“No. I won't sit.”
He looked at me.
“What is the matter with you?” he asked. “You haven't got a balky digestion, have you? I've been fighting one for the last week. That fool of a country doctor tells me if I'm not careful what I eat I'll keel over pretty soon. I told him I'd eaten what I dashed please ever since I'd had teeth and I wasn't going to quit now. But I do feel like the devil. Look it, don't I?”
He did look ill, that was a fact, though I had not noticed it before and was far from feeling pity for him then. In fact I was rather glad to know that he was uncomfortable. I wanted him to be.
“What is the matter with you?” he demanded. “You look as if you had seen your grandmother's ghost.”
I ignored the question. “Mr. Colton,” I began again. “You made an offer not long ago.”
I had caught his attention at last. He leaned back in his chair.
“I did,” he said. “Ye-es, I did. Do you mean you are going to accept it?”
“In a way—yes.”
“In a way? What do you mean by that? I tell you frankly, Paine, if you go to work for me there must be no 'ifs' or 'buts' about it. You'll enter my office and you'll do as I, or the men under me, tell you to do.”