"I thought as much. I've brought the money. A thousand dollars is too much. This bag isn't half full!" she exclaimed, shaking it down, drawing up the strings, and looking at it. Then she counted out the bills on the desk, every drawer of which was now empty. Some one came up the stairs and walked briskly forward in the hall outside. Prim had barely time to snatch the fluttering green and yellow bills before Stark Coleman entered the room, without the ceremony of knocking. It would be difficult to say which showed the greater surprise at seeing the other, he or Susan Walton, tightly clutching her bulging laundry bag. "Good morning, Mr. Coleman," she said, waddling rapidly toward the door. "Good morning, Madam!" he returned. "Fine large day!" She said this from the door as she went out. Coleman turned angrily to Prim, who was standing reared back, feet wide apart, hands in his pockets, grinning broadly. "What's she doing in here?" he demanded. "Wanted me to help the cause!" he answered shamelessly. "What'd she have in that bag?" "Dirty linen--wash day. Taking it to the Co-Citizens' Laundry!" "Didn't know they had one." "Yes, they have. She's soliciting patronage!" "Well, I'll be damned! You don't mean to tell me that woman was up here to get----" "My soiled office linen," Prim obligingly finished. "She was, and I let her have every scrap of it," he answered symbolically. He turned, seized his collar and tie, and reached for the button at the back of his neck. "Look here, Mike, things aren't going right in this town," Coleman began, having lighted a fresh cigar without offering one to Prim, who went on adjusting his collar. "We had a meeting last night and the general opinion was that you are not holding the situation down as we expected you would." When there was no reply from Prim, who was holding his head back and struggling to make ends meet over his front collar button, he went on: "We don't blame you, but the fact is we want to make a change." "Good idea!" said Prim. "Glad you feel that way. Knew you would, but the boys thought you might be willing to dispose of the records and papers that have accumulated here." Coleman looked up and caught Prim's eye fixed upon him. "They're of no value to you. And we are prepared to offer you, well, more than they are worth. We----" "Want my memoirs, do you?" laughed Prim, seizing his coat. "That's it, for the archives, you know. How much will you take for them?" "I wouldn't sell them to you, Stark Coleman, for all the cash you could rake and scrape out of your measly little old Co-Citizens' Bank!" he answered, thrusting his arms into the sleeves of his coat, hunching it up on his shoulders, and making for the door. Coleman could not believe his ears, and now he could not believe his eyes. The man was actually leaving the room. He took the cigar from his mouth, and lifted his hand in a commanding gesture. "Hold on, Prim!"