"Just that.You upset my calculations.I thought I spotted you and put you in the class where you belonged when you and I first met.I can usually size up a man.You've got me guessing.What are you doing down here? You're no Rube."If he intended this as a compliment I was not in the mood to accept it as such.I should have told him that what I was or was not was no business of his.But he went on without giving me the opportunity.
"You've got me guessing," he repeated."You talk like a man.The way you looked out for my daughter last night and the way, according to her story, you handled her and Victor the other afternoon was a man's job.Why are you wasting your life down here?""Mr.Colton, I don't consider--"
"Never mind.You're right; that's your affair, of course.But Ihate to quit till I have the answer, and nobody around here seems to have the answer to you.Ready to sell me that land yet?""No."
"Going to sell to the public-spirited bunch? Dean and the rest?""No."
"You mean that? All right--all right.Say, Paine, I admire your nerve a good deal more than I do your judgment.You must understand that I am going to close that fool Lane of yours some time or other.""Your understanding and mine differ on that point.""Possibly, but they'll agree before I'm through.I am going to close that Lane.""I think not."
"I'm going to close it for two reasons.First, because it's a condemned nuisance and ought to be closed.Second, because I make it a point to get what I go after.I can't afford not to.It is doing that very thing that has put me where I am."There was nothing to be said in answer to a statement like that.Idid not try to answer it.
"Where you're holding down a job like mine," he continued, crossing his knees and looking out across the bay, "you have to get what you go after.I'm down here and I mean to stay here as long as I want to, but I haven't let go of my job by a good deal.I've got private wires--telegraph and telephone--in my house and I keep in touch with things in the Street as much as I ever did.If anybody tries to get ahead of the old man because they think he's turned farmer they'll find out their mistake in a hurry."This seemed to be a soliloquy.I could not see how it applied to me.He went on talking.
"Sounds like bragging, doesn't it?" he said, reading my thoughts as if I had spoken them."It isn't.I'm just trying to show you why I can't afford not to have my own way.If I miss a trick, big or little, somebody else wins.When I was younger, just butting into the game, there was another fellow trying to get hold of a lead mine out West that I was after.He beat me to it at first.He was a big toad in the puddle and I was a little one.But I didn't quit.I waited round the corner.By and by I saw my chance.He was in a hole and I had the cover to the hole.Before I let him out I owned that mine.It cost me more than it was worth; I lost money on it.But I had my way and he and the rest had found out that I intended to have it.That was worth a lot more than I lost in the mine.Now this Lane proposition is a little bit of a thing;it's picayune; I should live right along if I didn't get it.But because I want it, because I've made up my mind to have it, I'm going to have it, one way or another.See?"I shrugged my shoulders."This seems to me like wasting time, Mr.
Colton," I said.
"Then your seeing is away off.Look here, Paine, I'm through fiddling with the deal.I'm through with that undertaker postmaster or any other go-between.I just wanted you to understand my position; that's why I've told you all this.Now we'll talk figures.I might go on bidding, and you'd go on saying no, of course.But I shan't bid.I'll just say this: When you are ready to sell--and I'll put you where you will be some day--"I rose."Mr.Colton," I said, sharply, "you had better not say any more.I'm not afraid of you, and--""There! there! there! who said anything about your being afraid?
Don't get mad.I'm not--not now.This is a business matter between friends and--""Friends!"
"Sure.Business friends.I'm talking to you as I would to any other chap I intended to beat in a deal; there's nothing personal about it.When I get you so you're ready to sell I'll give you five thousand dollars for that strip of land."I actually staggered.I said what Lute had said to me.
"You're crazy!" I cried."Five thousand dollars for that land!""Yes.Oh, I know what it's worth.Five hundred is for the land itself.The other forty-five hundred is payment for the privilege of having my own way.Want to close with me now?"It took me some time to answer."No," is a short and simple word, but I found it tremendously difficult to pronounce.Yet I did pronounce it, I am glad to say.After all that I had said before Iwould have been ashamed to do anything else.
He did not appear surprised at my refusal.
"All right," he said."I'm not going to coax you.Just remember that the offer holds good and when you get ready to accept it, sing out.Well!" looking at his watch, "I must be going.My wife will think I've fallen into the bay, or been murdered by the hostile natives.Nerves are mean things to have in the house; you can take my word for that.Good-by, Paine.Thank you again for last night and the rest of it.Mabel will thank you herself when she sees you, I presume."He was on his way to the door when I recovered presence of mind sufficient to remember ordinary politeness.
"Your daughter--er--Miss Colton is well?" I stammered."No ill effects from her wetting--and the shock?""Not a bit.She's one of the kind of girls they turn out nowadays.
Athletics and all that.Her grandmother would have died probably, after such an upset, but she's as right as I am.Oh...er--Paine, next time you go shooting let me know.Maybe I'd like to go along.I used to be able to hit a barn door occasionally."He stopped long enough to bite the end from a cigar and strolled away, smoking.I sat down in the armchair."Five thousand dollars!"..."Carver won't do."..."I will have the Lane some time or other"..."Five thousand dollars!"..."Next time you go shooting."..."Friends!"..."Five thousand dollars!"Oh, this was a nightmare! I must wake up before it got any worse.
