The chatelaine of Mereside laid the prospectus aside and came abruptly to the point.
"I want you to do it," she said, decisively.
"The devil you do!" Then, with the dry door-hinge chuckle: "It was a waste of good money to put in the ice plant while you're here, Madgie. What's in the wind, now?"
"Maybe I'll tell you—sometime."
The president chuckled again and tilted to the comfortable angle in the arm-chair.
"Tell me now; you don't need to beat any of the bushes with me, little girl. If you say the word, I'll pinch him for you."
"I didn't say that I wanted him pinched. But I do want you to put him under obligations to you—the heavier the better. His mother and sister have gone out of their way to snub me, and I want to play even."
Grierson wagged his huge head, and this time the chuckle grew to a guffaw.
"I thought maybe that was the game. But it won't work with him; not for a single minute."
"Why won't it?"