"Why?" asked Sasnett, still smiling in the provoking manner of a man who has nothing to lose.
"I couldn't do business with every loan and investment to be passed upon by a board of directors reeking with preachers and eleemosynary trustees. They are all damphules, with empty breeches pockets, and craws filled with morbid scruples. How do I know there won't be a woman among them! Good Lord! Think of a woman on the board of directors in a bank!" snorted Coleman.
"Well, it couldn't be as bad as that," said Acres, as he pulled at the ends of his wiry gray moustache.
"Yes, it can! It can be as bad as hell, I tell you. Nobody knows what that woman's done. And when you don't know what a woman's done, you may be sure it's worse than you can imagine!" Coleman insisted.
"Carter is beside himself. Briggs holds a mortgage of sixteen hundred on the Signal and he was to let Carter have four hundred more to-day. Now the loan's called off. He tells me the Signal must suspend publication if he can't raise the money," Sasnett put in.
"At least he'll sell a few hundred copies extra Saturday if he prints Sarah Mosely's will," said Acres.
"But if there is no will?"
"What does Briggs say?"
"Oh, Briggs!" laughed Sasnett, "he's as mad as a horsefly that's been slapped off. He says there is no will. But he doesn't really know. He's zooning around wondering if he'll be able to light again on the flanks of the estate."
"Regis made himself rather conspicuous at the funeral to-day—wonder why," remarked Coleman thoughtfully.