“You want what?” said Sam, bewildered. He had had no notion that he was going to be swept into the maelstrom of a business transaction.
“Yes, sir, I want this house. And let me tell you that money is no object. I’ve lots of money.” He dismissed money with a gesture. “I have my whims and I can pay for them. How much for the house, Mr. Shotter?”
Sam felt that it behooved him to keep his head. He had not the remotest intention of selling for all the gold in Pittsburgh a house which, in the first place, did not belong to him and, secondly, was next door to Kay Derrick.
“I’m very sorry——” he began.
Mr. Gunn checked him with an apologetic lift of the hand.
“I was too abrupt,” he said. “I rushed the thing. A bad habit of mine. When I was prospecting in Nevada, the boys used to call me Hair-Trigger Gunn. I ought to have stated my position more clearly.”
“Oh, I understand your position.”
“You realise then that this isn’t a house to me; it is a shrine?”
“Yes, yes; but——”
“It contains,” said Mr. Gunn with perfect truth, “something very precious to me.”