Judd sat up straight in his seat.
"Well?" he asked, huskily.
"Well, what?" asked Jesse.
"What are you shooting at?" inquired Judd. "Do you mean to say you're going to take the bear end of it?"
"I don't mean to say anything of the sort," replied Jesse. "And you don't suppose I'd go around placarding the fact if that was my intention, do you? I'm merely out of the market for the present, that's all. But you're in, eh, and waiting for sixteen cent cotton?"
The screws were working all right. Jesse saw that. It was chilly in the automobile, but Judd was mopping a damp brow.
"If I ever do break into that market," Jesse went on clinchingly but in the same even tone he had been using, "you want to watch my smoke. That's all."
Judd, in a cold tremor, resolved to unload his line of cotton as soon as the market opened on the morrow. Also he decided that it wouldn't be any impolitic thing for him to placate Jesse in the immediate meanwhile.
"Well, if I have been dense, I'm not now," he said, reflectively. "I understand you all right."
"I thought you would," said Jesse, tossing his cigar out of the car window.