Wilson fell into the preliminary trap. “Oh no; it's not a binding thing at all,” he said. “The payment of the money back to us releases you—that is, of course,” Wilson recovered himself, “if we make the loan.”
Several hearts in the room sank, but Miller's face did not alter in the slightest. “Oh, of course, if the loan is made,” he said.
Wilson put his silk hat on the top of Miller's desk, and flicked the ashes from his cigar into a cuspidor. Then he looked at Mrs. Bishop suddenly—“Does the lady object to smoking?”
“Not at all,” said the old lady—“not at all.”
There was a pause as Wilson relighted his cigar and pulled at it in silence. A step sounded on the sidewalk and Trabue put his head in at the door. Miller could have sworn at him, but he smiled. “Good-morning, Squire,” he said.
“I see you are busy,” said the intruder, hastily.
“Just a little, Squire. I 'll see you in a few minutes.”
“Oh, all right.” The old lawyer moved on down the sidewalk, his hands in his pockets.
Miller brought up the subject again with easy adroitness. “I mentioned your proposition to my clients—the proposition that they allow you the refusal of the land at one hundred thousand, and they have finally come round to it. As I told them, they could not possibly market a thing like that as easily and for as good a price as a company regularly in the business. I may have been wrong in giving such advice, but it was the way I felt about it.”
Without realizing it, Wilson tripped in another hole dug by Miller's inventive mind.