pose he was
about to be dismissed from his office? True, it was an office without a
name, but it had been a lucrative position.

There was a knock upon the door. He flung himself back, looked hastily
at his watch and saw that it was barely nine o'clock. Coleman must be
anxious, he thought, to keep an appointment in such a hurry, which was a
good sign.

"Come in!" he shouted, whirling around on his swivel chair to face the
door.

It opened with a quick inward thrust and Susan Walton walked in. She
carried her everlasting little black reticule in one hand, and in the
other she held--of all things in this world--an empty brown-linen
laundry bag, swinging by the strings!

"Good morning, Mr. Prim!" she said, looking at him pleasantly over the
top of her spectacles, as if it was the most natural thing for her to
drop in informally.

He was too amazed to return her salutation. He stared at her, then he
bowed his thick neck and stared at the flabby bag. He did not even offer
her a seat, but she was in no way disconcerted by that. She chose a
chair, drew it up in front of him, sat down, and crumpled the bag up in
her lap.

"I came to see you on a matter of business, Mr. Prim," she said, coming
briskly to the point. "I suppose you've been expecting me?"

"No," he managed to say.

"I'd given you credit then for more sense than you seem to have, for I'm
the only hope you have now."

She said that in tones of conviction.

"You are the last person in the world I'd look upon as a--hope!" he
returned slowly, widening his lips into a grin which was also a sneer.

"You are at the end of your rope. You've been so for a month. You can't
squeeze another dollar out of this town for your campaign fund. The men
have lost confidence in you."

"How'd you come by so much useful information?" he interrupted.

"I have it. That's the point. You'll never dare announce yourself a
candidate for representative. You gave that up three months ago."

"What makes you think so?" he asked, fixing his eyes upon her face with
deep reptilian concentration.

"I don't think, I know it. You went on with your collections for
private, personal reasons. But you did not deposit a single dollar of it
in this bank, and you knew from the day Sarah Mosely's will was read up
here in Judge Regis's office that you did not have a ghost of a chance
to be elected, and you made up your mind that day not to run."

"Your powers of penetration are well known, Ma