ready
to get at 'em when you say the word."

"My business will not detain either of us long. I--"

"Sit down, man, sit down. You make me nervous standing there."

"No. I won't sit."

He looked at me.

"What is the matter with you?" he asked. "You haven't got a balky
digestion, have you? I've been fighting one for the last week. That fool
of a country doctor tells me if I'm not careful what I eat I'll keel
over pretty soon. I told him I'd eaten what I dashed please ever since
I'd had teeth and I wasn't going to quit now. But I do feel like the
devil. Look it, don't I?"

He did look ill, that was a fact, though I had not noticed it before
and was far from feeling pity for him then. In fact I was rather glad to
know that he was uncomfortable. I wanted him to be.

"What is the matter with you?" he demanded. "You look as if you had seen
your grandmother's ghost."

I ignored the question. "Mr. Colton," I began again. "You made an offer
not long ago."

I had caught his attention at last. He leaned back in his chair.

"I did," he said. "Ye-es, I did. Do you mean you are going to accept
it?"

"In a way--yes."

"In a way? What do you mean by that? I tell you frankly, Paine, if you
go to work for me there must be no 'ifs' or 'buts' about it. You'll
enter my office and you'll do as I, or the men under me, tell you to
do."

I was glad he said that, glad that he misunderstood me. It gave me an
opportunity to express my feelings toward him--as I was feeling then.

"Don't let that trouble you," I said, sarcastically. "There will be no
'ifs' and 'buts' so far as that is concerned. I have no desire to work
for you, Mr. Colton, and I don't intend doing so. That was not the offer
I meant."

He was surprised, I am sure, but he did not express astonishment. He
bent forward and looked at me more keenly than ever.

"There was only one other offer that I remember making you," he said,
slowly. "That was for that land of yours. I offered you five thousand
dollars for it. Do you mean you accept that offer?"

"Not exactly."

"Humph! Paine, we're wasting a lot of time here, it seems to me. My time
is more or less valuable, and my digestion is, as I told you, pretty
bad. Come! get it over. What do you mean? Are you going to sell me that
land?"

"Yes."

He puffed deliberately at his cigar. His gaze did not leave my face.

"Why?" he asked, after a moment.

"That is my own affair. I will sell you the land, but not for fiv