“But what?” he went on. “You liked it when I told you I was going to—take care of Rankin, didn’t you?”
“That’s different,” she said.
“Oh, a woman’s logic!” he laughed.
“You don’t believe in buying votes, do you, Jerome?” she asked, with her lips still tense so that they showed a little line of white at the edges of their red.
“No.”
“But you do believe in buying them with offices. What’s the post-office at Pekin worth?”
“Oh, eighteen hundred, I reckon.”
“Eighteen hundred—for four years; let’s see—four eights—thirty-two; hum-m-m, four ones—three—seven; seven—thousand, isn’t it?”
“Well, you’re not very good at figures, but you’ve nearly hit it—within two hundred.”
“I never could multiply in my mind,” Emily confessed. “But you wouldn’t think it right to give a man seven thousand dollars in money for a delegation from the county, would you?”