nt like that. I did
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