we had a few facts or figures it might be
different.' And you know that sour smile of hers. Well! That's why I did
it. I asked them to give me ten days. And now----"

Vee finishes by squeezin' my arm.

"But how'd you come to break in so prompt?" I asks. "Did you mesmerize
Belcher?"

"I bought up his cashier--paid her to report that she was ill," says
Vee. "Then I smoothed back my hair, put on this old black dress, and
went begging for the job. That's when I began to know Mr. Belcher. He's
quite a different person when he is hiring a cashier from the one you
see talking to customers. Really, I've never been looked at that way
before--as if I were some sort of insect. But when he found I would work
cheap, and could get Mrs. Robert Ellins to go on my bond if I should
turn out a thief, he took me on.

"Getting up so early was a bit hard, and eating a cold luncheon harder
still; but worst of all was having to hear him growl and snap at the
clerks. Oh, he's perfectly horrid. I don't see how they stand it. Of
course, I had my share. 'Miss Blockhead' was his pet name for me."

"Huh!" says I, grittin' my teeth.

"Meaning that you'd like to tell Belcher a few things yourself?" asks
Vee. "Well, you needn't. I'd no right to be there, for one thing. And,
for another, this is my own particular affair. I know what I am going to
do to Mr. Belcher; at least, what I'm going to try to do. Anyway, I
shall have some figures to put before our committee Monday. Then we
shall see."

Yep, she had the goods on him. I helped her straighten out the evidence:
copies of commission-house bills showin' what he had paid for stuff, and
duplicates of sales-slips givin' the retail prices he got. And say, all
he was stickin' on was from thirty to sixty per cent. profit.

He didn't always wait for the wholesaler to start the boostin', either.
Vee points out where he has jacked up the price three times on the same
shipment--just as the spell took him. He'd be readin' away in his
_Morgen Blatherskite_, and all of a sudden he'd jump out of his chair.
I'm no expert on provision prices, but some of them items had me
bug-eyed.

"Why," says I, "it looks like this Belcher party meant to discourage
eatin' altogether. Couldn't do better if he was runnin' a dinin'-car."

"It's robbery, that's what it is," says Vee. "And when you think that
his chief victims are such helpless people as the Burkes and the
Walters--well, it's little less than criminal."

"