"Yes, we have, Stark, we know all about Mike Prim! If you are wise you will not drive us to deal with Prim!" she said, looking at him queerly. "And besides," she went on, "we have had the shrewdness, as you call it, to block the business of this town. You'll never be able to do anything so long as we hold you up."
"You can't stop the commerce of a whole county with twenty thousand dollars, Agatha. You may inconvenience us for a time but——"
"It isn't the interest we count upon, you see—that's the smallest part of it. It's the way we have our capital invested. It's the land beneath your feet, the boards above your head, the stock in your bank, the goods in your stores. We've got most of it! I wish you would listen to reason, Stark!" she concluded.
He had not heard half of it. He was wondering what she meant by that reference to Prim. But he caught the last sentence.
"And suppose I do listen to reason, as you call it. How would I go about it?" he asked as he would have tested the strength of an enemy, not that he had the remotest intention of following her advice.
"Go to Judge Regis in the morning and tell him that you are interested in suffrage for women. Say that you are heartily in favour of it and——"
"I'll be hanged if I do! I'll——"
The telephone bell rang. Coleman went out in the hall to answer the call.
"Yes, I'm here," his wife heard him say.
"What's the matter? Oh, all right, be glad to see you."