"Huh!" says I, grittin' my teeth. "Meaning that you'd like to tell Belcher a few things yourself?" asks Vee. "Well, you needn't. I'd no right to be there, for one thing. And, for another, this is my own particular affair. I know what I am going to do to Mr. Belcher; at least, what I'm going to try to do. Anyway, I shall have some figures to put before our committee Monday. Then we shall see." Yep, she had the goods on him. I helped her straighten out the evidence: copies of commission-house bills showin' what he had paid for stuff, and duplicates of sales-slips givin' the retail prices he got. And say, all he was stickin' on was from thirty to sixty per cent. profit. He didn't always wait for the wholesaler to start the boostin', either. Vee points out where he has jacked up the price three times on the same shipment--just as the spell took him. He'd be readin' away in his _Morgen Blatherskite_, and all of a sudden he'd jump out of his chair. I'm no expert on provision prices, but some of them items had me bug-eyed. "Why," says I, "it looks like this Belcher party meant to discourage eatin' altogether. Couldn't do better if he was runnin' a dinin'-car." "It's robbery, that's what it is," says Vee. "And when you think that his chief victims are such helpless people as the Burkes and the Walters--well, it's little less than criminal." "It's a rough deal," I admits, "but one that's bein' pulled in the best circles. War profits are what everybody seems to be out after these days, and I don't see how you're going to stop it." "I mean to try to stop Belcher, anyway," says Vee, tossin' her chin up. "You ain't got much show," says I; "but go to it." Just how much fight there was in Vee, though, I didn't have any idea of until I saw her Monday evenin' after another meetin' of the League. It seems she'd met this Mrs. Norton Plummer on her own ground and had smeared her all over the map. "What do you suppose she wanted to do?" demands Vee. "Pass more resolutions! Well, I told her just what I thought of that. As well pin a 'Please-keep-out' notice on your door to scare away burglars as to send resolutions to Belcher. And when I showed her what profits he was making, item by item, she hadn't another word to say. Then I proposed my plan." "Eh?" says I. "What's it like?" "We are going to start a store of our own," says Vee--just like that, offhand and casual. "You are!" says I. "But--but who's goin' to run it?" "They made me chairman of the sub-committee," says Vee. "And then I made them subscribe to a campaign fund. Five thousand. We raised it in as many minutes. And now--well, I suppose I'm in for it." "Listens that way to me," says I. "Then I may as well begin," says she.