do?" retorted Sidney rather sharply. "Even if you wanted to surrender it, the cash surrender value is less than ten thousand at the present time."

"That would help," argued Jonas.

"Nothing will help that doesn't put the full sum needed within our reach," a.s.serted Albert. "We're about due to begin life over again with a little less than nothing."

"I'll think it over," said Jonas, rising and wearily reaching for his hat. "I've always weathered the storms before. Perhaps I'll find a way to weather this one."

Jonas Kalin once had been accounted a successful real estate man, but he had lost a good deal of money in speculation, and the time and thought he gave to speculation had had an injurious effect upon his business.

One of the sons had been for a time in the employ of a manufacturer of fountain pens. Later the elder Kalin had started both boys, as an independent firm, in that line of business, their pen differing sufficiently from others to avoid any infringement of patents on patented features. They had made no great amount of money, indeed barely a living income, but they had kept out of debt until Sidney invented a machine for finis.h.i.+ng the sh.e.l.l or case of the pen.

His experiments had been rather costly, and the machine had been costly to construct, but he had convinced his father that it was a good thing, and Jonas had given up his dwindling real estate business and put what money he had left into his sons' firm, becoming a partner in the enterprise. Even then it had been found necessary to borrow twenty-five thousand dollars in order to establish the business on the new and larger basis, giving a mortgage on the entire plant, which included the new machine, and this mortgage had pa.s.sed into the hands of a more prosperous business rival at a time when the value of the invention was just becoming apparent. This invention largely reduced the cost of production, but the exploiting so far done, although expensive and reasonably successful, had not enabled the Kalins to acc.u.mulate anything to meet their obligation. Indeed, believing they would have no difficulty in securing an extension, they had not worried about this until they found themselves in the power of a rival.

The machine had not been patented, for reasons that most successful inventors will readily understand. While a patent is supposed to protect the inventor, it does not do so in many instances; on the contrary, it frequently gives a rival just the information he needs to duplicate the device with technical variations that will at least make the question of infringement a difficult one to decide. The inventor of limited means, opposed by a company with almost unlimited capital, is at a serious disadvantage when he gets into the courts, and there are cases where the value of an invention has been largely destroyed by having the market flooded with the article before the legal rights can be definitely determined. There is hardly a single patented device of great value that has not been the basis of long and costly litigation, involving either the unauthorized use or manufacture of the device as it is or the use or manufacture of a device suggested by the original and differing from it only enough to give technical plausibility to the plea that it is not an infringement. Even the great Edison is reported to have said that he has made practically no money on his patents, but has had to enter the manufacturing business to get any material benefit from his inventions.

"When you patent an invention," the Kalins had been informed by a man of experience in such matters, "you are furnis.h.i.+ng ammunition to the enemy.

You are giving him your secret, and he will put some smart men at work to discover some method of using it himself. Edison is still busy with inventions, but you don't see his name in the patent reports any more.

He has become too wise for that. Secrecy is the best protection, provided you have something that can be kept secret."

All this Jonas Kalin reviewed as he walked slowly and with bowed head toward his club. They had kept their invention secret, they had advertised extensively, and now, just as they were beginning to get returns on their investment, the dream was shattered. They had tried to interest various capitalists, but capitalists could not see the future as they saw it. Capital is exceptionally conservative when there is a question of investing in inventions that it does not understand, for inventors are proverbially optimistic and not infrequently cost capital a good deal of money.

"Thirty thousand dollars of life insurance!" muttered Jonas, as he settled himself in a corner of the reading-room. "If we could have the use of that money for a year we would be all right."

Jonas was a widower, but his wife had been living when he had taken out this insurance. Now it would go to the sons eventually, if they survived him, but, meanwhile, they would lose a fortune. Since the death of his wife, Jonas had given his every thought to the boys and their future. He reproached himself for the speculations that had deprived him of the power of helping them as he had planned in earlier days; he felt that somehow he had defrauded them. So deeply did he feel this that from the day he gave up his real estate business he never had put one dollar into a speculation of any kind, except so far as his investment in their business was a speculation.

"If we could make that go," he mused, as he crouched miserably in the big chair, "I should be content. I owe it to the boys to see them fairly started. I was in a position to do it once and I lost the money foolishly-their money, by rights, for I had put it aside for them. And here am I, almost useless-a business wreck-too old to begin again as an employee and lacking the capital to be an employer or to do business of any sort for myself. Instead of helping my boys, I am to be a burden to them-until I die. I am of value only in the grave." He shuddered and seemed to sink still lower in the chair. "It is my duty to do what I can for them," he added. "I am useless, but life is before them-a continuation of my life. I must be a success through my sons."

Benson, a friend, stopped near him.

"What's the matter, Kalin?" asked Benson. "You look blue."