“Never mind. You're right; that's your affair, of course. But I hate to quit till I have the answer, and nobody around here seems to have the answer to you. Ready to sell me that land yet?” “No.” “Going to sell to the public-spirited bunch? Dean and the rest?” “No.” “You mean that? All right--all right. Say, Paine, I admire your nerve a good deal more than I do your judgment. You must understand that I am going to close that fool Lane of yours some time or other.” “Your understanding and mine differ on that point.” “Possibly, but they'll agree before I'm through. I am going to close that Lane.” “I think not.” “I'm going to close it for two reasons. First, because it's a condemned nuisance and ought to be closed. Second, because I make it a point to get what I go after. I can't afford not to. It is doing that very thing that has put me where I am.” There was nothing to be said in answer to a statement like that. I did not try to answer it. “Where you're holding down a job like mine,” he continued, crossing his knees and looking out across the bay, “you have to get what you go after. I'm down here and I mean to stay here as long as I want to, but I haven't let go of my job by a good deal. I've got private wires--telegraph and telephone--in my house and I keep in touch with things in the Street as much as I ever did. If anybody tries to get ahead of the old man because they think he's turned farmer they'll find out their mistake in a hurry.” This seemed to be a soliloquy. I could not see how it applied to me. He went on talking. “Sounds like bragging, doesn't it?” he said, reading my thoughts as if I had spoken them. “It isn't. I'm just trying to show you why I can't afford not to have my own way. If I miss a trick, big or little, somebody else wins. When I was younger, just butting into the game, there was another fellow trying to get hold of a lead mine out West that I was after. He beat me to it at first. He was a big toad in the puddle and I was a little one. But I didn't quit. I waited round the corner. By and by I saw my chance. He was in a hole and I had the cover to the hole. Before I let him out I owned that mine. It cost me more than it was worth; I lost money on it. But I had my way and he and the rest had found out that I intended to have it. That was worth a lot more than I lost in the mine. Now this Lane proposition is a little bit of a thing; it's picayune; I should live right along if I didn't get it. But because I want it, because I've made up my mind to have it, I'm going to have it, one way or another. See?” I shrugged my shoulders. “This seems to me like wasting time, Mr. Colton,” I said.