“Well, you needn’t wonder,” said Moreland Senior. “Your Dad’s had some experience with women, let me tell you. He knows. And whenever a real he-man meets a woman who’s stressing this chariot idea to an uncomfortable degree, it’s time for him to take the reins and do the driving for a while himself.” “But I don’t fancy driving Mahala would be such an easy job, even for a strong man,” said Junior, once more on his feet and pacing back and forth across the room. “I’ve spent the greater part of the day, ever since we were six years old, nine months out of the year, in the company of that young lady, and you don’t know her very well, Father, or you wouldn’t use the term ‘drive’ in connection with her.” “Don’t I?” sneered Martin Moreland. “Don’t I, Son? Well, let me tell you something. For the past ten years I’ve been loaning Mahlon Spellman every dollar I could get him to take, at the highest rate of interest the law would allow me to extract. I’ve got him tied up financially until he can’t move hand or foot. I’ve got notes with his signature that will cover every dollar he’s worth in the world, store and house, and furnishings as well. I’m not right sure but that if I made a clean sweep, I’d stand to lose, I’ve gone so damn far getting the finnicky little pickaninny exactly where I want him. All you’ve got to do is to say the word and Miss Mahala will get down on her knees to you and ask you very humbly to please lift her up and keep her in the position she has always been accustomed to occupying.” During the first part of this speech, Junior stood still in open-mouthed wonder. As his father progressed, he began to pace the floor again. As he finished, he was laughing and rubbing his hands. He cried out: “You are the greatest old Dad any man ever possessed! What’s the use to wait? Put on the clamps to-day! Let Mr. Spellman see right now whether he can influence Mahala to marry me and to do it soon!” “Any time you say,” said Martin Moreland, and the pencil came down with a vindictive tap. “You know,” said Junior, “she’s got this going-to-college bug in her bonnet. There’s no sense to it. She’s got all the education she’s ever going to have any use for. She can get the rest out of books she reads. I’ve come in here this morning to tell you that _I’m_ ready to go to work. So should she. While I’m getting my hand in—and I’ve got a notion of what my job should be and how I could help you to the best advantage—she can go into the kitchen and have Jemima and her mother teach her enough about housekeeping so that she can manage a house as her mother does. I’m dead stuck on the way the Spellmans live. You can’t start the wheels, Dad, too soon to suit me. Let’s try this chariot you’re talking about and see who’s going to be the driver.” “Very well,” said Martin Moreland. “Tell the bookkeeper to step across the street and say to Mahlon Spellman that I want to see him for a few minutes in my office.”