"If we could just have a little time, we might find other kinds of business that would lease those buildings."
"It isn't my time to give away," he said. "It's Ben's. And he hasn't got much of it. How much do you need?"
"I've no idea."
"The crooked gamblers have to go right now along with the rest of the riffraff. There can be no delay about that."
She nodded to this. "If I'd had my way, they'd have gone long ago."
"Don't you always have your way, Persia?"
She seemed mildly startled. She gave a little shrug. "How do you tell which are crooked?"
"I can spot them for you."
"Jack, please. Keep out of it entirely. I ... I can't have Vickers' man butting in. You can understand that."
"Yes." It stung him to have her call him somebody else's man, though it wouldn't have bothered him if another person had said it.