I passed on to the second point. “What about my fee?” You may not believe this, but I hadn’t mentioned money till then. My uncle Otto hadn’t either, but then, that follows.

His mouth stretched in a bad imitation of an affectionate smile. “A fee?”

“Ten per cent of the take,” I explained, “is what I’ll need.”

His jowls drooped. “But how much is the take?”

“Maybe a hundred thousand dollars. That would leave you ninety.”

“Ninety thousand – Himmel! Then why do we wait?”

He leaped at his machine and in half a minute the space above the dentist’s tray was agleam with an image of parchment.

It was covered with neat script, closely spaced, looking like an entry for an old-fashioned penmanship prize. At the bottom of the sheet there were names: one large one and fifty-five small ones.

Funny thing! I choked up. I had seen many reproductions, but this was the real thing. The real Declaration of Independence!

I said, “I’ll be damned. You did it.”

“And the hundred thousand?” asked my uncle Otto, getting to the point.

Now was the time to explain. “You see, Uncle, at the bottom of the document there are signatures. These are the names of great Americans, fathers of their country, whom we all reverence. Anything about them is of interest to all true Americans.”

“All right,” grumbled my uncle Otto, “I will accompany you by playing the ’Stars and Stripes Forever’ on my flute.”

I laughed quickly to show that I took that remark as a joke. The alternative to a joke would not hear thinking of. Have you ever heard my uncle Otto playing the “Stars and Stripes Forever” on his flute?

I said, “But one of these signers, from the state of Georgia, died in 1777, the year after he signed the Declaration. He didn’t have much behind him and so authentic examples of his signature was about the most valuable in the world. His name was Button Gwinnett.”

“And how does this help us cash in?” asked my uncle Otto, his mind still fixed grimly on the eternal verities of the universe.