I aim to be prompt when I'm tendin' to my wife's business
matters. Gentlemen, I guess you hain't met Mrs. Baines real proper
yet...."
It was not a happy moment for Messrs. Crane and Keith, but they
weathered it, not suavely, not with complete dignity, but after a
fashion.... Their departure might, perhaps, have been termed brusque.
"Well, Scattergood," said Mandy, "it was a real good deal."
"The way you h'isted 'em to fifty thousand was what got my eye," he
said, proudly. "I wouldn't 'a' had the nerve."
"I knew they'd pay it," she said. "Seems like a reasonable profit,
though the land's been a-layin' there unproductive for thirty year.
Father, he give a thousand dollars for it, and the taxes must 'a' been a
couple of thousand more. Say forty-seven thousand dollars profit...."
"And I come out of the other deals perty fair. Made twenty-three
thousand off of the options, and nine or ten off of the other things.
Guess the Baines family's a matter of seventy-five thousand dollars
richer by a good day's work."
"But it can't lay idle," she said.
"Not a minnit. We'll buy that sixty thousand acres 'way back up the
river for sixty-six cents, like we planned, and have some workin'
capital.
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