“Sounds like bragging, doesn't it?” he said, reading my thoughts as if I had spoken them. “It isn't. I'm just trying to show you why I can't afford not to have my own way. If I miss a trick, big or little, somebody else wins. When I was younger, just butting into the game, there was another fellow trying to get hold of a lead mine out West that I was after. He beat me to it at first. He was a big toad in the puddle and I was a little one. But I didn't quit. I waited round the corner. By and by I saw my chance. He was in a hole and I had the cover to the hole. Before I let him out I owned that mine. It cost me more than it was worth; I lost money on it. But I had my way and he and the rest had found out that I intended to have it. That was worth a lot more than I lost in the mine. Now this Lane proposition is a little bit of a thing; it's picayune; I should live right along if I didn't get it. But because I want it, because I've made up my mind to have it, I'm going to have it, one way or another. See?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “This seems to me like wasting time, Mr. Colton,” I said.
“Then your seeing is away off. Look here, Paine, I'm through fiddling with the deal. I'm through with that undertaker postmaster or any other go-between. I just wanted you to understand my position; that's why I've told you all this. Now we'll talk figures. I might go on bidding, and you'd go on saying no, of course. But I shan't bid. I'll just say this: When you are ready to sell—and I'll put you where you will be some day—”
I rose. “Mr. Colton,” I said, sharply, “you had better not say any more. I'm not afraid of you, and—”
“There! there! there! who said anything about your being afraid? Don't get mad. I'm not—not now. This is a business matter between friends and—”
“Friends!”
“Sure. Business friends. I'm talking to you as I would to any other chap I intended to beat in a deal; there's nothing personal about it. When I get you so you're ready to sell I'll give you five thousand dollars for that strip of land.”
I actually staggered. I said what Lute had said to me.
“You're crazy!” I cried. “Five thousand dollars for that land!”
“Yes. Oh, I know what it's worth. Five hundred is for the land itself. The other forty-five hundred is payment for the privilege of having my own way. Want to close with me now?”