"He couldn't have made it plainer if he had said it right out in so many words. He raised his price at the rate of a hundred thousand dollars a minute as soon as he heard that we wanted your land."
"Ah, yes. I remember now that Hampden was telling me something of the sort." Wharton Kendrick shook his head over the information, and then turned to me. "Was there something you wanted?"
"Well," I said, hesitating in some embarrassment at General Wilson's presence, "I had an interview with a friend of yours this afternoon."
The intonation in my voice was enough to give a hint of the identity of the friend, and he nodded his head in comprehension.
"Well, come up to the house to-night, and give me the whole story. It'll keep till then, won't it? By the way, what was that hullaballoo around the place last night? It waked me up, but I was too lazy to turn out and take a hand in it."
"Perhaps you heard my men when they caught three fellows climbing over the back fence, along in the early hours this morning. I don't think of anything else that happened."
"Well, upon my soul," gasped General Wilson, "isn't that enough? Good heavens, young man, you speak as though it was something a gentleman might expect as a common attention from his neighbors!"
"It's a first experience," said Wharton Kendrick with a jovial laugh. "But why didn't you tell me about it? If I'm an attraction to burglars, I think I'm entitled to know it."
"I didn't intend to make a secret of it; but you weren't in when I called this morning. Besides, I haven't run the thing down to its source and origin."
General Wilson's red face flamed with wonder and he stared at me from under his bushy brows.