"Socialism goes with being poor, doesn't it?" she remarked. "Since Mr. Griswold's ship has come in, I suppose he finds it easier, and pleasanter, to be a theoretical leveller than a practical one."
"That is another thing I have never been quite able to understand," said the iron-founder. "You say his father left him poor: where did he get his money?"
"Why, don't you know?" was the innocent query. And then, with a pretty affectation of embarrassment, real or perfectly simulated: "If he hasn't told you, I mustn't."
"Of course, I don't want to pry," said Raymer, loyal again.
"I can give you a hint, and that is all. Don't you remember 'My Lady Jezebel,' the unsigned novel that made such a hit last summer?"
"Why, bless goodness, yes! Did he write that?"
"He has never admitted it in so many words. But I'll divide a little secret with you. He has been reading bits of his new book to me, and pshaw! a blind person could tell! I asked him once if he could guess how much the author of 'My Lady Jezebel' had been paid, and he said, with the most perfectly transparent carelessness: 'Oh, about a hundred thousand, I suppose.'"
"Tally!" said Raymer, laughing. "Griswold has put an even ninety thousand into my little egg-basket out at the plant. But, of course you knew that, everybody in Wahaska knows it by this time."
"Yes; I knew it."
"I'm glad it's book money," Raymer went on. "If we should happen to go smash, he won't feel the loss quite so fiercely. I have a friend over in Wisconsin; he is a laboratory professor in mechanics, and he writes books on the side. He says a book is a pure gamble. If you win, you have that much more money to throw to the dicky-birds. If you lose, you've merely drawn the usual blank."